Hey, I’m JD. I’m not a professional cabinetmaker and I don’t have a 2,000 sq ft shop with a sliding table saw. What I have is a two-car garage, a bench I built myself, and about fifteen years of figuring things out the hard way — usually by ruining a board or two first.
This site is my workshop notebook, made public. When I build something I write down what worked, what I’d do differently, and which tools actually earned their place on the wall versus the ones that ended up in a drawer. I test gear over months, not one afternoon, because that’s the only way you find out whether a drill’s chuck slips or a sander’s pad delaminates.
Everything here is written by me, from my own bench. If I recommend a tool it’s because I’d hand it to a friend who was just starting out. That’s the whole bar.
How I test
Real projects, real dust. A tool has to survive a full build — not a showroom demo — before it shows up in a review here. I note the annoying stuff most reviews skip: battery runtime on a cold morning, how the thing balances in your hand after an hour, whether the case is worth keeping.
Questions or a build you want me to try? Drop me a line.