The Commission You Should Turn Down
I remember sitting in my studio three years ago, staring at a beautifully drafted specification for a custom walnut sideboard. The client was polite, the budget was generous, and the…
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Laying Out Grain Across a Door
I was staring at a slab of walnut last Tuesday, surrounded by the usual graveyard of rejected prototypes, when I realized I’d almost ruined the whole thing. I had been…
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The Order of Faces When Squaring
I was staring at a slab of walnut that should have been a dining table, but instead, it was just a collection of expensive, twisted geometry. I had spent three…
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Three Weeks Between Cutting and Working
I can still smell the bitter, metallic tang of that failed walnut sideboard from 2004. I had been so hungry to see the finished joinery that I ignored the humidity…
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Getting Four Boards the Same Thickness
I was standing over a slab of walnut last Tuesday, staring at a set of calipers that felt like they were lying to me. I had spent forty minutes trying…
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Choosing Boards for a Specific Piece
I spent three weeks last autumn staring at a slab of black walnut, convinced that its grain pattern was the soul of the chair I was building. I had the…
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Letting a Material Be What It Is
I was digging through a box of rejected walnut joinery prototypes in my studio last Tuesday—one of those piles I can’t quite bring myself to throw away—when I realized how…
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Cutting Oversize and Waiting
I can still smell the damp, metallic tang of the sawdust from that first studio in the nineties, a scent that always signaled the start of a long, grueling afternoon.…
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Winding Sticks and a Flat Face
I was staring at a slab of cherry last Tuesday, my shoulders aching and my patience thinner than a shaving, wondering why I didn’t just reach for the thickness planer.…
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Furniture That Does Not Fill a Room
I have a shelf in my studio dedicated entirely to the “failures”—the chair legs that were too thick, the joints that bit too deep, and the prototypes that simply didn’t…
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