A couple of useful tools ...

On the left is a 16 inch Makita beam saw and on the right is a regular 7 1/4 inch blade sidewinder, circular saw. Although the pic saw is around 30 lbs or so, it is relatively easy to handle although a healthy fear and respect for it is always in order.

 


This is a Makita Chain mortiser which is basically a little plunging chainsaw used to create mortises in beams. 

The word of the day ...

Axometric Projection:
There is a good Wikipedia article explaining how a 2d planar model can be rotated along an axes to create a 3d representation. It was interesting to me that this is not how photography or our eyes work and it is one of the methods that MC Escher expoited in his drawings.




 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axonometric_projection