Corbett Lumber Company ltd.

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01/13/2026

Will be out of the shop this week due to family health issues

01/09/2026

Someone recently asked what kind of jobs I’ve been working on lately, and after telling them this was my first week back in the shop- I realized that I never showed the last project I had worked on, so here it is, king sized elm beds made from a chicken scratch drawing.
I learned a lot working with elm, I had only ever used it one time before on a decorative box for my mother. It is a more difficult wood I found out, some people call it squirrelly because it seems to warp an twist a lot and on top of that it’s grain seems to almost wrap around itself making planning and even hand plane use dangerous due to tear outs! But I’m always up for a good excuse to buy a new tool so I bought the cabinet scraper.
Two beds were made, I got a really good deal on the elm from for the cabinet scraper from and the colour was a wood wax from

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01/07/2026

You ever have a project that you just keep putting off?
I started this oak banister for our home 3 years ago, I even had it clear coated and ready to go… or so I thought.
As soon as I took the rails outside into natural light I saw how the water based clear coat made this red oak look pink, and NOT in fact the matching warm brown of our oak flooring. So I learned a lesson, make test samples for colour, and try them out in your home in different times of day, because shop lighting at 9 pm in winter is pretty deceptive.
So- I milled the all down, and now I’m just getting rid of all the milling marks before I finis the final prep for finishing. Learn from my mistakes so you don’t have to make your own.

01/02/2026

I like having my fingers. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I use mine a lot.

I’ve known and worked with more than a few members of what we call the “nub club”—lost a finger to a table saw, an excavator bucket, even flesh-eating disease. It happens fast.

So when I’m doing something tricky, like cutting coves for mantle arches on the bandsaw, I always start with a plan. Since I’m using a wider blade, I have to make smaller cuts to get the curve I want, but it’s worth it for the control and safety. I let the tool do the work, never force it, and I always keep a push stick handy for those last tricky bits at the end.

01/01/2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

For anyone out there tired of running boards through a planer a dozen times just to get it the thickness you want- don’t.
A much better way if you are able is resawing on a bandsaw, it might feed slower, but you’ll save time in passes in the long run and as well with the many many bags of sawdust and shavings from your planer, on top of that your planer blades will thank you.

12/20/2025

Did I mention we do custom millwork? We’ve helped a number of people with custom hardwood trim, whether it’s matching existing details or creating something completely new.

We’ve also had folks bring in lumber for projects they want to build themselves—they just want it jointed, planed, and ready to use first (usually with a few questions along the way).

If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I’m kind of a big wood nerd. If you’ve got a project in mind and don’t know where to start, shoot me a message.

12/20/2025

It seems counterintuitive that when an awesome tool like a hand plane can’t quite do the job—because of figured wood or interlocking grain—you reach for something that looks less sharp and just drag or push it across the wood, right? But that’s exactly what you do.

For anyone who doesn’t get it yet, I’m talking about card scrapers. These tiny pieces of steel with a slight burr rolled on them. You’d think with tricky grain you’d want to cut cleaner, sharper, maybe with a more aggressive angle. But no—you actually do the opposite (except for the sharp part).

You increase the cutting angle with a plane iron to prevent it from driving down into the grain and tearing it out… or, hear me out—use a card scraper.

12/19/2025

After putting these two boards together, what you can’t see is how I sat there playing with them, clacking them together. When two boards are planed well and flat enough, they create a bit of a vacuum between them and almost stick together. So for about a minute… I just kind of played with them.

It’s moments like this, and projects like this, that make me ask myself questions. Why do I spend so much money on hardwoods when softwoods are so nice to plane and work with? Then the next day, or the next project, I’m working with walnut and thinking, why would anyone work with anything else? Or then I work with something tricky but beautiful and think, it’s so beautiful — why don’t more people utilize this wood?

I guess diversity really is the spice of life. It keeps things in perspective, helps you learn and grow, and builds your mental toolbox, so to speak.

12/18/2025

Your eyes and your hands — the two most important tools you have as a woodworker.

You use your eyes to judge whether something is curved, straight, level, flat, or crowned. Then you use your hands to make it what you want it to be.

On these long walnut boards, I wanted to be absolutely certain that once they were glued together, the panel would lay dead flat. A few planks needed a bit of additional squaring and tuning before glue-up.

Power tools are great for speed and for doing the heavy lifting, but when you need true accuracy and fine control, nothing beats hand tools. There’s no massive blade spinning at thousands of RPM — just you, the tool, and the wood. Yes, it takes longer, but every degree your board edges are out of square is that much more material you’ll have to plane, sand, or thickness after glue-up.

Doing the work now saves time, material, and thickness later.

12/18/2025

Look close you can see the milling marks!
This is elm. It can have beautiful figure when it’s finished, but it can also be a nightmare to hand-plane.

The grain interlocks and changes direction so fast that tear-out is almost guaranteed, even with good technique. Yes, you can solve that with a higher cutting angle, but swapping blades, changing frogs, or regrinding an iron just to deal with one project gets old fast. And then you have to switch it all back.

So instead, I reach for a cabinet scraper.

It works like a card scraper, but on a much bigger scale. On a project this size, a tiny card scraper would wreck your hands and take forever. The cabinet scraper is quick to set up, easy to control, and lets you clean up milling and saw marks without fighting the grain.

Clean surface, no tear-out, and honestly… it’s just fun to make shavings with.

12/18/2025

My carpentry teacher was also a cabinet maker, and when he talked about finishing and joinery I still remember one thing he said. It was something like:

“When you’re framing, you can rush. You can drink your coffee and go go go. But when you’re finishing, that’s when you step back and take deep breaths. Drink some green tea, maybe switch out the rock for some classical, and get yourself into the zone.”

This table is 12.5’ by 5’ of 2” thick black walnut. On a piece like this, these knife-wall inserts can make or break the whole project. Everything has to be perfectly centered and laid out.

So I start with hand tools to establish the line and keep it controlled, and once it’s safe, that’s when I switch to the router.

12/17/2025

When you really think about it, most woodworking is just doing the right steps in the right order.

Want a tabletop? You flatten the boards, get your edges square, glue it up, then you clean it up and start shaping. Most problems show up when you do a correct step in the wrong order, or you’re not sure what the next step even is.

You can learn a ton through trial and error, but you’ll learn faster (and waste less material) by watching good tutorials or reading a solid book.

Anyways, wanna see my router table?

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Rosenort, MB

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