I enjoyed some instruction classes in the mid-1980s by the late, great Tage Frid at the old Woodcraft store at 313 Montvale Avenue in Woburn, Massachusetts. 

That store then was still the only Woodcraft, having moved north from Boston in 1968. Woodcraft started as a one-room shop in Boston’s North End in 1928 and later expanded. Around 1990, the company started to expand nationally. Much later, the Woburn store moved to its current location, also in Woburn. Woodcraft is now 67 stores nationwide. 

It was at the original Woburn store more than 40 years ago where I bought my Ulmia workbench that I still use. From then, I no longer had to use my own rigs. I had built my first bench in 1971. Before that, the first bench I used was inherited from my grandfather.

https://www.rpwoodwork.com/blog/2022/08/23/the-first-workbench-i-built/

Now back to the main topic! 

Even more fun and instructive was talking with Frid years later when I randomly saw him shopping at the former woodworking store in Cambridge, MA. (It became a Rockler but closed a couple of years ago.)

As I searched the tools around the store, I saw Frid doing much the same as I was doing: managing ideas. Understand, this was the renowned Tage Frid! The man who, probably more than anyone else, brought and taught the skills of woodworking to America. To see him searching at the store much like I was, and then have the privilege and joy of talking with him, really struck me.

Recognizing him still learning and thinking about woodworking, helped me understand that what I too was doing was healthy and creative. Searching, thinking, trying – woodworking. 

Of course, as a woodworker, I am just a small fraction of a Frid. Yet, I hope you happily read here and it benefits you. It is meaningful and, ultimately, joyous.  

The previous series of posts showed and explained four ways to secure wood at the workbench to facilitate work. And there are at least a dozen more ways. It should be convenient to set up, work on, and take down.  

This key factor has been important since the first time you ever worked on wood, even at an early age. Yet often it is neglected or done poorly.  

So, why is it so important and deserves so much attention?

We woodwork with our hands. With good hand tools or machines, the hands ultimately choose and control what happens to the wood. While they are guided by sight, sound, mind, and time, and supported by the rest of the body, the hands make the final actions. 

What usually happens in early learning of woodworking, the hands cannot do there job because the wood is not properly set in place and stable. I think that is the most common confusion when developing woodworking skills and   retaining them. 

In practical summary, I suggest taking the time and trouble to set up the wood well. I bet your hands will do the job as they lead the tools to success. 

Only you know, but here are some of my thoughts. 

You are taking a break from work, family, wood shop, and the duties of life to spend a few minutes enjoying and adding to your woodworking. Let’s go over what is here.

Since 2008 I have published here 264,000 words written originally by me alone. (Not including comments.) That is the length of four non-fiction books! There are over 1400 original photos taken by me. 

It is all real and all directly from my wood shop. The only break in publishing was about two years, which you can read about here:

https://www.rpwoodwork.com/blog/2025/07/03/where-was-i/

The site remains quite popular and well regarded according to the valid online evaluation systems.

I simply want to share my woodworking with you so you can enjoy and add to your work in the shop. 

There are never advertisements here. No business or selling for me or anyone else. I do not make a dime here. And that is just fine. No nonsense. No time wasting. 

There is also periodic philosophic thought for real woodworkers – like you. I have been woodworking for over 60 years, always growing in skill. So yes, I do have something to say!

I also aim to getting you thinking and evaluating your work. I would love to know that you are making things, but even more, I truly hope that you are happy doing it. 

THANK YOU, dear readers! More to come! 

There are very few! Yet I, and I think the readers themselves, appreciate what does come in. 

By the top trusted, popular, skillful blog-ranking companies documenting online, Heartwood is consistently ranked in the top 10 most popular woodworking blogs in the english/US language. It is between #6 – #9. That rates above some major woodworking magazines and tool dealers.  

It has been in function since 2008. Though there is a two-year entry gap before a half-year ago, it has run at the maximum content level in the past half year. The site now has 259,000 words, not including comments, and 1400 photos. That is like 3 or 4 books. All from one author, yours truly, and one small shop. 

The material is hands-on and mind-on useful, and, I hope, enjoyable for you to read.  There is no business or money at play here. Just the beloved woodworking – and woodworkers! 

And, I greatly appreciate the readership – and comments!

Online videos, as we all see, can quickly, amazingly produce thousands of comments. Some are just a few words, but it is communication and appreciation. Written blogs are, of course, different. Video seems to stimulate reply more than writing does. I get it. 

So, dear readers, I hope that some more of you will sometimes go to the clicker and pop in a comment. (I have to approve any comment. That keeps away the massive spam leaches.) Most importantly, your fellow readers will appreciate your thoughts and observations. Of course, I will too.

So, if you have something to say – and you probably do – maybe to put in another side of thought – whatever – I hope you will give it a go. 

Thank you, dear readers! 

I have had these small sayings posted in the shop for a long time. I look at them often for their help.

The one from the late Sam Maloof, above, is on the door of my drafting setup. I really need that advice!

In the photo below, it is from the late James Krenov. It is pinned to the top of the tack board just above the workbench where I mostly attach the design drawings for the current project. It is simple, clear, and certainly should not be forgotten.

Shown below, on the other side of the tack board, is a sentence from The Book of  Wisdom in the Old Testament of the Bible. It is a simple way of lifting the significance of wood. Yes, good old wood!

So, there are some ideas you may wish to use. Of course, you surely have your own sayings or bits of advice that would help you in your shop. If you have not already, I suggest posting some.

I also have a few other postings in my shop which I will share in time. They all help keep my mind and hands going strongly: woodworking!

Woodwork that you put yourself into creating can last a long time and have personal meaning. Consider that these are among the reasons it is worth doing.

Look back at the item from over 60 years ago discussed in a recent post: Still here

My 50-year file of Fine Woodworking magazine is still housed in a large bookshelf cabinet that I made not long after the magazine began. The beds made for my kids over 30 years ago, used by them in their young lives, are still in the house long after they moved into their own.

Now lately these two nifty trucks are for the grandkids. They are not high art woodwork but as personal creations they are meaningful.

Consider this when you work in the shop: personal connections, the joy of your work (usually), and how it may even outlast you. We work with our hands and tools because it matters.

Now a few comments on the kids’ trucks. They are about 14″l. x 8″h. x 7″w. with specially 10 species of nice wood. Practical, rugged, and fun – constructed to take plenty of playing action. The one at the top has a lifting back, and the other has a lifting lid of its back.

So, dear readers, get into the shop, go to work, and consider what is really going on – and enjoy!

Dear readers, you might wonder why I started writing again last week but was gone for over two years. (This site started in 2008.)

Here is the story.

I was in excellent health – regular doctor visits, no medications, excellent diet, weight, and exercise. However, at the gym one day, I fully collapsed, immediately unconscious. I was rushed to the hospital and underwent brain surgery for a major hemorrhagic stroke in my left-side brain. 

It was May, 2023. This was very bad.

For the next six months, with some hospital stay, shifting to home stay, and back to medical institutions, I worked on recovery. Unfortunately, things got worse by the end of 2023 and early 2024. The second major surgery, to put parts of my skull back together and try to make my brain work, occurred in January, 2024.

I was unconscious and near death, and had religious final rites.   

Odds were not much in my favor, but I lived. Still living in a supportive medical facility, I was a vegetable. My right leg and right arm were completely disabled. I could not speak, move, eat, or have basic systems work. In fact, I have almost no memory of the first 5-6 months of 2024. 

But by late May or early June, 2024, I started to gain some abilities. I could move with supportive equipment, and had some pathetic speaking ability. Of course, I had little understanding and I could not read a word. 

I recall watching a comedy movie about baseball and I was able to laugh. And I enjoyed music.

Some abilities started to return. I realized I could battle forward. I spent the next six months still away from home but working at everything. I relearned to speak, to move, and eventually to lift and walk, to read and to write (4 – 8 hours per day of studying) . . . and to live.

I much later learned via a knowledgeable medical source that about half of people who got what I did unfortunately do not live through it. 75% of the living end up in a bad, restricted state. The remaining 25% of the living gain some improvement but extremely few return to a full life. I am lucky, I did.

By the end of 2024, I came back home. I continued to improve. I can walk, hike, run a bit, exercise and lift heavy weights, read, write, and just LIVE. I diligently continue to work on all aspects of improving. It is going very well.

I do not quit.

I happily restudied woodworking with countless hours in the home shop! On June 24, 2025, I started to write online again. 

That’s my story.

Thanks be to God. Thanks to my family. And, my dear readers: I’m back online.

Click below to enjoy:

So put me in coach, I’m ready to play . . .

Yes, I’m still here. The last post was over two years ago, so perhaps you wonder what has been going on with your devoted author.

I will tell you but in the next post. Here, I want to go way back and tell you first about when I began woodworking. I mean way back. Enough that I can truly say that I’ve been woodworking for about 62 years.

In the basement of the family house, prior to Palm Sunday, I built a little Catholic memorial and then gave it to my mother and father. I did not see it again until 59 years later when I discovered it shortly after my mom died (at 102; dad at 91).

She had saved the woodwork in her small number of collectibles.

Woodworking. It mattered then, and it still does.

And this is how and why I work a saw, chisel, and plane. Because what I do matters.

Go ahead, dear readers, pick up your tools and make things.

It matters.

So, I’m back online. I will tell you in the next post what has been going on. And after that, we will do more woodworking stuff. Lots to come.