The manufacturers still tout hard cases as an asset for portable power tools, and for many I suppose they are. If you don’t use a particular tool often, they’re excellent at their intended job of storage. And if you regularly lug your tools to a jobsite, then these plastic boxes are invaluable – it makes them way easier to carry, easier to stack in your car or truck, and protects them from the inevitable tumbles inherent with truly portable work. And on top of everything else, they just look so darn cool.

But if you use your tools nearly every day in the same shop space, chances are good that all those cases are, and remain, empty. And if you’re like me, all those bulky empty cases are no longer a protective storage solution, but a storage nightmare.

I’d need to sit down with a rule and calculator to figure out just how much space those 12 cases were taking up, but it’s easily several cubic feet that could be put to better shop use. And unfortunately, you can’t really use them for anything else – they’re all molded on the inside for specific tools, so you can’t just use them as storage boxes for all your other stuff. So while you’re looking for a place for your stuff, all these empty boxes are just taking up space and becoming attractive homes for unwanted multi-legged shop denizens. Might as well put little signs in spiderese saying, “Free Apartment.”

I do have other hard cases I’m keeping that function as intended for tools I don’t use often, like my belt sander and power planer, plus a couple others contain accessories and attachments for tools I keep elsewhere. But these 12 totally empty boxes are taking a one-way trip in the big green truck that pulls up to my house every Tuesday.

And I’ll bet you $10 that the trash guy grabs a few for himself, because hey, they’re cool. But unless he owns one of the specific tools that fits the molded interiors, I’ll also bet he’ll end up storing a bunch of empty boxes.

A.J.

I told you last month about my daughter “discovering” woodworking at age 29, with no previous experience or desire to pursue it. Her deck seating project made with borrowed tools not only turned out fantastic for a first-timer’s efforts, it ignited a sudden passion for the craft that none of us – herself included – knew she had.

Since she completed that project, all she’s talked about is other projects she’d like to do. In an odd coincidence the phrase, “If only I had my own tools,” or words similar, has been repeated a lot in advance of her birthday two days ago. Hint, hint, hint.

Well, we took the hint. For her birthday I gifted her with a circular saw, drill/driver and a complete set of drill and driver bits. Her husband, after comparing notes with me, got her a top-notch jigsaw and random orbit sander. To say the least, she was thrilled.

Me, I have mixed emotions. I couldn’t be happier that she’s been overtaken with a passion for something that’s so important to me. For my daughter to embrace woodworking the way she has – and to display an obvious knack for it in her first attempt – instills a huge sense of pride in me for my little kid.

But I’ve just given her a lot of really dangerous stuff, and although she’s fully aware that she needs to go slow as she learns to be comfortable with all those tools I still can’t help but be a little worried. The feeling’s not unlike when she got her driver’s license. I expected that one, of course, as it’s something every parent faces when a child turns 16. This, though, came out of the blue and I have to admit I wasn’t really prepared for it.

I’m curious about those of you whose kids have followed in your woodworking footsteps – what was it like for you?

A.J.

Remember when I did my shop rebuild a couple years ago, and created a pair of built-in cabinets along one wall of the shop? I did one with doors below for random storage, while the other has a series of drawers. At the time, I made a “bad” drawer that was 22″ wide, but what I needed was a series of 21″ drawers.

Now, I honestly don’t remember if that first drawer was a simple measurement goof, or if it was indeed correct but after making it I changed the parameters of the cabinet. Either way, I put the bad one aside and made new ones of the correct width. Once the cabinets were done, I tossed random odds and ends into that bad drawer box, and slid it onto a shelf in the cabinet with doors.

Flash forward to a more recent clamp rack project, which displaced my router-bit cabinet. I still hadn’t gotten around to finding a more permanent home for them. (They’ve been in a tray I’ve been moving all over the shop.) While rummaging in my cabinets last weekend, I noticed that bad drawer I’d kept, but now used only as a junk collector inside the cabinet. I looked at the drawer, and then I looked at my outfeed/assembly table.

No way. Couldn’t be.

I grabbed a tape measure and verified the drawer width at 22″, then measured the opening just under the worktop at one end of the outfeed/assembly table – the end right next to my saw’s router table extension – and was stunned to find that it was exactly 23″. My favorite style of drawer slides, those inexpensive epoxy-coated bottom/side mount kind, require 1/2″ clearance on each side. That hoarded “bad” drawer was a perfect fit.

It took just over an hour, including a trip to get a couple slides, to retrofit that end of the table to accept the drawer. My router bits have a new home just inches from the router table now. When I have time, I think I’ll enclose that end of the table, and maybe add another drawer or two under the router-bit drawer.

Lesson learned: Hoarding isn’t necessarily a bad habit.

A.J.

I couldn’t figure out why my band saw was losing power. It cut fine in light wood of small dimensions, but bogged down seriously in thicker hardwood, the blade almost slowing to a stop at times. I checked everything – blade sharpness, tension, guide wheels and posts, etc. – and nothing remedied the issue. After exhausting everything I figured the motor was going bad.

Well, that happens. I’ve never had a motor go bad in decades of woodworking, so maybe I was due. However, it still cut when needed if I didn’t mind going slow, and since the extra cash wasn’t readily available for a new motor I just decided to live with it till it was.

Then the other day as I’m preparing to do some resawing, it occurred to me that maybe if I changed the saw to the slower speed (if it wasn’t on the slower setting already), the drive belt being on the smaller pulley might give it more torque, and thus a bit more power. So I open it up to change the speed and discovered that the drive belt was flopping around in the breeze, barely making contact with the motor-shaft pulley. There was literally no tension on the drive belt; how it had been driving the blade at all is a mystery.

The thing of it is, is that I had checked everything I could possibly think of to check, so how I missed the simplest one is just as big a mystery. I can only imagine that as I went through all the potential causes that I just assumed I had already checked that one first and went on to the next. Had I written them down as I checked it might have been obvious which one I missed, but I didn’t.

The fix took all of two seconds, of course: I tilted the motor as needed to put some tension on the belt, locked it down, and the saw was zipping along at full power again. The solution could not have been simpler. Too bad the investigative procedure I employed wasn’t.

A.J.

I’ve just wrapped up the last project chapter for a book of 19th-century reproduction items, and because of book scheduling and a variety of other factors, the 15 projects it contains were spread out over a long period of time. During that time I wrote two other books (containing a total of nearly 50 projects), several dozen magazine articles and a couple hundred blogs. This amount of time allows me, when looking through the folder for the book on my Mac, to make comparisons from beginning to end. I’m guessing you do something similar – there’s really not much difference in completing a series of projects for a book or a series of custom items for any other customer.

For one thing, I’ve learned not only a lot about woodworking photography over the course of the book, but Photoshop as well. It’s clear that I’ve gotten much, much better at doing mortise-and-tenon joints and box joints. Because the book was an ongoing project that had to take place while also doing other work, of necessity I improved my shop workflow tremendously. I’ve reorganized machinery, table workspace and storage all for the better. Seven of the projects involved the lathe, and although woodturning was one of the first things that attracted me to woodworking all the way back in high school, I’ve found a new appreciation for it and learned some techniques specifically because projects in the book required them – techniques I’m now enjoying so much that I’ve since done projects for myself just to use them.

And last, going over the entire book’s projects in preparation for delivering everything to my publisher gives me a chance to re-live the projects themselves, some of which I enjoyed tremendously. If I ever have more time to do more projects just for myself, I’d like to do a couple of those again.

No time, though. I’m already at work on the next book. And, as always, I’m way behind.

A.J.

• I measured twice, but wrote the measurement down wrong just before cutting the proverbial once.

• The one, single, solitary unfound nail in a piece of reclaimed lumber ended up being exactly in the kerf of the first cut you make.

• I needed just one more clamp of the right size for a tricky glueup.

• The very last complicated step of a very complex project was the one that causes a split.

• Broke off a brass screw.

• Got a smear of blood from a minor cut (I didn’t even know I had) on figured maple.

• Finally tossed out a 10-year-old piece of scrap, and then needed it the next day.

• Looked at a tool and realized I couldn’t remember who I borrowed it from.

• Looked for a tool and realized I couldn’t remember who I loaned it to.

• Gluing, mounting, screwing or nailing a component backward. Especially gluing. Especially when you don’t notice till the next day. Especially when you have no more of that stock to make a replacement component.

• Sanded through veneer.

• Dropped a chisel/knife/plane iron immediately after sharpening it.

• Cut on the wrong side of the cut line.

• Dropping the arbor nut down into the table saw.

• Dropping the arbor nut down into the table saw because you had to remove a blade that you just put in backward.

Now, if only I could find out who or where to turn to collect all my dimes. When I do, beer’s on me.

A.J.

I have at least six cordless drills, of which I typically use only one. I have three impact drivers, of which I use only one. I have three cordless drivers, of which I use only one.  Elsewhere in my tool arsenal I have four routers, three circular saws (four if you count the track saw), two drill presses, three random orbit sanders, three jigsaws and maybe 57 hammers.

Noticing a pattern here? No, I’m not a hoarder, but when I acquire new tools I’m loath to give up the old ones. I mean, you just never know when you might need one, right? It’s certainly possible a project could arise that absolutely requires a circular saw in each hand.

If my shop where huge with unlimited storage space, or maybe had wall after wall of museum-like shelves where I could proudly display my collection this wouldn’t be a problem. But it’s a converted two-car garage shop. I frequently have to store materials that I fully intend to use under our bed or in my office, so I really don’t have the space to store old tools I’ll realistically never touch again.

My daughter’s sudden burgeoning interest in carpentry comes at a good time, but that creates a home for only one of each of my extra tools. After several years of thinking about it, the solution has been obvious for some time, but I’ve been in denial. Till now.

My new neighbor told me the other day he’s having a big garage sale to dispose of numerous items he no longer needs. He and his fiancé are combining two homes into one, and he noted that if I had anything I wanted to get rid of I could join his sale. The timing’s right, and I can’t really can’t continue deluding myself into thinking that keeping all these retired tools makes any sense. So two weeks from now it looks like I’ll have a lot more storage room.

Of course, maybe I’ll keep just one extra of each old tool.

Because, you never know.

A.J.

With absolutely zero experience at carpentry or woodworking (save watching me while growing up), my daughter just built what she calls her “deck oasis.” The centerpiece is a sectional sofa and low table she built from pallet lumber and old rough floorboards stored in her barn. Part way through her project, Courtney sent this email:

Hey Daddy – I learned a very valuable lesson about building furniture today. Always scout for materials before starting! Before I started I found cushions online at Walmart, the cheapest I could find at 35 bucks each. So I built the sofa with those cushion dimensions in mind. I went to Walmart to get them, and they’re beautiful, but not nearly as nice as the ones right next to them that weren’t online. And instead of $35 each, they’re $20 each! Bingo-bango, right? Not quite; they’re 21″ x 21″ instead of the 24″ x 24″ I built for. I got the ones I liked better and saved all that money, but they’re too short for the seats (front to back) and look silly. I decided to add a 3″ piece of wood at the back to push the cushions forward. I mull this over while having a coffee break and decide I just can’t do it halfway like that, I have to do it right. So now I have to take nearly half the thing apart and shorten it by 3″! Doh! Off to work…. Next time I’ll buy the cushions first!  P.S. – Maybe you can get a blog out of my screw-up!

As you can see, the final result turned out awesome, with the pallet lumber and the rough, as-is edges of the old floorboards achieving the exact rustic look she was going for. And she’s right, those cushions are perfect.

She learned a lot here. In additional to mastering a few tools she’d never even touched before (like a circular saw and heavy-duty drill), she learned to get your materials first. She learned that seeing a material in-hand is far different from seeing it online. She learned a way of working around a problem. And somewhere in all this is the old measure-twice thing.

But the most important lesson Courtney learned here, the one that makes me the proudest of my kid, was this one: You can’t do it halfway. You have to do it right, even if it means more work.

Back in those days when she used to watch me work, she must have been paying more attention than I thought.

A.J.

Sometimes the potential bad result means remaking a component, like wondering if a screw is too long and realizing that if it is, the potential outcome is literal: the screw may come out the other side. Thinking, nah, it’ll be fine, you do it anyway and prove yourself right when the screw comes out the other side.

Other times the potential bad result means looking for a Band-Aid. Yesterday I was placing a recalcitrant screw at an odd angle in a difficult-to-access spot. Even a regular-sized screwdriver wouldn’t fit in the tight quarters, much less my smallest drill/driver, so I was using one of my shorty screwdrivers in an odd position requiring dexterous handwork gymnastics I’m far too clumsy to attempt.

I thought to myself, “Self, if that screwdriver slips, you’re gonna poke your other hand like a knucklehead and scream like a little girl.” I did it anyway. I screamed like a little girl.

The damage wasn’t bad – certainly not worthy of little-girl screams – but knowing that I realized even before I did it what the probable outcome would be was more painful. A minor bloody screwdriver poke was nothing compared to my injured ego.

Unfortunately, they don’t make a Band-Aid for that.

A.J.

There’s no question that buying patterns have changed. Big Box stores are king now because their prices are hard to beat, and their inventory exceeds most local stores, depending on what you’re looking for. I suspect that David was talking about woodshops – if you want cabinets, you’ll always get better items that are more cost effective (and custom!) than off-the-shelf stuff at the Big Box.

That’s fine for cabinets, because even where I live in Middleofnowhere, W.Va., there are several fine cabinet and millwork shops. But what if I need quality art supplies, or a full-fledged camera shop, or a top-notch hand plane? I won’t find any of those things locally, and all three are categories of things I need to buy with some regularity. For those art supplies, I’ll go to a Big Box craft store chain. For a quality camera, I have little choice but to go to Amazon for one. For a quality hand plane, I buy it either directly from the source or a major online woodworking supplier. The bottom line is that I’m not “buying local” for any of those things, so does that make me a bad person?

There’s also the aspect of cost. I have a very good camera; I need it for woodworking photography. The camera I have, at the time I bought on Amazon, would have cost $231 more at a regular retail camera store, if we had one. But the truth is that even if we did, I couldn’t possibly have been able to buy it. Either way, I wouldn’t have gotten it there, because my family’s personal economy would have suffered.

I wish I had bags of money so I wouldn’t have to worry about how much things cost and where I can afford to purchase. But the fact is that I don’t, and I have to get what I need where I can.

A.J.