Here’s a question just for fun. In the past 30-40 years, which advance in tooling has made the biggest practical change in small shop furniture making? An individual tool, a type of tool, or a major upgrade in a tool category, hand or power, all qualify.

The answer will depend on the definition of “small shop.” What I have in mind is what I most relate to, which is the one-person shop making high-end furniture and accessories. Such a shop produces one-of-a-kind pieces or very few repeats, and may be an amateur at home, or a professional, whose furniture making is only part of his income.

OK, with that in mind, drum roll . . . my vote is for the Ryobi AP-10 portable thickness planer, which was first made in about 1985 or 1986, as best I recall. This humble machine, which I owned back then, was the first lightweight, portable, low-cost way to easily and quickly thickness large quantities of wood. The Ryobi begot improved competing models, such as the much later DeWalt DW735.

For the small production shop, I am guessing CNC, along with CAD, has made the biggest difference. For shops of any size, the overall improvement and proliferation of carbide-tipped tooling – router and shaper bits, table saw blades, bandsaw blades, jointer/planer cutters, etc. – may be the biggest advance.

To impart the touch of quality that is only possible with hand tools, we must, of course, acknowledge the roles of first, Lie-Nielsen, and then, Lee Valley/Veritas. More than with vintage tools, new Mercedes-quality handplanes became readily available and indeed, the standard, which elevated everyone’s work. As a tool category, this may be the most significant advance. The same evolution occurred in Western hand saws, culminating, in my opinion, in the Bad Axe line.

Other tool categories that came to mind in thinking about this include: greatly improved tool batteries for cordless tools, the wider availability of high quality steel-frame bandsaws sized for the small shop, the wider availability of wide over-under jointer-planers, and the availability of excellent Japanese hand tools. For individual tools, the biscuit joiner, Saw Stop table saws, and Japanese waterstones deserve some notice but I would not consider these pivotal.

Oh, and there is one more “tool” that, come to think of it, probably has made the biggest difference of all: information! Books, magazine, video/Internet, classes, and so forth have tremendously advanced the joy of good woodworking.

It’s all good. We are fortunate.

Hell yeah. I just viewed a video (ironically) in which Mark Spagnuolo, the Wood Whisperer, delivers in his usual engaging manner, an excellent perspective on the role of books in learning woodworking. YouTube, he advises, is best used as a supplement to books. Mark is a prolific video producer, so his admonition to continue to use books as the pillar of learning woodworking carries a lot of weight. I agree wholeheartedly.

Explaining a woodworking concept by talking it through in a class or video is quite different than explaining it in writing. I may perform a process in the shop, maybe for countless times over many years, and later work through it in my mind to prepare to write about it. Then however, writing about it demands particular precision and clarity, even if accompanied by step photos such as for a magazine article. There is no video to help. The reader benefits from what is hopefully a honed and polished written product.

Similarly, reading and video watching are also different. Of course, video has the obvious advantage of seeing a process happen. Reading, however, gives you a chance to pace your mind, and to make sense of the material and absorb it. In particular, the breadth of a book allows you to see relationships among the material that you are unlikely to realize by only viewing videos.

So then, here are my favorite woodworking books. I have mentioned most of these elsewhere in this blog, but I hope this summary is helpful for readers.

1- The Krenov trilogy: A Cabinetmaker’s Notebook, The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking, Impractical Cabinetmaker. JK was a unique inspiring voice for so many woodworkers.

2- Woodwork Joints, Charles Hayward. Ounce for ounce, in paperback, maybe the best woodworking book of all time.

3- Understanding Wood, Bruce Hoadley. How can you even get near a piece of wood without this knowledge?

4- Understanding Wood Finishing, Bob Flexner. I still say that Flexner is the best explainer in all of woodworking.

5- The Perfect Edge, Ron Hock. There is good competition but I think this is the best book on sharpening.

6- Illustrated Cabinetmaking, Bill Hylton. When you have an idea for a project but you’re wondering, “How do I build that?” consult this encyclopedic review of construction options.

7- Wood, Eric Meier. As good a reason as you’ll find for printed books to continue to exist! Informative and joyful.

The following are out of print, as far as I know, but you can probably find used copies available:

8- Working in Wood, Ernest Scott. It has its imperfections, but this was an enormous help to me more than 35 years ago, along with Hayward’s book. I still find them helpful.

9- Designing Furniture, Seth Stem. Despite using mostly ugly examples, this book teaches design very systematically and well.

10- Making Joints, Ian Kirby. A marvelously clear thinker and explainer. Kirby is an underappreciated author in the woodworking world, in my opinion.

11- In a category of its own, not only because it is available free online, is The US Forest Products Laboratory’s Wood Handbook. Visit the US Forest Products Laboratory site and enter “wood handbook” in the search box.

Also, let’s not forget the magazines. They remain excellent sources of high-quality information.

Oh, and blogs too.

Uh oh, I was just thinkin’ again.

Yes, yes already, I understand the merits of hand tool woodworking (read here). Yet, we must acknowledge that pure hand tool woodworking is almost non-existent. Rather, we just have different points at which we decide that the work is best done, for whatever reasons, by putting aside machines and taking over with hand tools. For some, that point is after the wood leaves the sawmill; for others it is when the final chamfers are added. Really, there is a spectrum of approaches to woodworking that gives all woodworkers a great deal in common: we build stuff.

Router spindle locks are a ridiculous idea. Two opposing wrenches produce more torque with more comfort and safety. Some routers with spindle locks also have flats on the spindle on which you can use a second wrench in conjunction with the one for the collet nut. Manufacturers, including the one that makes yellow tools, please, stop the madness.

I’m pretty sure that you have a project in mind that is coming from your soul. It will challenge you, and give you great joy. Please, please, build that as soon as you can. And stop making another box for your chisels, or whatever.

If someone was to ask me for suggestions for getting a set of sharpening equipment from scratch, I now think I would be remiss by not recommending diamond stones for the bulk of the work. Add a CBN grinding wheel to speed the grunt work, finish off with a very fine ceramic finish stone, and you are very good to go.

Anyone of any demographic group, including women, is welcome by me, and, I believe, by the overwhelming majority of woodworkers, to come aboard and work wood. Those currently in the minority should not be discouraged by the very few fools who will only accept the historically typical demographics of woodworkers, nor by the reactions of others that are not ill-intended but come simply from not having updated one’s habits. Moreover, those currently in the minority do not need special enclaves for those in their category. Neither is coddling needed; just welcoming. Just work wood! You and the world await what you build. Now go ahead, tell me that it’s not that simple. OK, perhaps not, but I do think it does ultimately come down to just that.

Having had the Domino joiner for nine years now, my trust in the system has gone down, not up. Sorry Festool enthusiasts, the same goes for Festool in general.

Until you understand the following rule, to which I can think of no exception, you will not fully comprehend shop safety with power or hand tools. A tool edge, given the opportunity, will always move the work piece (or part of it) instead of cutting it. As examples, that is the essence of kickback on a table saw, and a drill bit or router bit grabbing the workpiece. The edge needs to be sharp, yes, but its mechanical options must be limited by the tool design, your setups, and your actions.

Believe it or not, if you need some decent red oak, maple, poplar, and even walnut, and are buying a small enough quantity so that a higher unit price doesn’t hurt too much, the Home Depot is a pretty good, convenient option. And they have no idea that the random curly board that you might find is a great buy.

Creative work is ultimately an exercise of free will to make something – a unique information set – that transcends oneself. Where does that free will come from, if not a gift from God?