As the new guy here at Fine Woodworking, I thought I’d share a little about myself.

I’m a former business journalist and trade magazine editor who is a relative newcomer to woodworking. I only started to get seriously into the craft last year, when I began taking classes regularly at a woodworking school here in Connecticut and building several projects on my own.

At the moment, my woodworking fixations are old hand tools, lutherie (such as this hot-rodded homage to an early 60s Les Paul Jr. I recently finished) and pretty much anything in the Shaker style. And although I have never done it, I am also very interested in flitch-cutting logs. Part of this interest comes from the journalist part of my brain–the part that asks too many questions, such as “what did this wood look like before it became furniture?”, and tries to reconstruct the backstory of how something came to be.

Hopefully you’ll find me putting that tendency to good use here, shining some light on those backstories–of woodworkers and their furniture-making techniques, of workshop-expanding and the nuances of the tool-using life–that don’t quite make it into the pages of the magazine, but are tales and tips worth sharing nonetheless. 

As far as my current projects go, I’m wrapping up some retrofit drawers for my kitchen and also working on a new tool chest to keep here at my shop space at Fine Woodworking.

When not making sawdust, I also enjoy running and cycling.