Size is important when it comes to flattening and smoothing your wood. IsGood wWoodworks has a Grizzly 20” helical head planer and a 18” wide belt sander - so what if you need bigger? Buy us a new planer/sander - warning they are not cheap ;-) But we will name the tool in your honour! We have a router sled setup that you can use but its time consuming and messy There’s a few places around the area that have wider sanders (wide planers are pretty rare but the sanders can flatten with low grit paper) or big CNCs - they charge by the hour. Noble Woodworks in Ballard has a 52” sander Mak ..read more

Our address is 4660 E Marginal Way S - but don’t put that address in your GPS or you will end up on one of the busiest road in Seattle with no parking. Instead head to South Alaska St and Ohio Ave S which will bring you to the South East corner of our building. Park along the south side, or if you have materials to unload you can temporarily park at the loading dock. Come in through the back door and IsGood Woodworks will be the first door you see when you come in ..read more

When you join IsGood we will take you to every machine and walk you through how it works, the right techniques to use and how to stay safe. We will demonstrate the correct usage and then ask you to repeat the action. We have a video that reinforces this teaching and we encourage members to always ask us or other members whenever they have a question. Some people learn in classes and others learn in 1 on 1 mentoring. The result is the same we consider you certified for that machine for solo use. But then there is the lathe! Using the lathe isn’t as simple as ‘stand here’, ‘push that button’, ‘h ..read more

It is time to let things change I have reached the age when mortality is a real companion. I am seeking to transform IsGood to a non-profit community asset and step back to a smaller role. My vision for my life’s work is for it to become an enduring community asset: With 1) User ownership 2) A core group to handle general oversight, shop floor management, teaching, and office. 3) a good balance between collective and autonomous decision making. 4) Robust opportunities for small groups to imagine and create exciting innovations and improvements.  This idea has been passed around among seve ..read more

Jointers flatten, Planers thickness, Both smooth wood When it comes to woodworking, there are two popular tools that are used and often get confused with each other: the jointer and the planer. Although they have different purposes, they both play important roles in preparing wood for shop use. .So, what exactly are they and how do they differ? Jointer showing how the wood motion is controlled to make a flat face Planers have the cutter head ABOVE the table. The material is passed through the gap between the table below and the cutter above. The space between is set to a scale with a wheel a ..read more

This short video walks you through the specific way we so the shelf pin holes for our small cabinet made during IsGood’s beginning cabinetmaking class. We have a line drill that can drill 14 pin holes at once, and that would not be the right tool for the job. The cabinet does not have the height for 14 holes and it really looks wrong to run the holes right to the bottom of the cabinet. We instead use the drill to make a jig to drill holes individually. Three is the best number for this little cabinet. Our students are not going to have a line drill, but no worries, they have a choice to sign u ..read more

IsGood Woodworks teaches a unique and very fast method of assembling a table base with fixed legs joined by dominos. We do not use clamps, and instead deploy a very common and inexpensive packing and shipping material to apply the clamping pressure very quickly ..read more

This is IsGood Woodworks own method of quickly edge gluing solid wood to create table tops, door panels, or any other wide solid wood panel you might need. Our edge laminating method produces flat wood panels free of twist with little effort or practice ..read more

The problem: Extension cords come in all different lengths, and every shop needs a good range of sizes. Nobody makes a one size fits all cord holder, so you end up with a messy mass of cords all unwrapped and tangled in the drawer. It can be enough to make your head explode. Here is a very simple extension cord holder that you can make to suit any length in no time at all. We started by cutting lengths of ½” scrap plywood 3” x 12” for the short cords, and 18” for longer cords. Next we drilled 1” holes on the centerline about 4” from each end. Then we set the band saw fence at 1” and cut out t ..read more

Wood is one of the most beautiful natural products that one can build a home with. Whether it is a small outbuilding for guests, a log cabin or a bigger, more ambitious project, the natural texture and pattern of wood makes it a wonderful material for construction. It is strong, robust and naturally occurring too, and a home constructed of wood has a certain allure and attraction that a brick and mortar home simply does not. Maybe you like the rustic appeal or the sustainable properties of wood. Maybe, you just like the aesthetic. It may be that you are embarking on a tiny house project, lik ..read more