Hewn Shop Notes

Hewn Shop Notes are practical woodworking notes: joinery, finishing, glue-ups, wood movement, sharpening, hardware, repair. Each was drafted by an AI writing system from Hewn's craft corpus and is published with that said on it. None has yet been read by Hewn's founder or checked by an outside reader; each note says so.

The same list for machines: /shop-notes/llms.txt.

• The Pin
  Don't re-measure the pin board. Transfer directly from the tail board: it's already the measurement.
• The Fit
  Fitting dovetails by chalk transfer: pare only the marked high spots, repeat the cycle, and stop when the joint closes under hand pressure.
• The Dado
  How to cut dadoes that hold shelves straight, including the one-third depth rule, fitting by hand pressure, and stopping the dado before a show face.
• The Rabbet
  How to cut, size, and fit rabbets: and why the rabbet-and-dado combination is the workhorse of case furniture.
• The Bridle
  The bridle joint: same geometry as a mortise-and-tenon, opened up at the end. Layout, cutting, fitting, and the three ways it fails.
• The Box Joint
  Box joints hold by glue surface area, not geometry. How to lay them out, cut them, and avoid the three ways they fail.
• The Spline
  Why miters need splines, how to cut and size them, and the one grain rule you can't get wrong.
• The Pocket Hole
  When pocket holes are the right call, when they're not, and why the argument about them says more about us than the joint.
• The Finish Nail
  When to use finish nails vs. mechanical joinery, how to pick the right gauge, and how to make the hole disappear.
• The Countersink
  Countersinking screws properly, and making the fill-or-plug decision before the screw goes in.
• The Dry Run
  Why a full dry run with real clamps catches the tolerance cascade that bench-testing individual joints never will.
• The Glue-Up
  How to run a glue-up without panicking: working time, staging, wet checks, and squeeze-out handling.
• The Flatten
  How to flatten a panel after glue-up: diagnose with winding sticks, fix with planes and scrapers, check with your hand.
• The Sand
  Grit progression for furniture sanding: why you can't skip grits, when to stop, and how raking light tells you what your hand can't.
• The Raise
  How and why to raise the grain with a damp cloth before water-based finishes, rather than sanding it out after the first coat.
• The First Coat
  The first coat isn't about building film: it's a penetrating seal and the most honest read of your surface you'll get until the final coat.
• The Build
  How to build a finish coat by coat: between-coat sanding, recoat timing, knowing when to stop.
• The Final Coat
  How to apply the last coat of finish, and why cure time and what happens after application matter more than the application itself.
• The Iron
  The plane iron is a cutting geometry, not a blade: bevel angles, sharpening, cap iron setting, and reading the shaving.
• The Set
  How to set up a bench plane before the first shaving: the two-minute sequence that separates clean cuts from chasing problems.
• The Pass
  How to move a hand plane across a board without rounding the ends or tearing the grain, and how to read the shavings as you go.
• The Skew
  Skewing a hand plane changes its cutting geometry: when to use it, when it won't help, and the three ways it goes wrong.
• The Edge
  How to read a hand plane's edge condition in real time and know when to resharpen.
• The Grain
  How to read grain direction before the first hand-plane pass, and what to do when the grain fights back.
• The Surface
  Two tests that tell you when a hand-planed surface is ready for finish: raking light and fingertip: and why the plane produces a better finish surface than sandpaper.
• The Sharpening Session
  Full sharpening sequence for a bench plane iron, from back flattening through strop, with system choice and session shape.
• The Scraper
  When and how to use a card scraper, how to turn its burr, and how to read its shavings.
• The Practice
  Ten posts in this arc.
• The Cherry
  Full species portrait of cherry: lumber yard selection, sapwood exclusion, movement math, bench behavior, and finishing for natural color development.
• The Hard Maple
  Hard maple as the species that tells you whether your tools are sharp: hardest of five primaries, blotching traps, finishing choices, and the BC species-ID problem.
• The Bigleaf Maple
  Bigleaf maple as a local BC species: how it differs from hard maple in hardness and movement, how to plane its figure, how to finish it, and where to source it.
• The Plan
  A plan is someone else's decisions written down. Your job is to read the argument, not just the dimensions.
• The Cut List
  Why a cut list is a list of promises rather than a shopping list, and how to check actual stock against it before anything hits the saw.
• The Gap
  Why the reasoning behind a plan's dimensions matters more than the dimensions themselves, and how to find it.
• The Species
  How to evaluate a species substitution before you cut anything, and the four checks that separate a conscious swap from a costly one.
• The Sequence
  Build sequence is not in the plan; it is read out by tracing access closures backward from the finished piece.
• The Dimension
  How to tell which dimensions on a plan are targets and which are fits, and why measuring the actual part before cutting the receiving part solves most joinery headaches.
• The Tools
  Every plan assumes a shop; how to work out which tools a plan assumed and when a tool substitution becomes a redesign.
• The Floating Top
  Three tabletop attachment methods, why each works, and what happens when you skip the physics.
• The Material
  How to assess whether your lumber will actually produce the parts the plan requires, before the first cut.
• The Adaptation
  Adaptation is the deliberate work of translating someone else's plan into your own build context, with a pre-build sequence and a threshold where it becomes redesign.
• The Design
  Design isn't decoration. It's the layer of decisions that determines whether a correctly built piece earns its place in the room.
• The Proportion
  The proportion rules furniture makers actually use for tops, overhangs, legs, rails and cases, and why the golden ratio is not one of them.
• The Leg
  The leg decides whether your furniture looks planted or heavy. Taper, rake, splay, section, and placement: what each does and how to read them before you cut.
• The Case
  Case furniture is a box. The design problem is making it stop reading as one: base treatment, face frames, reveals, and horizontal division.
• The Top
  How to design a tabletop as a proportional decision, not a dimensional afterthought: overhang, thickness, edge treatment, and the shadow line.
• The Surface
  Surface design is the last decision you make and the first thing anyone sees: grain figure, panel composition, sheen level, and color all read as design choices whether you make them deliberately or not.
• The Detail
  Edge treatments, reveals, hardware, backs and feet are where furniture crosses from built to designed.
• The Eye
  The last seven posts weren't a design course.
• The Vocabulary
  Design traditions are decision systems, not aesthetic preferences. Learning one vocabulary deeply is how individual design choices cohere into a whole piece.
• The Mortise
  Why the mortise is proportioned the way it is, what the one-third rule actually protects, and the three ways a mortise joint fails before it ever sees a load.
• The Tenon
  A dimensionally correct tenon can still fail: because fit is a condition, not a measurement. Here's what each surface does and what to check before glue-up.
• The Fit
  Fit is a condition, not a measurement. The palm-pressure standard, the four-shoulder test, dry-fit discipline, and why glue doesn't close a gap: it preserves it.
• The Dovetail Argument
  The dovetail resists tension without glue: here's the angle, baseline, and fitting sequence that makes it work.
• The Dovetail
  The dovetail is a tension-resistance mechanism, not a difficulty credential; what it resists, where that matters, and how to read a clean baseline.
• The Dado
  The dado doesn't fail dramatically: it fails quietly, through three specific mistakes you make before the first cut.
• The Rabbet
  The rabbet solves three caseware problems with one geometry, and the common mistake is cutting it to nominal instead of measured thickness.
• The Lap Joint
  The lap joint: three variants, one depth rule, and the one thing that kills it (a floor that isn't flat).
• The Box Joint
  When a box joint is the right call, when it isn't, and how to keep the jig from ruining your parts.
• The Bridle Joint
  The bridle joint trades concealment for visibility: and that trade has a cost you need to plan for before glue-up.
• The Housed Joint
  The plain dado locates a shelf. The housed joint locks it. Here's the geometry, the fit standard, and when each version earns its setup time.
• The Pocket Hole
  The pocket hole is a shear joint. Use it for shear. Don't use it for withdrawal or seasonal movement: and stop apologizing for it.
• The Wedge
  Three wedge joints: through-wedged, fox-wedged, tusk tenon: and the single critical dimension that keeps each of them from failing.
• The Drawbore
  The drawbore is a self-clamping mortise and tenon: offset holes, a tapered peg, and the joint closes itself. No clamp required.
• The Glue-Up
  Glue-ups fail in staging, not execution: stage everything before the glue comes out, check square after clamping, and leave squeeze-out until it gels.
• The Grammar
  Every furniture joint answers two questions, about the loads it sees and the failure mode it guards against, and answering them selects the joint.
• The Edge
  What sharp actually means, how to diagnose it, and how to stop guessing at the strop.
• The Plane
  The bench plane is a feedback instrument, not a mystery: setup sequence, cap iron adjustment, and shaving diagnostics that tell you what's happening at the iron.
• The Chisel at Work
  The four jobs a chisel does, how to match technique to each, the three rules of paring, a mortise chopping sequence, and how to read the cut surface.
• The Chisel
  Four chisel types and why they're not interchangeable. Back preparation as the one-time structural job. Angle selection by task. The chopping/paring distinction and how mixing them ruins work.
• The Mallet
  Why a wooden mallet works and a hammer doesn't: the physics, the types, and how to pick the right one for the job.
• The Saw
  Task allocation for saws: track saw for rough breakdown, hand saw for joinery, and why the knife wall isn't optional.
• The Square
  Layout is where the work is won or lost. The combination square is four tools, the marking gauge is its necessary partner, and the knife wall is the step everyone skips until they stop skipping it.
• The Workbench
  The workbench isn't a tool: it's the holding system every other tool depends on. Get the mass, the vise, the dogs, and the height right, or you're fighting the bench instead of the wood.
• The Clamp
  Clamping decisions belong in the dry-fit, not the glue-up: and the right pressure is less than you think.
• The Arc Close
  The edge comes first.
• The Cold Shop
  What cold does to glue, finish and stock in an unheated or intermittently heated shop, which operations care, and how to schedule the work by season.
• The Tool Wall
  A three-orbit framework for tool storage (bench, wall, cabinet), why French cleat beats pegboard, and what an unused tool on the wall tells you.
• The Sharpening Station
  A dedicated sharpening station reduces friction enough that sharpening actually happens when it should: not forty minutes too late.
• The Lumber Stack
  How to store lumber so it is ready at the bench: where the stack lives, how to sticker it, how to mark every board, and why not to mill early.
• The Finishing Area
  Finishing failures usually trace to shop conditions (dust, light and temperature) rather than technique, and this note sets out what a finishing zone needs.
• The Dust Solution
  The shop vac is not a dust collection system.
• The Power Tool Relationship
  Power tools do dimensioning and hand tools do fitting, and knowing where one hands off to the other is what makes a shop fast.
• The Shop Arc Close
  Eight posts.
• The Brief
  How to run a commission brief: the five things to learn before leaving the client, the promises not to make, and what to confirm in writing.
• The Material Conversation
  Have the wood movement conversation with your client before you start cutting. Five minutes now prevents a confused phone call twelve months later.
• The Budget
  How to price a commission as a whole job: hidden friction time, a separate design fee, and a real deposit.
• The Sample
  Why a finish sample on the actual species matters more than the drawing, when to make one, and how to show it so the client decides before the build.
• The Delivery
  The one-page document that should travel with a delivered commission: species and source, finish and care, wood movement, and the maker's contact details.
• The Commission Close
  Seven posts in this arc.
• The Archive
  Craft rules are compressed history. They survived millennia because not following them produced failures. Before you shortcut one, understand what it was preventing.
• The Shakers
  The Shakers didn't invent good proportion: they refused to bury it under decoration. That reasoning process is worth more than any style guide.
• The Rebellion
  The Arts & Crafts movement got the ethics of materials right and the romanticism about hand-work wrong: here's what actually survives as a working principle.
• The Japanese Room
  Japanese joinery wasn't about virtuosity: it was an engineering response to a different problem. The thing that transfers to Western woodworkers isn't the joints. It's the question behind them.
• The Books
  What Moxon, Roubo, and Krenov each preserved: and the gap that text still hasn't closed after three centuries of trying.
• The Studio
  Maloof, Castle, and Krenov each made the same material work differently: and the line between mastery and expensive frustration is whether your complexity earns its keep.
• The BC Shop
  BC has no furniture tradition like Shaker or Arts & Crafts: but it has boat builders, bigleaf maple, and Okanagan heat cycling. Here's what that inheritance actually means at the bench.
• The History Arc Close
  What knowing the history of furniture making gives a builder, and what it cannot: tested reasoning behind the rules, but not the calibration that only practice earns.
• The Finish
  Choosing a finish is a design decision made before the first cut: what penetrating and film finishes each do, where shellac fits, and how the choice changes the build sequence.
• The Surface
  Surface preparation decides most of a finish result: scraper versus sandpaper, the grit sequence, grain raising, the raking-light test, and the defects no finish can hide.
• The Oil
  What penetrating oils actually are, why the label lies, how to apply them correctly, and why balled-up oily rags burn shops down.
• The Film
  Film finishes compared (shellac, lacquer and polyurethane), the three ways they fail, and a practical default system for a small shop.
• The Stain
  Dye vs. pigment: two different mechanisms, one word on the label. How to handle blotch-prone BC species (cherry, soft maple, alder) and why the test board is not a recommendation but the job.
• The Wax
  What paste wax does and does not do on a wood surface, when to use it alone or over another finish, and how to apply and maintain it.
• The Topcoat
  Choose your topcoat by working backward from the failure mode: use case, species, shop conditions, and skill level in that order.
• The Finishing Sequence
  Finishing decisions come before sanding: a complete sequence for a hard maple hall table, from system selection through documentation.
• The Finishing Arc Close
  A summary of the finishing sequence, from choosing the finish category through prep, oil, film, stain, wax and topcoat, and why the finish reveals every earlier decision.
• The Upholstery
  Upholstery is construction rather than decoration: frame, foundation and cover are three unequal layers, and the fabric is the last decision made.
• The Frame
  Frame assessment before upholstery: four areas to check, four conditions to recognize, and why the frame determines whether the job works.
• The Foundation
  The foundation layer: springs, webbing, foam, batting: is what determines how a piece feels and ages. Get it right before touching the fabric.
• The Fabric Decision
  Upholstery fabric is chosen by durability, real use, construction type and only then color, with notes on pattern repeat yardage, customer's own material, and leather versus fabric.
• The Build
  The upholstery build sequence: strip completely, assess the frame, build the foundation properly, and put the cover fabric on last, working center-out.
• The Fit
  Fitting upholstery fabric is a precision operation: grain alignment, pattern matching, welt bias-cut, and the dry-fit check before the first staple.
• The Season
  Temperature minimums for upholstery work in a BC Interior cycling-heat shop, and how to schedule around them.
• The Upholstery Close
  Here's how most upholstered chairs end up mediocre: someone picks the fabric first.
• The Yellow Cedar
  Yellow cedar is the BC softwood that outperforms its reputation: better stability than most hardwoods, Class 1 durability, and clean workability if you know one prep step.
• The Douglas Fir
  Vertical-grain Douglas Fir is a legitimate furniture material that most BC woodworkers have dismissed because they only know it in framing grade: here's what changes when you ask for the right stuff.
• The Repair
  Why repair teaches what new builds don't, the three failure types (structural, surface, seasonal), and why diagnosis comes before any tool.
• The Diagnosis
  Four questions to answer before any furniture repair begins, plus how to document the piece and test the finish before taking it apart.
• The Glue Line
  How to identify old glue, prep the joint surface, and reglue correctly: because bad surface prep is why most glue repairs fail again.
• The Finish Repair
  How to identify an existing finish with three solvent tests, when to strip versus spot repair, and the repair sequence for each finish type.
• The Inherited Piece
  How to repair a piece that arrives with no history: fix structure and function, match the existing surface, keep what is irreplaceable, and document what you find.
• The Repair Arc Close
  Repair is reading backward from failure to cause: and it's the certification exam for everything else you know.
• The Design Language
  A design tradition is a question system, not a surface style. Knowing the questions lets you make the decisions coherently.
• The MCM
  MCM is the dominant client vocabulary: here's what it actually means, what the proportions require, and the one mistake that kills it.
• The Shaker
  Shaker furniture isn't a visual style: it's a two-question discipline, and most people applying the 'Shaker look' skip the discipline entirely.
• The Scandinavian
  Scandinavian design vocabulary treats comfort as a primary design argument: form follows the body, not the material or the function: and the aesthetic is available to you without Wegner-level compound curves.
• Five Traditions, Five Questions
  Five furniture design traditions, MCM, Shaker, Arts and Crafts, Scandinavian and Wabi-Sabi, read as decision systems, each answering one governing question.
• The Bend
  Steam bending physics, species selection for BC Interior, box setup, four failure modes, and when lamination is the honest answer
• The Box
  How to build a simple steam box, choose a steam source, and run a steam-bending session, including adjustments for a cold BC Interior shop.
• The Form
  The form determines the geometry of every steam bend: build it wrong and the bend is wrong, no matter how good the steam session goes.
• The Part
  Steam bending blank preparation: why sessions fail before the blank enters the box, and what to check before it does.
• The Windsor
  The Windsor chair as the integration test for every skill in the corpus: steam bending, turning, hand tools, compound angles, and finishing all at once.
• The Arc Close
  Steam bending is wood movement used as a capability, not just endured as a constraint: and the Windsor bow proves it.
• The Joint
  A joint answers a structural question: the four questions to ask before choosing one, the four joint families, and how to read a failed joint.
• The Mortise and Tenon
  Why the mortise and tenon is the dominant furniture joint: mechanical argument, proportions, cutting sequence, fitting, and what failure looks like.
• The Dovetail
  The dovetail resists tension: that one fact determines where it belongs, how to cut it, and why it fails.
• The Dado, Rabbet, and Groove
  The dado, rabbet, and groove do most of the work in cabinet construction: here's what governs the specs, where movement becomes critical, and where the family belongs.
• The Hybrid Joints
  Three joints that borrow from two structural families: bridle (open M&T), box joint (geometric finger), sliding dovetail (housing with tension lock): and why each one exists
• The Butt Joint
  The butt joint has zero inherent mechanical resistance: all its strength comes from reinforcement, and reinforcement can be matched precisely to load.
• The Joint Selection Protocol
  The joint is the answer to a question.
• What Finish Is
  Penetrating vs. film-forming finishes: two families, four jobs, and why picking wrong is a category error, not an application error
• The Oil Finishes
  Oil finishes are four distinct products with different chemistry and different jobs: knowing which one you have is the whole game.
• The Waxes and Shellac
  What paste wax does and why it must be the last coat, and how shellac works, including dewaxed shellac as a universal sealer, pound cuts and its limits.
• The Film Finishes
  Film finishes build on top of wood, not inside it: here's what that means for repair, intercoat adhesion, and which product to reach for.
• Surface Prep and Application
  Surface preparation before finishing: reading the surface in raking light, stopping grits by finish type, grain raising, pore filling, washcoats, between-coat sanding and the finishing environment.
• Stain, Dye, and Color
  Pigment and dye color wood by different mechanisms: getting that distinction wrong is where most color problems start.
• The Finish Selection Protocol
  A four-question protocol for selecting the right finish system: in order, with worked examples.
• The Glue-Up
  A glue-up is four decisions in sequence: and by the time you're reaching for clamps, three of them are already made.
• The Adhesives
  Four adhesive families: PVA, hide glue, polyurethane, epoxy: and a four-question selection framework. Choose the adhesive before you cut the joint, not after.
• Surface Preparation for Glue
  The four things a glue surface must have before adhesive goes on: freshness, moisture match, contamination-free, and fitted: plus the dry-fit that confirms all of them.
• Sequence and Staging
  How to plan a complex glue-up: break it into sub-assemblies that fit the glue's open time, stage everything beforehand, and check square and flat before each stage advances.
• Clamping
  Clamps hold pressure: they don't fix bad prep. How to read squeeze-out, choose the right clamp, and stop before you wreck the joint.
• The Glue-Up Protocol
  Five-phase glue-up protocol with gates at each phase: the decision system that makes a glue-up repeatable and recoverable.
• The Hardware Layer
  Hardware is the last craft decision in a build and the one most likely to undo everything else. Two questions, four families, one governing principle.
• Hinges
  The four hinge families and how to choose between them: selection logic before installation technique.
• Drawer Slides
  How to specify drawer slides by family, extension, load rating and gap, why the drawer box is built to the slide gap rather than the opening, and the installation sequence.
• The Drawer Box
  How to build a drawer box correctly: material, joinery, bottom capture, and height: when every dimension is derived from a decision made before the first cut.
• Catches, Stays, and Shelf Pins
  How to choose and install door catches, lid stays and shelf pins, and when each piece of hardware goes in relative to finishing.
• The Installation Sequence
  Hardware installation has a sequence: two phases separated by finishing, then assembly order within Phase 2. Get the order wrong and you're repairing finish.
• The Hardware Protocol
  Hardware failures are almost always specification or sequence failures: here's the four-question protocol that closes those gaps.
• The Pull
  Pulls are a spec decision before they're an aesthetic one: hole spacing is fixed, face length is the variable, and getting that backwards is how you end up filling holes.
• What Sharp Is
  Sharp is geometry, not ritual: two flat surfaces meeting at a precise angle, and everything else follows from understanding that.
• The Back
  Why the back of a chisel or plane iron causes most sharpening trouble, how to test it for flatness, flatten it once and keep it flat.
• The Bevel
  How to hone a bevel correctly: hollow grinds, freehand technique, microbevels, and stropping, with a complete 6-step session protocol.
• Janka Doesn't Mean What You Think It Means
  What the Janka hardness test actually measures, the three failure modes it does not predict, and how to match a species choice to the real failure mode.
• How Many Clamps
  How many clamps a glue-up needs: the pressure target and the spacing rule, why extra clamps do not starve a well-fit joint, and why cauls protect narrow edges.
• What 0.1mm Buys You
  You are planing a curly maple panel with a sharp iron and it is tearing out anyway.
• Screws Into End Grain Don't Hold
  Why screws driven into end grain lose holding power, how density and pilot-hole size change withdrawal strength, and how to move the load into face grain or a mechanical connector.
• Stop Arguing About 25 or 30 Degrees
  Why the primary bevel angle controls only edge clearance and durability on a bevel-down plane but sets the cutting angle on a bevel-up plane.
• Why Two Stones Are Enough
  The two-stone setup always looks like the budget version.
• What Actually Dulls Your Plane Iron
  The edge quit halfway through the board, so you blame the steel.
• What the Strop Is Actually Doing
  You finish on the strop.
• Why Maple Blotches and Oak Doesn't
  Why maple blotches under pigment stain while oak takes it evenly, explained by pore size, and three ways to stain maple evenly.
• The Dovetail Angle Is a Look, Not a Strength
  Every dovetail tutorial hands you the same rule.
• Your Finish Looks Different in the Customer's Kitchen
  You finish a walnut top under the warm bulbs of the shop.
• Why the Old-Timers Used Nails in Chairs
  Why a nail that bends outlasts a stiffer screw in sideways, repeatedly loaded joints like chair rungs, and when the screw still wins.
• You Can't Sand In a Shine
  Why gloss comes from the finish rather than finer sandpaper, the two meanings of depth, and why a rich black cannot also be dead matte.
• The Polyurethane on Your Shelf Isn't Polyurethane
  How brush-on oil-based polyurethane differs from two-part polyurethane in cure, humidity tolerance and isocyanate respiratory hazard.
• What Sanding Does Before the Finish Goes On
  Why to sand a planed surface for tooth under a film finish but go straight to oil under a penetrating finish.
• Why Oil Makes the Figure Jump
  Wipe a rag of oil across a board of curly maple and the figure wakes up.
• Why the Scraper Gets In Where the Plane Can't
  Why a card scraper cuts by compression and so avoids tearout on figured grain where a plane, which cuts by splitting, cannot, plus why a real burnisher matters.
• The First Coat on End Grain Is a Filler
  Why the first coats on end grain act as filler, and how to seal end grain first while handling raised grain and checking.
• When the Wood Poisons the Finish
  You oil a teak bench.
• Which Wood Goes Where in a Mixed Joint
  In a mortise and tenon of two species, make the lower-movement wood the tenon, and change the glue when the orientation cannot be safe.
• Why Shellac Stops the Bleed
  You spray a clean waterborne finish over white oak.
• Satin Won't Stay Satin
  Why sprayed satin polishes to glossy wear spots on used tabletops, and the two honest options at the sample stage.
• If It Gives You a Rash, It'll Wreck the Oil
  Why woods like cocobolo and the rosewoods that sensitize skin also stall oil finishes, and what to do instead.
• The Plate Was Never the Problem
  Why finish damage on a tabletop comes from grit and small points of contact rather than heavy objects, and what wax actually does.
• Why Old Drawer Boxes Outlast New Ones
  Why paring a dovetail baseline rounds the corner and multiplies the fatigue life of a drawer box compared with a sharp router-cut corner.
• The Case-Side Dovetail That Pops in Summer
  Why deep hardwood shelves in case-side dovetails should be glued only at the front few inches to survive seasonal movement.
• The Drawer That Binds in Summer
  Why a drawer that binds in summer does most of a joint's fatigue damage, and how species pairing and fitting season prevent it.
• The Check in Your Chair
  How summer dehumidification limits checking in a chair, and what to do at each check depth.
• At Sixty-Five Percent, Your PVAc Goes Soft
  Why standard PVAc glue turns rubbery and creeps at high humidity, and which glues hold instead.
• Re-Glue in February, Not July
  Why a cracked solid-wood joint should be inspected in summer but re-glued in winter, and when a check needs no repair.
• Finish Repair and Refinishing
  Before you fix a finish, you have to know what it is: three diagnostic tests, the spot-repair vs. full-refinish decision, and the re-coat rules that actually matter.