I’m sure you know the feeling; you’ve finished a project, and some little part didn’t come out quite right. Or maybe you missed the opportunity to add additional functionality, and wish you could add it on. Well, that’s how we’ve felt about our website lately. The redesign we finished last winter was a good start,…

As the leaves turn and the nights get cooler, I know woodworking season is approaching. Yes, I do spend as much time in the shop as I can, but the warmer summer months mean mowing, trips to the cabin and preparing my house for the onslaught of Minnesota winter. But once those leaves are raked,…

I recently was struck by a thought while spending some time in Andrew’s workshop: this is genuinely fun. It wasn’t until I was driving home a few hours later that the significance of that thought really hit me in full force. Since becoming a homeowner, my tool purchases have revolved around the home renovation medium,…

Years ago when I was editor at Popular Woodworking, I was interviewed for a job at one of our competitors. During the interview, I experienced one of those fork-in-the-road moments where a single decision will change everything you do for the rest of your life. To set the stage a bit, this happened about 2008….

It’s the easiest question in the world: Who is your favorite woodworker? A fellow craftsman asked me this question earlier this month, and I still don’t have a good answer. I have one easy answer: Dead woodworkers. Charles H. Hayward is my No. 1 hero. He was everything I have ever wanted to be: A…

Even if you have a gold-plated fancy-pants laser-guided dovetail saw, you should also own the $15 Zona dovetail saw because it’s so dang cheap and so dang handy for small-scale work. I’ve written a lot about this saw (check this entry for the background and copious links). Bottom line: It’s served me well for years…

Part Three: Design Though digital woodworking tools may be different and the scales are finer, the importance of precision is the same for every woodworker. If you’re working to a precision standard and your processes reinforce it, then the only differences between digital and machine tool woodworking are the numbers. Essentially, digital woodworking is to…

  Part Two: Commitment To be successful as a woodworker, either hobbyist or professional, precision needs to be a standard you set that you’re willing to live by. Professionals have obvious reasons to do this as their success is at least partially measured by efficiency with time and materials. If you mess up, mistakes are…

Part One: Precision There are two sides to this story. The first is obvious. The other not so much. First, digital woodworking is all about numbers. Very small numbers. That makes it simple, direct and precise. Your drawings, your setups, the instructions you give to digital tools and the machining itself, have to be accurate….