Every Tool's a Hammer Review

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It by Adam Savage Format: Audio Date Read: 10-Feb-20 Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Adam Savage is a nut. Full stop. Of course, that makes for an interesting story. The book is kind of a blend of autobiography and tips for makers. He goes over projects he's been involved with over the years but spends most of his time talking about personal projects and things he's found helpful. So there's precious little here on Myth Busters, etc. This is pretty much focused on the behind-the-scenes stuff. Fairly breezy stuff (to me anyway), but he doesn't drag the book out. The last section is the best where he goes through a lot of material selection choices, tools, and tips. One of the topics he presented really resonated with me: first-order retrievability. In the TV and movie shops where he spent most of his career, time is money in a big way so they spend a lot of time honing their efficiency. With this technique, you arrange your work area so the most frequently needed tools can be just grabbed. No need to move something out of the way, open a drawer, cabinet, whatever. The implementation can take many forms. In one instance, he built a rolling rack so certain tools can be moved around to where he was working (must be nice to have so much space that this is required). Other ideas involve what rates getting hung on close-by walls or similar. I began implementing it immediately in my shop and seems to have made a big impact. Every time you save a step, you're saving two steps and you're back to your work faster and are less likely to forget something in the meantime. I should note that these systems are not static. There isn't one true way to organize anything. What needs to be handy will depend on what you are doing and will likely evolve over time. I've gone through 3 reorganizations of the hanging tool tray over my workbench and each time I get happier with it. 3 or 4 more and it might converge on an optimal solution for the kind of furniture scale work I am doing. One of these days I'll shoot some pictures of it and explain my process. I do like his YouTube channel Adam Savage's Tested. Not every video is worth watching (some topics are more appealing than others) and some that are on a good topic, you don't need to finish. He puts out quite a bit of content, so pick and choose as you will. Much of what he does isn't woodworking, but that's OK, at this point, I don't expect some 10 min video to teach me much in that area. However, tips on shop practices and shop work in other areas are quite valuable. Overall the book was interesting, not too long but not too deep either. Really more of a 3 and a half stars book, but I haven't found the right icons, so we'll round up for good old Adam.