Reply by Lee Barker

Good precision doesn’t start with the tool. It starts with knowing how the material will behave when it meets a tool.

All the setups and workholders that come roaring out of the pages of the wishbooks add up to weak attempts to convince you that you can become a good woodworker in a weekend.

Congratulations on asking the question. That impresses me more than I can convey in mere words.

Wood is fibers. Different species have different fibers arranged in different ways. Watch them, touch them, study them.

All the nobility in your head soaked up there through your hands.

Kindly,

Lee

-- "...in his brain, which is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage, he hath strange places cramm'd with observation, the which he vents in mangled forms." --Shakespeare, "As You Like It"