— About the maker

Engineer by day. Sawdust by night.

I'm Matt — a mechanical engineer with a CNC in the garage and a kid at home. Matty Nak Designs is what happens after bedtime.

From the shop
Matt Nakazawa Engineer · Maker · Dad
2017
Started woodworking
2020
First cribbage board
300+
Boards made
Langley, BC
Garage shop

The short version.

My grandfather kept a small woodshop for as long as I knew him — I grew up watching him work. I picked up the tools myself in 2017, made my first cribbage board in 2020 as a Christmas gift for my brother, and the side gig grew from there.

Day job: mechanical engineer. I design things for a living, mostly in CAD, mostly in front of a screen. The shop started because I'd grown up around one — grandpa's, full of clamps and shavings — and I wanted something I could actually hold at the end of the week.

A few hundred boards later, this is what it's become: cribbage boards, charcuterie blanks, the occasional realtor closing-gift run. Still evenings and weekends, after bedtime. I keep my day job; you get a piece made slowly, by someone who cares enough to do it that way.

"I'd rather lose the job than send a piece I wouldn't keep myself."

Outside the shop and the day job: dad, partner to Megan, Langley local. The shop is in the garage. The garage is in the house. That's about it.

If any of this sounds like your kind of shop, let's make something.

Browse the catalogue if you know what you want. Send a custom inquiry if you don't. Either way I'll be in touch.

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