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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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 prairie people who grew up under them.
Fast Hardwood — Reader Question
Hardwoods don’t all grow slowly. This follow‑up explains the fast pioneer hardwoods — poplar, willow, and soft maples — and how forest succession shapes the difference between hardwood and softwood growth.
Hardwood vs Softwood
Hardwood vs softwood isn’t just a difference in leaves or needles — it’s the story of how trees survived fire, drought, extinction, and time itself. This piece traces the rise of the two great families of wood, from ancient barren landscapes to the forests we work with today, revealing how evolution shaped every board in the shop and every species in the Wood Archive.
Rarity of Wood
Old‑growth wood is disappearing — not because we’re running out of trees, but because time itself has become rare. This story explores how younger forests, industry changes, disease, fire, and salvage have reshaped the wood we build with, and why the tight‑grained, high‑quality lumber our grandparents knew is now hard to find. From pioneer beams to salvaged elm and century‑old cedar, this is a look at what true wood once was — and why its rarity matters.
Understanding Wood
Wood behaves the way it does because every board carries the memory of the tree it came from. Leaning trunks, shifting riverbanks, floodwater, wind pressure, scars, tension wood, compression wood — all of it becomes grain, movement, and character in the shop. This piece explains how trees grow, adapt, and survive, and why those hidden forces show up decades later when a woodworker planes a board and the wood reacts. Understanding wood begins with understanding the life it lived.
Recovery Ramble
Recovery slows life down, but it sharpens perspective. This Shop Ramble reflects on rebuilding after surgery, the future of a growing woodworking website, and the beginnings of a gallery that evolves alongside a cancer survivor’s craft — one room, one story, one tool at a time.
Old Machines, New Machines, and the Quiet Math of a Working Life
Every machine in a working shop carries its own math — the cost, the risk, the payoff, and the lessons learned. This Ramble looks at the old cast‑iron tools I rebuilt, the new machines that expanded what’s possible, and the decisions that shaped the way I work. From a tuned General 490 to a SuperMax drum sander to the Laguna Revo 24|36 that opened the door to bigger, more creative projects, it’s a story about choosing the right tools, understanding their limits, and letting them push the craft forward.
Shop Life
Shop life is a mix of smooth mornings and sudden chaos — lost tools, kickbacks, forgotten plans, and the small moments that shift a day from normal to “oh, fuck.” This Ramble looks at the humour, frustration, and timing that shape a working day, and the quiet skill of knowing when the day is done.
Mini Kitchen
A forgotten Coleman stove, a tailgate kitchen build, and a season of hard news shaped this Ramble. It’s a story about repair, distraction, memory, and the quiet work of staying steady when life shifts — how a small project became a lifeline, and how building kept me moving when the world felt still.
Old Cedar
The cedar we tore off the old decks looked finished — soft, rotten, and ready for the dump. But once the boards dried and the first passes through the planer cut through the weathered surface, the wood showed tight grain, rich colour, and old‑growth strength. This Ramble follows the reclaimed cedar from demolition pile to Muskoka chairs, tracing the milling, the grain, the lessons with Leo, and how fifty‑year‑old lumber found a second life.
The World Runs on Pencils
Pencils disappear in every shop — buried in dust, stuck behind ears, dropped in tool piles, or sharpened down to nothing. Yet nothing starts without one. This Ramble follows the hunt for the perfect point, the belt‑sander sharpening ritual, the borrowed pencils that never return, and why the smallest tool in the shop quietly holds everything together.
How to Arrive at Perfect
Perfection in woodworking isn’t what you think — tear‑out, stubborn grain, and the mindset shift that turns imperfection into the soul of the craft.
The Power of Lazy
“In 1988, my autobody teacher taught me the smartest lesson I ever learned: lazy workers do the job right the first time. Four semesters restoring a Canadian‑built Pontiac Parisienne proved him right — every bolt, every panel, every mistake avoided. That mindset followed me into woodworking, into life, and into every project since.”
Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking
“A woodworking story about design, intention, and the long arc of craft — paired with a gallery that shows the real work behind every table. Rough turning, solid‑wood glue‑ups, bent laminations, veneer layouts, and the finished pieces they become. From sawdust to polish, this page brings together the process, the discipline, and the tables that define Knotty Dave’s Fine Woodworking.”
Knotty dave
I come from a line of makers — a cabinetmaker who survived his own storms, and a watchmaker who carved out a life with grit and charm. My father showed me what independence really looks like. Knotty Dave wasn’t born in a boardroom; it came from real work, real people, and a football field where a parent named me before I named myself. This is the story of the craft I inherited, the brand I built, and the world I’m shaping one honest cut at a time.
New Beginnings at Knotty Dave’s
At the end of 2025, the old way of working finally gave way to a new direction — a shift in the shop, the business model, and the future of Knotty Dave’s. This Ramble steps back into the moment everything quietly changed and the next chapter began.
🔥 THE HEARTH ROOM
Manitoba winter has a way of taking more than it gives — the kind of cold that settles into your bones and follows you home. This Ramble looks at the hearth room as an idea born from days like that: a warm refuge imagined against the wind, the snow, and the long fight ahead. A place to keep the cold outside.
🧱 THE CRAWL SPACE THAT’S GOING TO BREAK ME
A century‑old crawl space can humble anyone — and this one might break me before I fix it. A raw look at the ugly, necessary work beneath a prairie home on the edge of becoming something better.
HERITAGE RESTORATION
A prairie house with a past — likely built in the 1880s and moved across Manitoba — still stands with the stubborn bones time couldn’t break. A story about restoring what history left behind.
THE SHIFT — LIFE DOESN’T WAIT
A cancer diagnosis changes everything — including how you see time, work, and the craft that keeps you standing. This is a story about urgency, resilience, and building what matters now.