Skilled woodwork, crafting, and shaping feeds new Owner/Manager Glen Smith’s passion for precision sharpening. His career in maintaining fine tools combines respect for the utility and value of metal tools with a love of creating fine products in wood.

For a dedicated woodworker crafting tables, chairs, custom cabinetry and mantles, the goal is excellence. Glen’s love of creating fine wood products drives Glen’s Just Rite Precision Sharpening.

As a youth Glen helped his handyman dad build two family homes. He figured he’d end up building houses himself, but “I was inspired by shop instructors at NDSS senior secondary in Nanaimo. My interests turned to motorbikes, cars, trucks and tools. Planning to become a machinist, I took a Millwright apprenticeship”.

Through his 20’s, Glen was a millwright at BC interior and coastal mills. “I began exploring magazines and books on fine woodworking,” Glen continues. “I was nearly 30 when I enrolled in Forest Products Technology at BCIT, working in UBC-Forintek research into milling and sawing practices. Specializing in maintenance management software, we tested techniques to maximize production and minimize waste, with cut tolerances of thousandths of an inch”.

These skills led to Glen’s qualification as a 3rd Class Power Engineer and Maintenance Superintendent, overseeing skilled trades including saw filers, for Macmillan Bloedel, Weyerhauser, International Forest Products, Mayo Forest Products in Nanaimo, and Chemainus Sawmills. In his leisure time, Glen gathered bargain-priced “off-species” lumber cuts, and crafted fine cedar chests and increasingly complex furniture pieces in his home workshop.

“Sharpening started as a hobby when friends and family brought me scissors, knives, garden tools – even barber tools to sharpen,” Glen grins. “As my career advanced, the blades and tools got much bigger and more complex…I never did play hockey, but I’m proud that many VI recreation facilities trust me to maintain their Zamboni blades”.

Forest industry contraction led Glen to refocus and apply his professional skills and passion closer to home, as the founder of Just Rite was retiring. Now, with a new location, new management and new energy, Glen invites you to benefit from his clearly “Just Right” Precision Sharpening skills!