I’d really love to start making something, even if it’s basic. Any tips on where to start? Tools, wood, etc?
I’d recommend the following set of tools:
- Cordless drill (any major brand is fine, I like Milwaukee)
- Hand pull saw (whatever is fine)
- Set of decent chisels (Narex is great value)
- Corded circular saw (Makita 5007F is a great choice)
- Random orbital sander (DeWalt has some fairly good budget models)
- Clamps, clamps, more clamps
Most of all though, get good wood. I actually strongly recommend starting with plywood primarily if you don’t have access to quality lumber since you won’t have to do any surfacing.
Unless you’re going the hand tool purist route, the table saw is IMO the central tool in the shop. It can rip, cross-cut, and cut joinery like dados and tenons. So you want a good one with a solid fence that won’t frustrate you. I haven’t been in the market for one in a while, so my suggestions will be out of date, but I’m sure others here can help you.
When you’re starting out you’ll probably be buying your wood S4S: surfaced four sides, so it’s smooth and pretty much ready to go. This is how all the wood at the big-box hardware stores comes. Wood from specialty dealers will come rough, and you can surface it yourself with the right tools ($$$) or have them do it for you for a fee ($).
It’s probably best to start with a project in mind, even if it’s shop shelving or something that doesn’t have to be heirloom-quality.
Books helped me learn a lot about joints during my foray into ww 🪵 check out your local library. Good luck!
If your local library is no good, you can also try Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=woodworking. Has an exhaustively detailed book on joints in particular, plus an assortment of beginners’ manuals. A lot of hand tool stuff hasn’t changed all that much in the past century.
If you are in the US, don’t trust any dimensions for wood. Buy a cheap caliper and measure to confirm. Personally, I prefer to work in metric to resist the urge to round to a nice fraction. That being said, measurements are always relative and wood is very forgiving so keep a few offcuts labeled and stored away to use as a reference.
As far as tools go: a cheap pull saw, square, hammer, and a steel straight edge will get you started. Harbor freight has some cheap entry level tools worth buying once to learn on. A drill would be my first power tool purchase if you don’t have one.
I sprang for a starrett combination square when I began my woodworking journey and it’s probably the single most useful tool I own.
It’s not necessary to have a square that precise, but knowing one part of the process is dead square is handy for figuring out where error comes from when there are issues
On a related note, anyone got any tips on the design process? Do you guys just try to copy things that catch your eye or how do you choose what to make?
It’s not that difficult to find plans available either for free or for sale on the internet, though I have yet to build a furniture project straight from plans. I’ll usually come up with something I want to build, and I’ll look at pictures, watch build videos, maybe find plans, and then I’ll design my own version in FreeCAD.
I tend to start in the spreadsheet workbench and list things like stock dimensions, pertinent detail dimensions and such, derive certain dimensions, I like to keep as much math in the spreadsheet as possible, and then I use the sketch > Part Design workflow to create the parts and the A2Plus workbench to assemble them. Creating a 3D model is often a sanity check to make sure all the parts fit together, I sometimes don’t bother to model all parts or I’ll only do half of a symmetrical assembly. I used to make drawings to print with the TechDraw workbench but for my purposes in the shop I stopped doing this as I would just work from the spreadsheet. If I was sharing my plans with others I would make more careful drawings.
This of course allows you to tailor the work to your space and you.
The easiest way to learn how to design furniture is to copy existing designs, then tweak them slightly to better fit your style. After a while, you’ll learn how to incorporate different designs into a nearly original piece.
Copy copy copy until you understand what you like, and what works functionally.
