With sonorous stentorian solemnity I say to myself, “It is in, it is in.”

The complete draft of “To Make As Perfectly As Possible: Roubo on Marquetry”  – 94,000 words of translated Roubo, 350 Roubo illustrations, 15,000 Donwords and well over a hundred photographic images (actually I submitted about a thousand to select from) – now resides on the desk of Monsieur Christophe du Schwarz.  The end is still a long way off, but this is a huge hurdle for everyone involved.

There will be corrections. There will be additions. There will be subtractions. But now we know that there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s hope it is not an oncoming train.

I just spent my first Roubo-free weekend since I can remember. It was very, very nice. I built a Japanese planing beam from a perfect 8×10 southern yellow pine timber out at…