About: The Plan Stack

I’m a novice woodworker. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

I’ve got a garage, a table saw, and a project list longer than the weekends I’ve got to work through it. Like you, I got tired of hunting for something to build on a Saturday morning and landing in an endless loop of pop-up ads, broken links, and “free plans” that want a credit card.

What I’m not a novice at

Engineering. I’ve spent my career around industrial power equipment, where “seems strong enough” isn’t an answer anybody accepts. Every load gets traced to the ground on paper before somebody stands under it, and nothing gets signed off because the drawing looks about right.

So when I started building things out of wood, the same questions showed up out of habit. Where does this load actually go? Can that joint take it in the direction it’s being pulled? What’s this board going to do in February when the shop drops to thirty percent humidity?

Most plans don’t answer any of it. A fair share of them can’t. Shelving with nothing to resist racking. Joints loaded in pure tension. Loft beds held together by optimism and pocket screws.

What I built instead

The Plan Stack is my fix. I build free tools for the projects people actually build. Stairs, decks, shelves. You put in your numbers and you get a dimensioned drawing you can print, a parts list in lengths the lumber yard actually sells, and the code section I used, by number, so you can look it up and check me. Stair layouts run against IRC R311.7. Decks run against DCA 6.

I write the reference material behind the tools too, because a tool is only as good as the numbers inside it. Species strength, lumber grades, wood movement, pilot holes, nails versus screws. Sourced, not remembered.

And when I find a free plan worth building, I still review it and write down what I found. Where the load goes, whether the joinery suits the direction of the force, whether the specified material can do what’s being asked of it. Including when the answer is “this one’s fine, go build it.”

Two things I want to be straight about

I’m not a licensed engineer, and nothing here is a stamped design. What you get is the math, the assumptions I made, and the code I read. You still own the decision. For anything that carries weight over somebody’s head, get a professional to look at it and pull the permit your county asks for.

And I’m still learning the craft. My dovetails are nothing to write home about. The engineering isn’t the part I’m learning.

Check the math. Then cut.