I’m in the process of building some cabinets, and yesterday I was working on the drawers. I decided to use shellac as the finish for the drawer interiors. Never used it before, but heard that it applies easy, cures fast, and is generally more pleasant to work with than harsh chemical urethanes. It has the consistency and properties of other synthetic resins, but is totally organic — actually secreted naturally by the lac bug.

How it’s made is a marvel of human discovery, tinkering, and problem-solving, and also nature’s incredibly weird...

I’ve been home the past couple days to attend to some projects — getting an aluminum patio cover installed and having shutters put in on most of the windows. My time’s been occupied by holiday season preparation, general housecleaning, and shuttling the kids to their activities. In the downtime I’ve dropped back into a few of my favorite tool restoration YouTube channels to see what’s new.

I watched this great new one from Black Beard Projects where he restores a 1950s-era bench grinder. Degreaser, paint stripper, electrolysis, and a load of elbow grease convert this thing back into a fully...