The plan,
re‑engineered
for your shop

Hewn takes a woodworking plan and rebuilds it around the tools you actually have. Where a step needs a tool you don't own, it shows the substitute. Where there isn't one, it says so, before you cut.

Adapt a plan → No account needed to try it. The calculators are free.

hewn.build/build?plan=end-table&shop=stranger-shop

The read-ahead: the Walnut End Table read against a five-tool shop. Fourteen parts, seven steps adapted, four steps with no substitute named before any wood is bought.

An end table, read against a shop with five tools: seven steps adapted, and the four it can’t do yet named before you buy the wood.

How it works

Tell it what's on your bench. Pick a plan. Read what changes before you cut.

Step 1

Start with your tools.

Tap the tools you reach for first. Three to five taps. Nothing is saved anywhere but your browser until you ask.

Step 2

Pick a plan and see where it fits.

Every plan on the shelf says up front whether it builds in your shop, builds with substitutions, or not yet here, and which one tool would change that.

Step 3

Read the changes, then build.

The read-ahead shows every step that changed for your shop and why, what will move with the seasons, and what has no substitute. Then take it to the bench, one step at a time, and mark each one done.

Step 4

Reed is at the bench.

Ask a woodworking question while you build. Reed works for you, not for Hewn. If a tool you already own will do the job, it says so. It can't see which step you're on yet.

hewn.build/build?plan=end-table&shop=stranger-shop&mode=build

Build mode: the first of the end table’s 52 steps at the bench, with the plan’s own note and the length to cut.

The same table, at the bench.

Where this comes from

Hewn is building a library of human making: craft knowledge from working woodworkers, written down so it doesn't disappear with the people who carry it. This site is the first place that library does a job.

What works today

Adapt

Pick a plan, pick a shop or set up your own, set your skill. The plan re-fits itself: substitutions where your tools differ, warnings where a step gets riskier, and a named gap where it honestly doesn't know.

Compare two shops

The same plan adapted to two shops, side by side, with the differences called out.

Build mode

One step large, the next action unmistakable, a timer, and check-off that stays on your device.

The Notebook

Save an adapted plan on your device, reopen it exactly as it was, or carry it out as a file.

Print and the cut list

A print view of the plan, and a materials view you can take to the lumberyard: parts, board feet, a shopping summary.

Calculators

Shop math, free, no account, at calc.hewn.build.

What it doesn't do yet

Read your own plan. You can upload one, but the part that reads a PDF or a photo isn't wired up, and the screen says so. The plans on the shelf are a small set to prove the machinery. The end table started from a plan we bought and is being redrawn as our own design; the others were written in-house. Each plan on the shelf has a picture now; the steps themselves don’t have pictures yet. Reed can't see which step you're on. Nothing here is finished, which is why the line at the top says so.

The plan,re‑engineeredfor your shop