Good, Perfect or Perfectly Good?

One of the best and worst pieces of advice in woodworking goes something like this: Do the very best job that you possibly can. On the one hand, you get just one shot to build your project. And [...]

Shooting the Cover of the Workbench Book

I’ve been involved in hundreds of professional photography shoots in my journalism career, and each one is ridiculous in its own way. Yesterday we shot the image for my forthcoming book, [...]

A Gallery of Unusual Workbenches

One of the side benefits of writing a book on workbenches is that I got to see hundreds of variations on the traditional designs, both in person and in old books. I also dug up some dead-end [...]

Cross About Cross-grain Construction

Today is “Blasphemy Friday.” I’m preparing the panels to start assembling this Gustav Stickley No. 802 sideboard and wondering if my project is going to self-destruct after a [...]

Planing the Perfect Board

Mr. Peel was shaped exactly like one of the Fisher-Price Little People, he jangled his keys in his pockets nonstop and he had a reputation as a tyrannical shop teacher at Chaffin Junior High [...]