These days when my work finds me behind a computer and not in a wood shop, I like to say I have a dusty thumb. It’s mostly only funny to me. What I mean, is it’s been a long time since I made my living in a wood shop, so dusty from the lack of use. But I also mean it as a variation on a gardener’s green thumb.
Woodworkers have dusty thumbs.
Now my hands, my thumbs are soft. When I worked with wood everyday and held the power tools needed to build furniture, my hands were calloused. Didn’t think about it at the time but my hands were tougher than wood. The wood did its best to take notch out but my hands would always bounce back. In all fairness, my hands were living and the wood was not.