In a strange way, fucking up is good practice. As an kid, I tried to build things—doing stuff like nailing into end grain and using short L brackets where I really needed a big shelf support. I learned through experience that kind of stuff doesn’t work. But I still see plans on websites (websites that look very…

There are a lot of bad plans out there, including from at least one of those linked sites. Part of the problem with the Internet is that any pinhead can publish a set of plans whether they know anything about woodworking or not, and their ability to self-promote and design a website may have a lot to do with how…

The same people who save money using MDF are likely to be the same people that save time by not cutting dovetails. Besides, dovetails are great when you need a strong joint where wood movement is an issue—dovetails maximize strength based on the physics of the wood grain. MDF is stable and has no grain, so there is no…

Three of the sites in my cooking RSS feed are on your list—Serious Eats, Food52 and Saveur. I haven’t found those to pander to lowest common denominator tastes and have had very good success with most of the recipes I’ve tried from those sites. I’m also partial to the Homesick Texan, which serves up some spicy fare…

I designed the cabinets in, of all things, powerpoint (don’t worry, I’ve since learned Sketchup). But all I was really doing is using it as a notepad as I adjusted dimensions, and I have to say it wasn’t bad for that. At the time, I had done a lot of european style frameless cabinets (used to be some great tutorials…

When I built my shop cabinets, I went with a lot of very narrow drawers for precisely this reason. I highly recommend: (i) the exercise of building your own shop cabinets, (ii) building as many 3” drawers as you can; and (iii) using full extension slides.

Hmm... I went the other way. “All that work”... to avoid cooking? For fuck’s sake, there are plenty of easy, but tasty recipes out there.

Besides, if their url is www.youtubered.com, sounds too much like a site that does things to you with a potato.

But: I’ve found that extra five minutes provides time for the moisture in the rest of the mushroom to leech out and you get a leathery, not so tender shroom—the oven dries off the surface and allows you to get a nice brown, but still plump mushroom. And timing isn’t an issue if you just turn on the oven while you wash…

I can’t take the credit. Think I started doing this after Tom Colicchio approvingly commented on Kristin Kish’s technique for doing this in Season 10 of Top Chef.

You want to get rid of surface moisture for better browning. Wash ‘em/don’t wash ‘em, but stick ‘em on a sheet pan and throw them in the oven for a couple minutes to dry off before throwing them in the frying pan...

My experience is that turning seems even more conducive to sucking money out of your wallet than other woodworking pursuits. It also seems to be obsessive—I’ve seen a number of woodworkers who buy a lathe and then, in rapid order, all they do is turn. No more “flatwork.” That said, there are deals out there, because…

My sense is the fatalities are all the direct result of attempting to turn things that are large and fractured—things a newer turner wouldn’t likely be tempted by. There are some really spectacular turnings of bowls and hollow forms with wood that has voids, but a catch with something like that can easily send a 25 lb…

Specifically asked about mentoring. Local chapter is utterly, totally, unresponsive. So, again, YMMV. I’ve got a Jet 1642 EVS Pro, so it wasn’t even like I was trying to cadge time on someone else’s kit. And I’m an experienced woodworker, even though I haven’t spent a lot of time on the lathe since HS 35 years ago, so…

I’m in a fairly major market and went to my local AAW chapter (probably has a membership in the hundreds) looking for some turning mentoring and got absolutely no help. So the AAW benefits are strongly regional. I also learned that if you wonder where all the old white guys are in my area on the third Sunday of the…

“Woodturning is a safe and relatively inexpensive hobby.” I frequent a woodworking forum that has a large wood turning contingent. Odd thing is that the only woodworking fatalities I remember from the site are woodturners (sadly, more than one). And they keep referring to woodturning as a financial “vortex”—I gather…

On a hot day, the sun might do it for them. But, certainly, heating up their allen wrench with a lighter would melt the wax. You might have to do a little more to remove the BB. I’d be inclined to use a security bolt instead.

As a parent, when my child has a fever, I’ve got a pretty good mental handle on how the fever is trending. Maybe I’m extra-responsible, but that has never been an accusation I’ve faced in the past, so I question the need for this type of trending/data acquisition.

As a parent, when my child has a fever, I’ve got a pretty good mental handle on how the fever is trending. Maybe I’m…

Ah yes, and for some of us, woodworking is more about bragging about how true craftsmanship can only be achieved with neanderthal tools in a shop lit by candles.

My issue isn’t with the video. It is with the statement in the article that strongly suggests that this is “high precision” and “provides a consistent depth of cut and better feel than a powered router.” I.e., that this produces a result better than a router.