If you ever get to the point where you think you’ve mastered dovetail joints, think again…

Kintaro Yazawa is a woodworker in Japan. The furniture he builds is both functional and beautiful, but it’s the detail he puts into his joinery that makes his furniture a work of art.

Visit Kintaro’s website to see some of his work.

Here’s a little trick to help make sure wood doesn’t split or crack when you’re nailing it. This trick doesn’t need special nails or equipment, and seems to work well with big nails or small nails.

Ready? Here we go.

• Step 1: Take a nail, turn it upside down
• Step 2: Tap the nail’s pointy end with your hammer

That’s it… Exciting, hey?  You might, however, be pretty surprised at the difference that little trick makes.

Why does it work so well?  With the slightly flattened end, the nail tears through the wood’s fibers rather then forcing them apart.

You can flatten each nail as you use them or, if you have kids, give them a whole box and a little hammer — hours of endless fun. Really.

Woodworkers probably have more tools (toys?) to choose from than any other hobby or craft. The range of jigs and tools designed for a specific need are mindboggling. They’re not cheap, either.

So, needless to say, I hummed and hawed about buying a pocket hole jig for close to a year. When I finally bought one, I wished I hadn’t waited so long.

I looked at several different pocket hole jigs, and decided on Kreg Tool’s K2000 model.

This model comes complete with everything you need to very easily and very quickly do pocket hole joinery.

This was the first time I’d ever attempted pocket hole joints, so to have the jig set up, and a cabinet face frame assembled in less than half an hour was very impressive.

Granted, pocket hole joinery is never going to replace the aesthetics of perfect dovetails or even finger / box joints, but for a solid, “behind the scenes” joint, it’s tough to beat.

And, while you don’t necessarily NEED a jig to create pocket holes, the Kreg K2000 lets you create the holes and joints extremely quickly and accurately. (And I need all the help I can get with the accuracy…)