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I have this cardboard box under the worktable. It's been there maybe twelve years now. Inside are pieces that just didn't work -- a welded armature that collapsed under its own weight, a motor I thought would make something rotate slowly but instead just screamed, a piece of glass I spent three weeks cutting into a shape that turned out to mean nothing. I can't throw them out. Not because I'll use them someday, most of them are useless. But when something new isn't working, I go to the box. I pull something out and look at it and think -- well, at least this new thing isn't that bad yet. It's a floor, not a ceiling. Keeps me from panicking. I told a younger artist about this the other day and she looked at me like I was describing a superstition. Maybe it is. But the box stays.

I've got a 1-inch gouge I bought secondhand in 1998 for eight bucks. The handle is worn down to the tang from years of tapping and mallet work. I've resharpened it so many times the blade is two-thirds what it was. And it still cuts cleaner than any of the Japanese steel I've tried since. Everyone wants to sell you a better tool. But a tool you've worn in with your own hands for two decades knows something a new one doesn't. You can feel it through the handle before the edge even touches the stone. Probably sounds like superstition to anyone under 30. But I know old fabricators who say the same thing about their hammers, their trowels, their welding clamps. The tool gets old with you.