Introducing the Rockler Woodworking Blog

Welcome to the Rockler Woodworking Blog! The goal of the Rockler Woodworking Blog is to give you the most up to date and important information we come across in a day’s work here at Rockler Woodworking and Hardware. In the blog, we’ll touch on a variety of topics, from safety tips and shop advice to information on tools, equipment and supplies that we think will make your shop-time a more rewarding experience. We’ll also keep you up to date on new Rockler products, events, news and in-store demonstrations. For us, the Rockler Blog will be a success if the information you find here helps you become a more efficient, confident and creative woodworker.

How the Blog got its Start –

One of the great things about working at Rockler is spending every workday among a group of truly dedicated woodworkers.  At Rockler, it seems that everywhere you turn, you find someone with an expert’s experience in some facet of craft.  And as you might expect, every day you’ll find someone who’s bringing up some technique they’ve discovered to make their woodworking projects go a little easier, or a tool that’s made their work a little more precise.

The best thing is that Rockler woodworkers don’t think of themselves as the “last word” on this procedure or that technique.  We all know that woodworking is a continual learning experience, and that the best way to improve your craft is to keep your ear to the ground and listen to what other people who’ve been at it for a while have to say. 

We’ve all found the exchange of ideas here at Rockler very helpful in our own woodworking.  Now we’d like to share our some of our ongoing conversation with you -- and hopefully broaden it with the knowledge you’ve gained in your woodworking experience.  So we started the Rockler Woodworking Blog as a forum for our collective woodworking insights and the helpful tips we’ve picked up along the way.  And we look forward to hearing your comments and perspectives as well, to add to the lively discussion that’s already underway.

Rockler Woodworking Blog Contributors

The Rockler Woodworking Blog contributors represent just a cross section of the of the many woodworking enthusiasts here at Rockler Woodworking and Hardware.  Our contributors come from across the company, and have varied woodworking backgrounds.  We think we have just about all of the bases covered, with woodworkers interested in and experienced in everything from sculpture to fine furniture to trim carpentry.  We’d like to introduce a few of the many woodworkers at Rockler who’ll be sharing their experience with you, and are anxious to hear your input on their favorite topics.

Jim Carroll

Jim is Rockler’s Retail Operations Director.  He’s also a member of the Rockler Tool and Equipment Design Team, where he puts his 30-plus years of woodworking experience to work designing tools and equipment that help make your woodworking more efficient and creative. With Jim, it’s a package deal – Jim’s wife Kathy and daughter Erin are both woodworkers.  A family outing in the Carroll household involves taking their work to shows across the Midwest.

Jim is an accomplished box-maker and a wood turner (although he’s quick to add that a few of his bowls have turned out to be plates – the wood has a mind of its own, he says). Jim prefers woods that he hand-selects for their natural color and figure, and has considerable experience bringing that aspect out in his finishing work. If you ask him what’s important in woodworking, one of the first things he’ll say is, “understanding the entire process and being able to visualize not only the finished piece, but every step along the way.”  

Carl Christensen

Carl works as an Internet Content Editor for the Rockler.com Website (which explains his election to the post of Rockler Woodworking Blog Administrator).  He first got serious about woodworking in graduate school, where an instructor introduced him to the potential of wood construction and carving as an avenue for creative expression.  Over much of the fifteen years since, Carl’s earned his living as a woodworker and has maintained his involvement in woodworking as a form of visual art.

Carl’s background has given him a taste of a variety of woodworking techniques.  But one fact that many of us have learned has stayed consistent.  Whether its time spent practicing and reading up on a new technique, or a little financial pain over certain tool purchases, making the biggest initial investment possible has turned out to be the least expensive and most efficient way to expand his woodworking repertoire.  “I’ve never once thought: ‘I wish I hadn’t wasted all that time learning how the experts do this,’ or ‘Why, oh why, didn’t I buy the cheaper model!’

Steve Krohmer

Steve Krohmer is Vice President of New Product Development at Rockler Woodworking and Hardware. Steve’s involvement in woodworking stretches back over 30 years, beginning with his tenure at the country’s largest hardwood lumber supplier, where he gained a detailed knowledge of the hardwood lumber trade. For several years, Steve was an editor for Woodsmith Magazine, and later he started and managed the store division for Woodsmith. For the last 16 years, Steve has been involved in purchasing, merchandising, and product development at Rockler. With a vast knowledge of woodworking materials, tools and equipment at his disposal, Steve now devotes his time to developing proprietary tool, equipment, and hardware solutions for a broad range of woodworking applications.

Steve’s in-depth knowledge of woodworking processes and his longstanding involvement tool and equipment evaluation, design, and production make it possible for him to understand the mechanics of woodworking procedures in detail, and to zero in on the most important and useful qualities of the tools and equipment that make today’s precision woodworking possible.  As the saying goes, there’s no substitute for experience, and Steve has devoted years to “getting inside the head” of woodworkers who’s livelihood often depends on the availability of tools, equipment, and supplies that work the way they need them to, and make their work as efficient and accurate as possible.  

John Kelliher

John has been with Rockler 25 years working as the Art Director and  an illustrator for Today's Woodworker  and Woodworker's Journal  magazines, as well directing the company's creative and advertising departments. He fell in love with woodworking while taking it as an elective in college. John views working wood as another creative outlet and as a means of producing useful furniture and cabinetry. His experience with straightforward woodworking projects has been satisfying, but he prefers projects that call on his experience as a visual designer.  Many times, he develops an interest in the natural beauty of the materials for a project before he has a particular outcome in mind —taking design cues from the shape or pattern of a piece of wood that’s caught his attention. 

John favors the same flexibility when it comes to tools and methods and enjoys the theraputic aspect of working wood by hand.  Though he began  with a commitment to traditional hand-tool techniques, he says that over the years developing an appreciation for power tools helps him realize his ideas more quickly.  Whether he’s hand cutting a joint to get just the shape and proportion he’s looking for, or using a plunge router to hog out the mortise for a butterfly key, the point is always to use the method or tool that will most efficiently produce the best finished result. 

Bill Richard

Bill is Rockler’s Training and Development Director.  Training and education in woodworking is nothing new to Bill -- he’s not only actively engaged in educating his sons Patrick and Tuckers in the craft, but for the ten years he’s spent as a woodworking instructor, he’s also been helping other young woodworkers develop their abilities.  A self-confessed tool addict, Bill has an appreciation of the attention to quality that went into the vintage tools he collects, and has an equal esteem for useful innovations and improvements to newer tools that keep making his woodworking more efficient and satisfying.

Bill’s own woodworking is pragmatic.  He gets the most satisfaction out of building well-designed, useful furniture and cabinets.  And he’s always on the lookout for techniques that make his woodworking more efficient.  Bill likes to consistently expand his woodworking horizons, and if there’s a new jig out there – one that really works and makes a process he’s interested in easier or produces more accurate results -- he probably owns it, and what’s more, he’s likely to tell you about it.Bill Richard

Glenn Snyder

Glenn is Rockler’s Merchandise Presentation Manager, which means he’s responsible for getting the best tools and products into the Rockler Retail stores, and making sure the store space is used to the best advantage of it’s patrons.  Glenn’s been interested in woodworking most of his life, but got serious about the craft eight years ago when he started with Rockler.  Glenn’s another example of how an interest in woodworking tends to run in the family – Glenn’s daughter Britney is developing her skills as a woodworker, and his sons Brian and Brandon both work in Rockler’s call center.

Glenn’s woodworking interests are broad.  To go along with his interest in turning and cabinetry, Glenn’s enjoyed a long tenure as the quilt frame designer and builder for his mother Dorothy’s quilting business.  In his work for Rockler, Glenn handles hundreds of woodworking tools and products, and he’s put a good many them to the test in his own woodworking. Over the years Glenn’s tool collection has continued to expand, and he’s seen how having the right tools has increased his woodworking efficiency and precision.  Glenn’s ever-broadening experience with an array of woodworking tools and supplies comes in handy in his own work, but it’s never more important than when he’s putting together just the right balance for one of Rockler’s retail stores.