Shop Notes & Rambles
Welcome to the quieter corner of the shop — the place where sawdust settles, thoughts wander, and stories take shape. These rambles capture the rhythm of the work, the lessons learned, and the craft that holds it all together.
Shop Ramble Mailing List
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Shop Ramble Mailing List 〰️
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Cherry
Cherry carries its history in every board — good years, bad years, sun, rain, stress, and survival — all revealed the moment the blade touches it.
Early Balloon Frame Housing in Manitoba
Manitoba’s first balloon‑frame houses — rough frontier builds that reveal how modern framing began here.
Grandpa’s Toolbox
Grandpa’s old toolbox was the first place I learned what tools could teach.
🍁 Hard Maple
A quiet look at hard maple—the sugar maple—its northern roots, its tight grain, and the memories it carries from shop to forest.
Oak vs Oak
White oak built the early 1900s. Red oak built the 70s–90s. This story explains how two oaks shaped Prairie homes, why their reputations split, and how an era—not the wood—created “grandma’s kitchen.”
Red oak
Red oak is open‑pored, fast‑growing, and honest. This story explores how its earlywood–latewood contrast shapes its behaviour in the shop — from tear‑out to finishing — and why it remains the wood so many of us learned on.
White oak
White oak is the hardwood that defined durability — from its tyloses and tannins to the generations who trusted it. This story blends memory and science to explain why white oak still carries a reputation built over a century.
Bur Oak: Giants and Legends
There are trees that grow fast, live fast, and vanish without leaving much behind.
And then there are the giants — the ones that shape a land, raise generations, and carry centuries in their bark.
This is the story of the bur oak, and the story of the people who grew up under them.
Fast Hardwood — Reader Question
A reader had a question about Hardwood vs Softwood. Here’s the answer.
Hardwood vs Softwood
The real answer isn’t about needles or leaves, cones or flowers. The real answer is a story — one that starts long before humans, long before forests, long before soil. A story about how trees built the world we live in.
Rarity of Wood
We saw billions of trees on the road to Cape Breton, yet the lumber pile tells a different truth. This is a reflection on old growth, young forests, and the quiet rarity of the wood our ancestors once took for granted.
Understanding Wood
Every board has a past. This is the story of how wood grows, changes, and carries its history into the shop — and why understanding that history matters.
Old Machines, New Machines, and the Quiet Math of a Working Life
A winter drive, a mobile lathe kit, and a look back at the machines that shaped my shop — the wins, the regrets, and the quiet math behind every tool I’ve ever bought.
Mini Kitchen
The stove came back to life in a blue flame, and with it came memories, stories, and the quiet reminder that I needed something to keep my hands busy.
Old Cedar
What began as a stack of rotted deck boards turned into a lesson in craft, patience, and teaching my son his first set of chairs.
The World Runs on Pencils
A shop can have fifty people and five hundred pencils, but somehow the one thing nobody can ever find is a decent sharpener. Funny how the smallest tool can bring the whole place to a stop.
How to Arrive at Perfect
Wood has a way of humbling you. One clean pass, one crisp cut, and then — tear‑out. A small reminder that perfection in a woodshop isn’t what the world thinks it is.
The Power of Lazy
A memory from 1988: dusty prairie roads, long hair, and a teacher who taught me the real meaning of “lazy” — a lesson that stuck for decades.
Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking
Where heritage, chaos, and craftsmanship collide.
Knotty dave
Craft, heritage, and a life built one honest cut at a time.