---
title: "Tools and Materials"
url: https://marianasheppard.com/labels/tools-and-materials
description: "What a tool is actually for, what a first kit needs, and keeping an edge worth using."
published: 2026-09-12
updated: 2026-09-12
---

# Tools and Materials

Published 2026-09-12

What a tool is actually for, what a first kit needs, and keeping an edge worth using.

## [What a shim actually does, and why you need more than one](https://marianasheppard.com/journal/what-a-shim-actually-does)

Two tapered shims driven from opposite sides, making a parallel-sided packer of adjustable thickness.

Filed under [Tools and Materials](https://marianasheppard.com/labels/tools-and-materials)

A shim is a thin tapered wedge, and on its own it is nearly useless for the job most people try to do with it. Driven into a gap alone, a single shim does not fill the gap; it fills a triangle. Whatever it is holding ends up tipped by exactly the angle of the taper, which is why a door hung on single shims swings shut on its own and a shelf packed with one sits proud at the front.

[Read the rest of this entry](https://marianasheppard.com/journal/what-a-shim-actually-does)

## [A small tool kit that covers most of a first year](https://marianasheppard.com/journal/a-small-tool-kit-that-covers-most-of-a-first-year)

A short list of tools laid out as they are actually reached for, rather than as a catalogue.

Filed under [Tools and Materials](https://marianasheppard.com/labels/tools-and-materials)

Most first tool kits are bought as a boxed set and half of it is never touched. The tools that actually earn their place are the ones that turn up in nearly every job regardless of what the job is, and there are fewer of them than the box suggests. What follows is a short list, with the reason each one keeps reappearing.

[Read the rest of this entry](https://marianasheppard.com/journal/a-small-tool-kit-that-covers-most-of-a-first-year)

## [Sharpening a chisel on sandpaper and glass](https://marianasheppard.com/journal/sharpening-a-chisel-on-sandpaper-and-glass)

Abrasive sheets on a flat glass plate, worked from coarse to fine in one direction.

Filed under [Tools and Materials](https://marianasheppard.com/labels/tools-and-materials)

A sharp edge is two flat surfaces meeting, and sharpening is the business of making both of them flat and making them meet cleanly. Nothing else in the process matters as much as that, which is why sharpening on abrasive paper stuck to a piece of flat glass works as well as it does. The glass supplies the flatness; the paper supplies the cut.

[Read the rest of this entry](https://marianasheppard.com/journal/sharpening-a-chisel-on-sandpaper-and-glass)