The Return of the Box King (And My Brush with Death via Ebony)
At this point in my woodworking career, you’re probably wondering where the hell I’ve been. It’s been a minute since my last post. Did I lose a finger? Did I finally get sucked into a dust collector? No, worse. I had the brilliant, ego-fueled idea to gather up all my previous blog articles and publish them as an actual, physical book.
And yes, before you ask, you can actually buy it on Amazon. I know. A book. Written by a guy who regularly fights a losing battle against a combination square. If you’ve ever wanted a collection of my finest geometric failures printed on dead trees to prop up a wobbly table leg, your day has arrived.
But once the literary fame failed to instantly change my life, I realized I had to actually go back into the shop and make something. And not a box. Shocking, I know. I decided it was time for my first-ever table build.
The plan was simple enough: a classic contrast piece. A nice, sensible pine base, painted to hide the fact that it’s pine, topped with a gorgeous, dark Ebony slab.
But before I even made my first cut, I had a mid-life woodworking crisis. I went full YouTuber. I bypassed all logic, threw my wallet into a wood chipper, and bought a Festool Domino.
Let me tell you right now: do not listen to the haters. It is everything those heavily sponsored influencers say it is. It aligns joints so perfectly it almost makes me look like I know what I'm doing. It feels like cheating, which is exactly my preferred method of woodworking. If loving a ridiculously expensive German mortising tool is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
With my new green-and-grey savior in hand, I tackled the top.
Here is a fun fact about Ebony: it is a stunning, deeply sophisticated wood. Here is another fact: it is HEAVY, and I am old. My spine registry officially logged several complaints just moving the slab onto the workbench.
To make matters worse, the wood decided to live up to my business name and warped.
Now, a smart woodworker would have used a jointer, a planer, or maybe a sled. But since I lack both patience and a functional self-preservation instinct, I decided to do some incredibly sketchy shit. I took this massive, warped, heavy-as-sin slab to the table saw.
The plan? Cut partway through on the table saw, then finish the rest safely with a hand saw.
The reality? The blade got pinched. Time stood still. As the motor groaned, my entire life flashed before my eyes. Specifically, I pictured the exact conversation I’d have to have with my wife in the ER, attempting to explain why I had a large, expensive piece of exotic African hardwood deeply embedded in my stomach because I was too lazy to prep a board correctly.
"But honey, look at the grain continuity on my new torso extension!"
Miraculously, I lived. The kickback gods smiled upon my ignorance, the blade stopped, and I finished the cut with a hand saw, sweating pure adrenaline. In the end, the table actually came out decent for a first try. It’s flat, it stands on its own, and it contains 0% human flesh. I'm calling it a massive win.
Because I apparently didn't mix enough high-tech machinery with questionable decision-making, I also decided to experiment with the Shaper Origin. I used it to cut a pattern box.
Yes, I know. A box. I physically cannot stop myself. Even when I have an augmented-reality hand router capable of cutting intricate CNC patterns, my brain just defaults back to "make four sides and a lid."
It was purely an experiment, but it was incredibly fun to play with. Will it finally be the perfect, truly square box? Probably not. But at least this time, if it leans to the left, I can blame the software.
