February 24, 2026
My father was a woodworker. He showed me how to use my hands to…as he put it… “make sawdust.”
That’s him. And that was his woodshop. Not much to speak of. Just his garage. That’s his bench. He built it by hand. He had a few power tools: a small contractor’s table saw, a lathe, and a drill press. That’s the drill press. The yellow tool near the window. But he prided himself on hand tools. Chisels and planes. Old school tools that require touch.
In this picture he’s working on a cradle we made for my daughter Kate. It was February of 1983, a few months before she was born. Dad turned on his lathe the twin upright supports, cross pieces, and over twenty identical spindles.
This is my shop. That’s Dad’s yellow drill press on the right.
And that’s his workbench in the far corner beneath the sailboat.
I built my woodshop from the ground up. It took me over ten years. I dug with a pick and a shovel the foundation for the floor, the porch, and the sidewalk.
With the help of old friends, I framed it.
Put a roof on it.
And made the woodshop my Dad and I dreamed of.
It has two workbenches, one beneath each window. The one dad built and the one I built.
I retired three years ago when I was 66. My plan was to spend time in my shop making sawdust. I used to make things for my children and grandchildren. Big things…
And bigger things.
And small things for my wife.
I was pretty good at it.
And then, about the time I retired, about the time I had planned my whole life to make things with my hands, my hands began to shake.
I worked at a desk my whole life. My dream was that, once I retired, I might have ten good years, maybe more, to spend time in my shop making more sawdust. Play some golf. Do the two things my dad taught me to do with my hands.
Lots of things can go wrong as we grow old. In the grand scheme of things, some trembling fingers are not a big deal.
But they are if you’re a woodworker.
You can’t have shaky hands around a table saw, or a band saw or a planer or a joiner. Not if you want to keep your fingers. You can’t measure or strike a line at a 1/16th” mark if the damn ruler keeps moving. And you can’t work a dovetail with a chisel or taper a tenon to fit a mortise if your fingers won’t hold in place the wood you’re hoping to cut, fit and join.
Some folks stock a bookshelf with leatherbound books. They look very impressive, but if you open one and hear the binding crack, you know the book has never been read and was placed there for show.
The same is true of woodworkers. Some have fancy woodshops. Lots of power tools. A fancy dust collection system. But if you want to know if a shop owner knows his way around wood, look for the sawdust. You’ll know if there is sawdust on the floor.
My shop hasn’t seen sawdust in almost two years.
That wasn’t the plan
Can't Hold Still 