Hello, Woodworking

This section is for what happens after I leave the keyboard. I work mostly in a small one-car garage shop — hand tools, a benchtop bandsaw, and one very tired router. Posts here will document builds, jigs, finish notes, and the inevitable mistakes that taught me more than the successes.

If you're new to woodworking and want a single book recommendation, Christopher Schwarz's The Anarchist's Tool Chest is the one I keep coming back to.

What I actually use

After a few years of buying tools I didn't need, my "core kit" has settled into something pretty short:

• A #5 jack plane that I tuned myself and finally trust.
• Two chisels — bench and paring — kept genuinely sharp.
• A combination square that I treat like a religious artifact.
• A cheap bandsaw with a good blade. The blade matters more than the saw.
• One block plane that lives in my apron pocket.

Notice what's missing: a table saw, a jointer, a planer. They're great tools but they're not the bottleneck for the kind of small furniture I build, and they wouldn't fit anyway.

The three skills that actually move the needle, in order: sharpening, reading the grain, and committing to a single reference face.

A typical project flow

This is the rough order I work in for a small piece — say, a side table or a hanging cabinet. The exact times are from the dovetailed wall cabinet I finished last winter, which is why they're suspiciously specific.

Phase	Time	Notes
Sketch + cut list	1 hr	Pencil, graph paper, no CAD
Stock prep (S4S by hand)	4 hrs	The longest, least glamorous part
Joinery	6 hrs	Dovetails on the carcass, dados for shelves
Dry-fit + adjustments	1 hr	Always longer than I expect
Glue-up	30 min	Pre-staged with everything in arm's reach
Surface prep + finish	3 hrs	Two coats of shellac, one of wax

The interesting line is stock prep. People underestimate how much of hand-tool woodworking is just turning rough lumber into flat, square boards. Skip the gym on stock-prep days.

Sharpening, briefly

I sharpen on diamond plates (325, 1200) and finish on a strop loaded with green compound. Whole process from "this chisel is dull" to "this chisel will shave hair" is about ninety seconds once you've done it a few hundred times.

1. Flatten the back  — once, and only once, per tool.
2. Hollow grind      — only when the bevel is genuinely worn back.
3. Refresh the edge  — diamond, diamond, strop. Test on end-grain pine.

What's coming

The next few posts I have notes for, in no particular order:

1. A shop-built marking gauge that finally cured me of buying gauges.
2. A bandsaw resawing setup for getting bookmatched panels out of 8/4 stock.
3. A long-overdue post on shellac — why I think it's the friendliest finish for a small shop, and the one mistake I keep making with it.

If any of those sound interesting, follow along. Otherwise, enjoy the sawdust.