As someone who dabbles in woodwork, I can highly recommend it as a hobby.<p>Exercising the brain in any new problem domain can often be rewarding in itself, but it's a nice opportunity to blend engineering, practicality, creativity, usefulness.<p>From TFA, I'm (also) surprised that end-grain screws worked at all well. I appreciate the author was trying to minimise variation between the components, but for end-grain I'd use a much deeper thread, as screwing into end grain is often compared to joining into the end of a bunch of drinking straws. Not that I'd ever screw into end-grain. ;)<p>Similarly, the makeshift pocket hole jointer isn't clear from the pictures how they got a recessed hole (commercial pocket hole devices use a t-shaped drill bit, and do not drill all the way through the piece). The recommended bits for pocket holes also have a threadless shaft near the head, so the two pieces pull tightly together.<p>Which leads to the lack of glue in many of those photos. I grew up hearing (but not really believing) phrases like 'the nails are only there to hold it until the glue dries'. Wood glue technology is amazing -- when they say on the bottle 'stronger than wood' they aren't joking. I'd expect to use a <i>lot</i> more glue than shown, and have it significantly affect the results.