Woodworking

    Hello fellow wood butchers. I have loved to make things in wood for many years now. But I do NOT make artsy crafty things. The stuff makes my skin crawl. I try to pursue serious woodworking. By that I mean I make furniture not knickknacks. I had hoped to run a business back in 93, but you don’t always get what you want in life. Fybromyalgia kind of halted that prospect.

   I have a nice shop, and a nice stash of tools. Sure hope my son wants to be a woodworker when he grows up. Its the main reason I still invest the effort to buy the tools really. I am investing in him more than my shop. My single minded dedication to buying Finewoodworking magazine and Canadian Homeworkshop magazine, is more to leave him a nice library than to provide for my needs (well I do enjoy reading it eh). All craftsmen are to some extent guilty of daydreaming while reading literature related to their trade.

   I won't go on about specific books I have found over the years. The sad fact is that the books seem to have short shelf lives. If you see a book and like it, grab it. It probably won’t be there the next time you are back. Unless of course we are talking about Taunton Press's fine collection of “Finewoodworking on” series of books. With them you often don’t need much of anything else. Collin’s Woodworkers Manual is also probably the single best book I have ever encountered at any time (lost my copy a while back to some schmuck that borrowed it and I can't recall who now).
   Often I find it is actually better to know the name of an author than a specific title. I have noticed that most good books are actually written by a very small number of respected names. That and a few publishers. Some of the best books have as sources either Taunton, Rodale, or Readers Digest. Although I will warn you right now, I am not the slightest bit impressed with how Rodale ships books by mail. I have also decided that if it is Timelife, it is likely idiot grade literature.
   I am hoping to put more into this page later. Right now though I don’t have anything further to work with. Maybe in time I will have developed a database of product plans from scans.