about thirty years ago, i saw a trick for the first time to make flattening the back of a plane iron far easier if it was badly out of flat — take a thin coin and put it under the iron, tilting the back just a little off the surface… Read More »underwear for your tools?

the cookies are pretty sweet, though. literally. you know, sugar. anyway, guides have a bad reputation and aesthetic reception in western woodworking. people have spent hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years talking about how it’s cheating to use a guide. and that is pure bullshit so i figure it’s probably time… Read More »guides aren’t just for cookies

the most important skill you will ever learn as a human is pattern-recognition. it’s what you’ll spend your entire life doing whether it’s speaking and hearing language or doing academic tasks or sorting objects in your kitchen. everything we do as humans is based on the application of pattern-recognition. it’s… Read More »in search of patterns

but you might want one. what’s the difference between a western and japanese chisel? my facetious answer is usually that a japanese chisel cuts on the pull-stroke but, of course, you’d be an idiot if you took that seriously. a japanese chisel is the same as a western chisel in… Read More »you don’t need a japanese chisel

french pronunciation is a mystery to those outside the language. it looks a little like english, a lot like spanish, more like italian and sounds like — well, it sounds like nothing else. french might be the most distinct of linguistic sound groups of the modern languages. you can identify… Read More »say it in french

i have had many questions from students and friends about grad school. there’s a massive amount of writing about student experiences in doctoral programs (almost all horrendous and that’s definitely what i could add to the mix, though i’m not sure there’s much point as i think it’s mostly already… Read More »in search of mastery