Tools set out on a workbench in preparation for making a dovetailed box. The design and likely angles for the dovetails are worked out on wood which is to hand.

THESE general Proportions of the principle Parts being first understood, the Proportions of their particular Parts may be easily understood also as following.

Adding a bead to the leading edge of a closet shelf using a Stanley #50 plane. The curved is pleasing to the touch. The groove's shadow defines the edge.

All Beauty that has not a foundation in use soon grows distasteful and needs continual replacement.

Thin strips of poplar left over from building a table are reborn as picture frames, t-shirts the kids have outgrown are converted to shop rags for gluing-up, and old toothbrushes become glue applicators.

Crafts originally sprang from a person's making things for his own use.

Our own maker's mark rests underneath a dovetail on the side of a waterfall desk. The mark will be invisible for the working life of desk but will one day be found when the furniture is moved about.

All art is a form of communication.

Story sticks. These wonderfully tactile devices record the dimensions of a project explicitly and to-scale. Measurements are often done by superimposition, which is to say, just place the part on the story stick and trace around it with a pen. A story stick is a natural place to work out ratios with the help of a straight edge and compass.

With a square, each tick mark became a line on my story stick, transforming it into a map I could explore with dividers.

The underside of this poplar tabletop proudly carries the scrub-plane marks from when it was brought down to thickness. It is held fast to the rails with draw-bored dowels along the centerline of the table. These enable the top to expand and contract; to breath with the seasons.

No one would dignify the nailing together of a couple of members with the term joinery. Nor would a craftsman regard even the joining of members with bolts and screws as well within that department. But the moment you make a mortise or a mitre you are doing the kind of work that the joiner regards as particularly his.