In the past decade, Dan has built about 5,700 tables. At one point, he had four employees, but “I hated it. It just wasn’t fun anymore,” he says. Now, “It’s back to me and my CNC.”

Although he started out making custom tables from demolished barnwood, Dan now considers himself a small manufacturer. “You cannot make custom furniture at a reasonable price and expect to thrive,” he says.

“When you have a flat piece of 8/4 wood that’s 96″ by 45” wide, your job’s halfway done. I can have the CNC running while I’m wide belt-sanding tabletops,” Dan says. “I can come in on a Monday, glue five tables up; on Tuesday, I can start sanding down; on Wednesday, I can start putting on varnishes; and then Friday, I can start adding the legs.”

The CNC is a key element of the “Akin,” Dan’s favorite among his table styles. “What I love about this style, is it’s made 100 percent on the CNC,” he says. “There’s not much labor involved, except for routing the inside.”

Although he’s recently started outsourcing metalwork to a welding shop, for a long time Dan did everything in house. “I took a lot of pride in that. But with business, sometimes you have to relinquish a little bit,” Dan says.

He’s learned other business lessons, too. He calls building a kiln and a sandblasting booth “two of my biggest, most expensive mistakes.” An idea that paid off was pitching his work to HGTV designers. On a friend’s advice, Dan started looking up shows’ designers and asking if they’d be interested in his tables. Several have been used on HGTV.

“Most people don’t turn down a table, especially when it’s fun and creative,” he says. His tables are often shipped to a filming location, used to stage a set, then returned to him for later sale.

That led to the hosts of Renovation 911 contacting Dan to build for their show about restoring damaged properties. HGTV pays for a piece that the homeowners keep. “It’s a little more sentimental, and normally it’s a dining room table,” Dan says.

His involvement with IWF was more serendipitous. In 2022, he was invited to participate as an influencer and subsequently invited to become a spokesperson for IWF. He views his contributions to IWF’s Network News publication and plans for classes at IWF 2024 as being a liaison between large tool manufacturers and garage woodworkers.

“The problem is, people get into woodworking, and they only know what’s at Home Depot,” Dan says. “Then they’ll dive into it a little bit more, and they’ll learn what’s at Rockler. If you’re a small business and you want to take that next step up, that’s when you start going to the woodworking shows.” Dan would like to see tool manufacturers bring their smaller items to the show, and he’d like to educate garage woodworkers on what a CNC can do for them, bringing both ends of the spectrum together.

For himself, Dan’s trying to maintain woodworking as his “therapeutic getaway,” even though actual vacations still involve work. On a trip to Costa Rica, Dan visited local lumber companies and “just fell in love with monkeypod and Spanish parotas and wild cashews and teaks and eucalyptus,” which he considers more sustainable than North American hardwoods. “A walnut tree grows three inches a year, where a monkeypod tree grows three to five feet a year. So there’s a big misconception that everybody thinks [if] you’re going down South to get this wood that you’re doing deforestation, when we’re actually doing the opposite.”

He uses these woods in his tables and some other items. “Over the years, I’ve found that tables are my bread and butter,” Dan says. “That’s what I like making. It’s a simple process to make a table if you have the right equipment and the space for it.”

Dan’s photos and videos are on TikTok and YouTube @the_voice_of_woodworking and on Instagram @countrytables. His website is countrytables.com.

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His 12- and 14-year-old sons both play youth baseball, and Little keeps busy during practices by whittling in the stands. A couple of years ago, he set himself a challenge of making a “fungo bat” — a long, slender bat that coaches or parents use during practice. “It’s something I’d use with my kids, so I just thought, ‘this is something I want to try,'” Little says.

“As soon as I made that bat, the kids were like, ‘well, I want a bat,’ so they each got a bat,” Little says. Then he showed one to a coworker whose son also plays baseball, and got another request, “and then it just started to escalate from there.”

An engineer by day, Little has now made about 200 bats in his garage workshop for his apexbats.com side business. He starts with billets of maple or ash, or upon request, birch or beech. “I only make game bats with the best possible grade that I can get,” he says.

Most critical for purposes of bat-making is the density of the wood, which, in combination with the bat’s design, impacts its weight. Bats for adults generally use higher density wood — sometimes extra dense if it’s meant to be a heavier training bat — while Little tends to make kids’ bats from lighter, lower density pieces.

He also tests the quality of the wood using an ink dot test. This involves putting a drop of wet ink on a piece of bare wood, then observing how far it deviates from a center line as the ink bleeds.

He’s adapted this test from a Major League Baseball requirement that the ink bleed no more than 2.86 degrees away from the center line. “It’s really just saying, ‘Is your grain straight in this wood?'” Little says. “If it’s not, then it’s gonna have much more likelihood of breaking. I don’t want to have a kid break a bat because I used poor-quality wood.” Because bats are made one at a time, customers can choose how the weight is distributed through the barrel of the bat (whether it’s balanced or end-loaded): the bat’s length and weight; how much the knob tapers for their personal comfort; and barrel and handle diameter. “Some like it to just feel a little thinner in the hand, and some like it to feel a little thicker,” Little says. “If there’s a model that I’m finding is a very popular combination, I’ll make a story stick that has all the key points,” he says. “It’s really quick for me to grab that, and it cuts down a lot of time.”

Customers can also choose to have the bats “cupped,” or somewhat hollowed out, on the end. Cupping a bat, Little says, can help remove some weight or balance a bat out so it swings a bit lighter. “I start by drilling a center hole, then I use a router with a guide pin to cut out the rest, and then I go back with a larger drill bit to drill it out again, because it leaves kind of a core.”

Customers also get to choose the colors of their bat, for which Little uses oil-based stains applied by hand. He’ll burn in personalized messages with a small laser engraver, and he applies the Apex Bats logo with an ink transfer using freezer paper. “I tape that to an 8×10 sheet of paper and print it off in a mirror image, then quickly flip it over and rub it on. I like the way it looks, and it’s embedded into the wood, so it’s never gonna come off,” Little says.

Most of the bats Little makes are game-quality bats; about half of them are for kids. While he’s not pursuing the lengthy and costly process to become an approved bat vendor for Major League Baseball, Little is reaching out to town ball teams and has made bats for wood bat tournaments. “I don’t know if it’s a nostalgia thing, or if people are just looking for something different,” he says.

A version of this article originally appeared at: eplocalnews.org.

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Icelandic lore says the dwellings are for the huldufólk (“hidden people”), who provide their visitors with strength, good luck and good health. Jerry first learned of the concept when he and his wife watched the movie Eurovision, in which an Icelandic competitor in a singing contest visits an elf house for good luck. His research since then indicates that many Icelanders still believe in the concept.

“It’s important to them to have this understanding that there’s something that might be a little more wonderful out there,” he says.

The first house Jerry built, now installed in a whiskey barrel koi pond in their backyard, was a birthday gift to his wife. He has since built seven altogether, using a sawmill’s discarded log offcuts.

Design ideas might come from dollhouses, haunted houses or the window and door placement in a children’s playhouse. “Each house has its own personality,” Jerry says. They’re intended to be whimsical: in some, solar lighting mimics a fireplace’s flickers for a few hours after dark.

Positive Responses

Responses from the public have been positive. Icelandic people have appreciated finding a slice of their culture in Minnesota. People also appreciate the wonder, Jerry said: he told of a woman who approached him during an installation to tell him how wonderful the project was, and how children would love it.

“I said, ‘You’re allowed to like it, too,'” Jerry says. “When we’re kids, we’re told to believe that reindeer can fly. You have the kids so excited they can’t sleep at night because they know something amazing’s going to happen. If you want to come to the elf house and feel like a kid again, just know that it’s OK to want to believe in something again.”

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The school has been in Texas since 2018, but it originally opened in Kentucky. “The idea was to live on my acreage and make furniture,” Miller says. “I decided to start the school because there was no one teaching the fundamentals, that I could find, other than where I went.”

Miller had attended instruction from Paul Sellers and Frank Strazza at what’s now Heritage School of Woodworking. In his own school, he has replicated their focus on hand tool joinery.

Three Primary Joints

“There’s only three woodworking joints: the dovetail, the mortise-and-tenon and the housing dado,” Miller says. “I didn’t want to teach how to make a chair, how to make a box. There are a lot of schools that are doing that, but if you want to learn how to do layout and how to cut the three woodworking joints by hand, you don’t have many options. So I thought, ‘OK, I’m going to focus on that niche.'”

The “Introduction to Joinery” class serves as a prerequisite to other courses. A candle box class, for example, is mostly dovetails; a side table class is all mortise-and-tenon; and the wall shelf course is “housing dadoes with a couple of mortise-and-tenons.”

Project classes are two days long; others are one-day offerings.

Miller also teaches classes on spoon and spatula making and bowl carving. “Not everybody wants to build furniture,” he says. “Many people just want to be able to sit down and make a spoon or spatula with a couple of basic tools.”

Shop Space and Supplies

Miller originally tried running classes out of his two-car garage, “but the ambiance wasn’t what I wanted,” he says. He built a 1,600-square-foot shop and now uses about 25 percent of it for Full Circle Woodworking classes.

Four student workbenches, with a vise on each corner, allow two students per bench. Miller also has his own single bench in the classroom area. One quadrant of the shop is for display and storage, another is for wood storage and the fourth is for machinery.

“Most of the lumber I buy is roughsawn,” Miller explains. “I can plane a board flat and true and to dimension with a hand plane, but it’s not an efficient use of my time. There are machines that are much faster at it, and so I use them. I want to spend my time doing the joinery.”

He does provide wood for students in his classes, as well as tools — although students are welcome to bring their own hand tools if they have them. “Everything’s provided, and most of the time, I throw in a lunch as well,” Miller says.

With the school’s location in Azle, Texas, about 12 miles west of Fort Worth, “there are ample things to do to keep spouses engaged if they don’t want to participate in the class,” Miller says. Specific attractions mentioned include the Forth Worth Stockyards, Sundance Square Plaza and Kimbell Art Museum.

Sometimes, however, spouses or entire families take his classes together. Previous students have been “young, old, male, female, educated, some of them not,” Wayne says. “I couldn’t pinpoint a specific demographic for people that are interested in this.”

Learn a Skill, Go and Do

Although he’s happy to see students return for additional classes, that’s not Wayne’s goal. “If they come and they take one class, and they can go do their thing, I’m happy,” he says. “I feel like I’ve achieved what I wanted to do: I’ve taught someone a skill, and now they’re off doing something with it.”

He helped one former student — a sushi bar owner — build the workbench that then allowed the restaurateur to build tables and sushi serving platters.

“I don’t want students to feel like they’re married to me,” Wayne said. “I want to teach them something, and I want them to be able to go employ that knowledge. I don’t need groupies; my dog is my groupie. I just want to teach and to keep the craft alive.”

For more information about Full Circle Woodworking, visit fullcircleww.com or call 817-444-1122.

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As both an instructor and a professional woodworker, his niche is Arts & Crafts-style furniture and built-ins, particularly Greene and Greene. “My view is that you can’t improve on perfection,” he says of their style. He offers an advanced kitchen cabinets class in the Greene and Greene-style, as well as project classes on a Greene and Greene clock, blanket chest and barstool.

A course on a Maloof-style rocking chair inspired a separate class on making jigs — students who took the project home realized they couldn’t build more without the roughly 30 jigs used at the school.

Dale begins most classes demonstrating two or three techniques, then lets students get to work, with his assistance as needed. “They’re not waiting in line, or three people watch one guy work,” he said. Students leave with completed projects. “If it’s a chair, they’ll be sitting in it. If it’s a rocker, they’ll be rocking in it. If it’s a table, it’ll be complete and put together.”

Classes vary in length and take place in a 30′ x 60′ two-story shop with a wood floor. Equipment includes SawStop and Powermatic 66 table saws, a 16″ jointer, 14″ and 20″ band saws, wide belt and edge sanders, lathes, routers and a hollow-chisel mortising machine.

Dale and Mary, the school’s administrator, provide all materials, including wood. “We’ll use nice wood so the people are more engaged. You use real cheap wood and you’re not too worried about making mistakes, but if you’re using some nice wood, you’re going to be more careful,” Dale said.

Located near the Hoosier National Forest, the Barnard Woodworking School is an hour away from Louisville, Kentucky. For more information, visit: the-cabinetmaker.com/wood-working-school or call or text 502-551-8889.

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These days, woodworkers and builders are posting memes offering to trade 2x4s for late-model Corvettes or, as Clint Miller, a sales representative for Automated Building Components in Chetek, Wisconsin, said, “I could take my wife out for a steak dinner with four 2x4s, 8 feet long … that’s 50 bucks. A year ago, they would have been $10 or $15.”

So, what’s up? Well, you may recall a worldwide pandemic that began in 2020. Lockdowns that spring meant people stayed home, and businesses — including those in the building and lumber industry — shut down for a while. Then, while many people sheltered at home, they decided to remodel. That’s the demand.

What about supply? The short answer is: there hasn’t been enough of it. Lumber mill shutdowns due to COVID-19 were a factor, according to the NAHB. Plus, there isn’t enough domestic supply. The National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association’s (NLBMDA) 2021 National Policy Agenda states that “as much as one-third of the framing lumber used in the U.S. comes from Canada each year.” And the U.S. charges tariffs on Canadian lumber.

Organizations such as NAHB and NLBMDA have been lobbying for reductions in tariffs. They’d also like to expand the domestic lumber supply through such methods as increasing logging from U.S. federal forests — through responsible management and in an environmentally sustainable manner, they’re careful to note in their advocacy documents.

Some other factors:

• Domestic producers are selling their lumber abroad.

• The 2008 economic downturn closed many sawmills.

• Remaining mills have limited kiln capacity and face labor shortages.

When Will This End?

What’s the solution? It seems we’ll have to wait it out. Until when? That answer is tougher to predict.

Clint Miller, whose company works with roof and floor trusses as well as other engineered wood products, thinks that we’re facing a “rubber band economy,” which will contract, then spring back with elasticity before leveling out at a certain point. For now, though, “Everything is such a mess that it’s going to take a while to get there,” Miller said.

For an expanded version of this article including helpful links to learn more about the lumber shortage, click here to download the PDF.

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After 21 years at Woodworker’s Journal, I am moving on. The move is to greener pastures at least in the sense that this spring’s monsoon rains have turned my yard into a fast-growing jungle. With all of the things I’ve learned about tools and tool companies over the years, though, at least I knew what to look for in a battery-powered lawn mower.

Not only have I learned way more than I ever expected to about tools and about woodworking techniques, but I’ve also made some great connections with woodworkers – both in the office and out. After two-plus decades of correspondence from some of you regular readers, I’ve come to recognize you by your email addresses. I’ll miss you.

Thank you for your feedback and your involvement. Thanks to all of our staff, our authors, tool company representatives and more for sharing all of their knowledge, camaraderie and assistance.

And, while my go-to on meals at the local diner is generally a BLT, I’ve been known to choose the fish and chips a time or two. So, sure: thanks for all the fish – literal and metaphorical.

Joanna Werch Takes, Woodworker’s Journal

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One day when Tony happened across a book about building wooden canoes, purchased it on impulse, then followed up with purchases of a table saw and some wood. He built his canoe and then, based upon his own hobby of stand-up paddle boarding (SUP) turned his attention to building wooden paddleboards.

That interest, in turn, led to his founding the company “Jarvis Boards,” an Austin, Texas-based company that makes some standard types of paddle- and surf-boards, as well as made-to-order custom boards. They’ve also put together board building plans, materials and kits for those who want to build their own.

To balance the factors of user experience, environmental impact and overall aesthetic, Jarvis Boards builds each of their boards from recycled foam cores and woods such as maple and cherry.

You can find out more about the company and their paddle- and surfboards at jarvisboards.com.

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I have one on my office bookshelves to help with project dimensions. (Coworkers “borrow” it frequently, but I’m pretty adamant about getting it back.) I’ve also used a fabric tape measure – the kind seamstresses, like my mom, use – to measure my dog’s unusually long tail (I’m telling you, you just never know what you’re going to need to measure.)

So, how about you? How many tape measures do you own? What’s the most unusual thing you’ve measured? (And, sure, I’ll also entertain guesses on the results of measuring the dog’s tail.)

Joanna Werch Takes, Woodworker’s Journal

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Back in 2003, Chris was living in Ohio and working for WJ on a freelance basis. Around 2007, he joined the magazine full-time. Chris says, “My responsibilities for WJ expanded to writing new product blurbs, expert answers for the [Q&A section of] the eZine and Industry Interviews. That chance to interview what has become hundreds of companies in the woodworking products industry has confirmed to me that the people behind the product labels we buy for our woodworking needs are really passionate about woodworking, too! They want to make this craft better and keep it thriving.”

It was also around this time that Woodworker’s Journal began creating our own branded video content for our website and YouTube. “My videos were admittedly rough back then (just check out my multi-part overview of the then-redesigned Delta Unisaw if you want proof!), but transitioning from print journalism into the brave new world of social media-driven video was necessary,” Chris said. “Still, back in 2003, would I ever have imagined myself telling woodworking stories, offering teaching content and doing full project builds as a ‘sort-of’ actor some day? No way. But, it’s added a dimension to this job that, I hope, has made me a better editor and more confident woodworking teacher.”

Chris has also continued to contribute to the print magazine. “Somewhere during this latest stage of life, I surpassed the ‘100th printed article’ milestone with WJ, and I’m well on the way to 150.” Beyond the Arts and Crafts Wine Cabinet [from the August 2003 issue] he cited as a favorite project in 2003, updated favorites include a figured maple dresser “that proved ambitious in terms of the number of machine-cut dovetails it required (not to mention the wood was particularly beautiful, precious and expensive,” plus a Greene and Greene-inspired Dresser and matching bed [from the February 2016 and February 2015 issues, respectively].

Chris described those as complex projects that kept him out in the shop for many late nights and long weekends. “We all build easy-peasy projects from time to time, but those drift out of memory pretty quickly. The ones that challenge us to do our best work, or encourage us to take on new techniques that seem daunting, tend to become favorites of memory. I’m sure that’s true for most woodworkers, but it definitely is for me.”

Speaking of shops, Chris is on his second new shop subsequent to the garage in Westerville, Ohio from 2003. First, his family moved to a 10-acre property in a more rural area, the Columbus suburb of Sunbury. While there, Chris converted a dirt-floor pole barn into a heated and air-conditioned 30 x 40-ft. woodworking shop. “In the end, that space was Ground Zero for many, many tool reviews and project builds.

“I’ll never forget the time we rounded up 10 or so cabinet saws for a big tool review, and suddenly the shop became a parking lot for a group of what were then some of the finest cabinet saws on the market. What an amazing ‘problem’ to have had – a woodworker trying out a showroom’s worth of premium table saws, in the privacy and convenience of his own shop, and then sharing that feedback with our audience. I was the luckiest guy I knew.”

Then, in 2011, an opportunity in Chris’s wife’s career moved the family from Ohio to the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. “The one crucial feature our home here in Virginia didn’t have when we bought it was a garage – much less a woodworking shop. So, my current 20 x 40-ft. shop was one of the first orders of business when we settled here. While the size and capability of the shop was somewhat dictated by budget, I also wanted my shop to look like the shops of our readers. Essentially, it’s a garage with many of the benefits and limitations that go along with sharing a woodworking space with cars and other stuff.”

If he had to do it over again, Chris said, he would install only one roll-up garage door instead of two, prioritizing more wall space over more vehicle access. He’d also add outlets and ceiling fixtures. “You can never have too many clamps, or outlets, or lights, and I would put all three of those items at the same level of importance,” he said.

Still, the shop does have one feature that never appears in videos or article photos: a large window on one side with a distant view of mountains. “The opportunity for me, in the middle of a big project or video shoot, to look out that window and see the serenity of a mountain view, is a continual reminder of how lucky I am to both do this work and do it in such a beautiful place. In that regard, I’m still the luckiest guy I know!”

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