The curious machinist who writes about how things actually get made.
Hi, I'm Mark. I split my time between a workshop, a shop floor and a keyboard — chasing the small, sharp ideas that connect how we build, what we buy, and how we play.
A workshop bench, a stockroom scanner, and a long-running question about how modern life is actually built.
I grew up in a small town in North Brabant with a father who ran a one-man machine shop and a mother who spent twenty years behind the till at a family-run toy store. By the time I was twelve I could change a collet, read a vernier, and argue confidently about the merits of a good marble run. None of that felt unusual. It just felt like life.
What did feel unusual, as I got older, was noticing how rarely the worlds I came from ever talked to each other. A precision-turned brass fitting and the wooden train set it eventually sat inside, made in two different countries by two different companies with two completely different ideas about quality. I kept wanting to draw a line between them. Eventually, I started writing essays to do exactly that.
"I don't think of this site as a niche. I think of it as a permission slip — to look sideways at the things we use every day, and ask how they got here."
Today, markvanderkwaak.com is a long-running notebook about three of the things I care about most: the craft of making things by machine, the strange theatre of selling them, and the quieter, more curious business of play. Sometimes a piece is technical — a teardown of a CNC toolchanger, a side-by-side of budget CNC mills. Sometimes it's a field report from a small shop in Utrecht, or a long read on why the corner toy store is, against all odds, still a data problem.
It's not a hobby blog. It's the second draft of a book I keep refusing to write.
Three commitments that shape every essay I publish.
This isn't a content calendar. It's a small set of rules I hold myself to, so the writing stays useful whether you found me through a Google search on Swiss turning or a late-night click on "why are LEGO boxes heavier than they used to be."
Report from the floor, not the press release.
If I write about a CNC controller, a checkout redesign, or a board game, I've either used it, talked to someone who made it, or read every spec sheet in existence. No vague rephrasing of marketing copy. No listicles written by an LLM that has never touched a tool.
OriginalityShow the seam between the systems.
Manufacturing, retail and play are usually written about as three separate industries. They're not. The same spreadsheet, the same engineering choice, the same supply chain runs through all three. I try to make that visible in every piece.
Cross-disciplineBe useful, then be interesting.
A good essay should leave the reader with something to do, think about, or notice on their next trip to a hardware store, supermarket or game shelf. Curiosity is the hook. Utility is the deal.
Utility firstSeven years, three subjects, one very long list of saved bookmarks.
Engineer by training, shopkeeper by inheritance, writer by stubbornness.
I hold a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from TU Eindhoven and an MSc in Manufacturing Systems from the University of Twente. I've held roles in process engineering at a Dutch contract manufacturer, supply-chain analytics at a regional retailer, and category management for a small specialty toy distributor. None of that is a credential for being interesting — but it does mean I can read a tolerance stack-up and a sell-through report without flinching.
I've spoken at Precisiebeurs, written a monthly column for Vakblad voor de Speelgoedhandel, and contributed features to Cutting Tool Engineering and RetailDetail NL. I sit on the advisory board of a small maker-education nonprofit in Utrecht.
First essay published
A 1,800-word teardown of a budget 3-axis mill, written for nobody in particular, that somehow found an audience of 4,000 machinists by the end of the year.
Retail column begins
Started writing a monthly piece for a Dutch trade magazine covering the strange overlap between shelf psychology and supply chain logistics.
"Play" becomes a beat
Launched a long-running series on the design, manufacture, and retail of board games and construction toys — the part of the site readers now ask about most.
markvanderkwaak.com, v3
A complete rebuild with proper archives, full-text search, and a long-overdue about page — the one you are reading right now.
A small circle of editors, machinists, shopkeepers and game designers I trust to read the first draft.
markvanderkwaak.com is a one-person publication, but it doesn't get made in a vacuum. Every long essay gets read by at least one person whose work I respect and whose worldview I don't share. Here are some of the people who have shaped the writing over the years.
Jelle Bakker
Production lead at a 5-axis job shop in Helmond. Reads every CNC piece for tolerance, safety, and whether I have accidentally invented a process that doesn't exist.