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.
🍁 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.
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.
Shop Life
A normal morning in the shop can turn on you fast. One missing tool, one bad cut, one inch‑short mistake, and suddenly the whole day shifts. That’s shop life—ordinary right up until it isn’t.
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.
New Beginnings at Knotty Dave’s
A look at what’s changing behind the scenes at Knotty Dave’s, and why this year marks a true new beginning.
🔥 THE HEARTH ROOM
“It’s where you gather, where you laugh, where you thaw out after the day has taken more than it gave.”
🧱 THE CRAWL SPACE THAT’S GOING TO BREAK ME
“If you’re into dead wasps and mouse turds, I’ve got something you’ll want to see.”
HERITAGE RESTORATION
A hundred years, two wars, and a gravel road later, this house still refuses to quit.
THE SHIFT — LIFE DOESN’T WAIT
Cancer may have gravity, but it doesn’t get my story.
PHOTOGRAPHY
When I have a camera in hand, anything is possible.