The Day I Decided To Stop Making Machines & Started Finishing Projects

It was probably about two years into my woodworking journey and I had been making some personal furniture for my small city apartment. Small and uncomplicated furniture wowed me and impressed only a few of those closest to me – as you can see, I am surrounded by a tough crowd.

Over the two years of woodworking, I had managed to amass a large arsenal of tools, machinery, and accessories and my apartment began to look like a real workshop. However, within those two years, I had probably only made a single chair, a tv stand, and a few small tables. With so much time, money, and effort surpassed – why was there so little work to show for it?

I mean, I had been making “things” almost every weekend and sometimes this work would have to cut into my family time during the week. So where is all this work? See, the problem is that I had slipped into a realm many woodworkers are familiar with. This is the realm where you find yourself making more tools than actual furniture. I had set out my woodworking journey to be centered around making classic furniture and odd bespoke home pieces to be sold to young homeowners around me (yes, I am always this ambitious when entering a new hobby).

Even with this goal and focus being defined, I still found myself spending my hours in the workshop making marking gauges, wooden measuring tools, work benches, assembly benches, trestles, tool cabinets, tool totes, etc. My workshop was filled with these pieces of hard-wearing and functioning furniture. 

This is when I had to relook at my Woodworking Manifesto and begin to refocus.

I decided to rather save up enough money to purchase all the machinery I could not complete any furniture without, closed my eyes, and invested in creating a workshop that consisted of all the basic tools and machinery I required. I then had to make another oath, the I Will Never Make Another Tool Manifesto – because, knowing me, I would have used all this new machinery to make more machinery.