Beginner

Jeffwasserman | Posted in New To Woodworking on July 24, 2015 07:26am

I am brand new to the area of working with wood. My total exoerience with woodworking is cutting cords of wood for winter, and mabe one or two small projects. So I have a question for all those that have been doing this awhile. My train of thiught is to start out with hand tools and then later move on to equioment like table saws and the like. I have plenty of sites recounding the first basic hand tools that I should get, they however tell us to by the vintage tools like block planers and refurbish them. I am still discovering theat wood has grain and that it changes depending on the weather. I am real knowledge about tools, aircraft and vechicle, but when it comes to woodworking tools I am clueless. Can someone please guide my way.

Replies

forrestb | Jul 25, 2015 12:15pm | #1
Beginner

I believe that you are on the right tracl by getting on FWW.

You might watch the Getting Started videos, Seasons 1-3, even they do talk power tools, too.

http://www.startwoodworking.com/getting-started/season-one

And the FWW site has lots of cool videos on how-to. Many are free, some require an online membership.

https://www.finewoodworking.com/pages/fw_feat_onlex.asp

Forrest
mikaol | Mar 02, 2020 06:36pm | #2
Foremost, don't bury yourself in debt. You might try looking at off-brand tools. You don't have to be a brand-name snob to get good tools. I have a Delta drill press and Wen table plane I bought in 2005 for about a hundred bucks apiece and they still works well.
But, and I can't stress this loudly enough, if you can afford top of the line go for it. You can't beat quality.
You mentioned saws. I'm on retirement income or I'd own a SawStop table saw. But my old Firestorm 10" is still holding up after 11 years.
One last thing I'd suggest, can you get replacement parts or upgrades for a machine you buy? Example, It's a minor thing but I can't find a 'zero clearance' insert for my table saw.
So, look around. The web's full of places to find tools. I got a great sliding miter saw on Harbor Freight.com.
Whatever you do, do research, research, research first.
Good luck,
Mikaol
stantheman | Mar 03, 2020 10:33am | #3
Forrest. A few thoughts here. When I first started many years ago, I was excited about a new hobby and got a bunch of tools without really knowing what I wanted to make. But I wish I had been more realistic about time. With kids, family, a house and two jobs, I was lucky if I got an hour or two per week of shoptime. Much of that was used cleaning up. My output was meagre and a lot of those tools just sat around for months. Like most of the w-workers I know, I started with power tools, augmented by hand tools, in order to save time. It takes forever to do some things by hand, and if you cant actually finish a project in a satisfying amount of time, its harder to justify an expensive hobby. I found a lot of good quality power and hand tools at garage and estate sales, that makes it easier.
But even more importantly, you need to learn about safety. As in safe operation of tools, both power and hand tools. You can hurt yourself pretty badly, even with hand tools, without some attention to safety equipment and how to manage tools. Secondly, learn about dust control. Whatever shop environment you have, you have to manage dust or you will endanger your health and maybe make a whole house dust problem. You have to think about safety and dust control with every operation you do.
DRBWWing | Mar 03, 2020 10:41am | #4
Yes you are in the right place! I agree the video archive on FWW is very good. Watching masters build projects can be intimidating, but also very instructive.

Also the "University of YouTube" has many excellent ww'ers (and some not so good).

The only ww'ing machine I would ever buy from Harbor Freight is the 6x9 sander. Air tools are ok. Hand tools are junk. Aluminum bar clamps and smaller F clamps and moving blankets are a bargain. ;-)
joeleonetti | Mar 06, 2020 02:54pm | #5
I am 4 years into my woodworking. I went the hand tool route and start by purchasing S4S dimensioned wood. In terms of how to, I highly recommend Paul Sellers videos on YouTube. He gives solid advice based on 55 years of doing it as his career.

He has a website dedicated to helping folks find affordable new and used tools so you don't spend a fortune to start doing projects. It is called Common Woodworking. It is free but to access some of the info you need to register.
sprucecarver | Mar 06, 2020 04:08pm | #6
A lot of good advice here. I think the first thing you need to know is how much free time you have to spend on this. After that, decide what you want to make first and research it enough to get a sense of what tools are absolutely necessary. Then go through the relevant videos online both here on FWW and on YouTube. (On YouTube, you need to be able to sort out the people who actually know what they're talking about and those who don't as both types post there). Paul Sellers has great information as do others, I would hate to try and put together a complete list, but most of those who write for this magazine would be on it.

If there is a woodworking guild or association in your area with a shop for members to use you could try learning from a group like that.

As far as hand tools, I find that it's really a question of money versus "sweat equity". There are a lot of vintage tools that can be restored to work really well. If you want to restore tools, go for it. There are also premium tools being made today that work "out of the box" with little more than light honing. It's a question of how you want to spend your time and your money.

When you start looking at machine tools, a good jointer and a decent planer (even a so called "lunchbox" planer) can really take the drudgery out of preparing stock. You need to understand that a jointer can make a surface (0r edge) flat, and that's necessary before using a planer if you want flat stock at a desired thickness. Planers make wood thinner, but to make it thinner and flat, you need the side that's running on the planer's bed to be flat.