Handmade projects from a one-car garage
For three years I made do with a hardware-store chisel set that couldn't hold an edge through a single dovetail. After finally caving and buying a proper set, the difference in control and edge retention wasn't subtle — it was the difference between fighting the wood and actually working with it. Here's what I learned about steel types, honing angles, and why the cheap plastic-handled set was costing me more time than it saved.
My first attempt at a river-style epoxy pour, documented in full — including the part where I underestimated how much epoxy I needed and had to do an emergency second batch mid-cure. Covers slab prep, damming the pour, mixing ratios, degassing with a heat gun, and the sanding-and-polishing process that took nearly as long as the pour itself.
Wall space is everything when your shop doubles as a parking spot. This post walks through the French-cleat tool wall, a rolling assembly table that tucks against the wall when not in use, and the mobile base carts that let the table saw and bandsaw get pushed aside in about two minutes flat.
Hand-cut dovetails looked simple in every video I watched. They are not simple. This post is an honest look at the first five failed attempts — blown-out baselines, gaps you could park a car in, and the small technique change on attempt six that finally made things click.
The garage-sale hand plane that started this whole hobby, what it taught me about flattening a sole and setting a proper blade angle, and why I eventually retired it in favor of a properly tuned bench plane.