Starting out advice

lostgoat

Hi all,

I have finally gotten time (and a little money) to start my long yearning hobby of woodworking and furniture making. I did it many years ago in school, but life and other things took me away from it.

I am building a little insulated shed where I can work in the warmth (bones are getting older!) and I am going to build a nice workbench etc for myself.

So, basically, as starting out again after all these years, what advice would any of ye more experienced have for me?

Tools? What's crucial? Brands? Mostly hand tools....
But would like a planer/thicknesser - would need to be single phase... or one I can convert.
Books? Saw the Fine Art of Cabinetmaking online, thought it looked good.
Books that give good projects...


Any advice at all?
Thanks all, I love reading the Woodcraft forum and I'm happy now that I can feel in a position to really get involved..

recipio

1. Bigger is better. You will soon find the shed filling up with all kinds of stuff.
2. Avoid cheap tools. Buy once and buy quality. See www.finetools.de for a quality selection.
3. You will need a table saw and planer thicknesser to work with hardwoods - and space to feed the wood in and out. I'd recommend a second hand Scheppach HM260 - the rubber rollers are easy on softwoods.
4. Its nice to have books but in practice I get most of my info on the internet these days. For a basic but comprehensive book ' The technique of furniture making ' by Ernest Joyce is hard to beat.

Best of luck.;)

lostgoat

recipio wrote: »

1. Bigger is better. You will soon find the shed filling up with all kinds of stuff.
2. Avoid cheap tools. Buy once and buy quality. See **** for a quality selection.
3. You will need a table saw and planer thicknesser to work with hardwoods - and space to feed the wood in and out. I'd recommend a second hand Scheppach HM260 - the rubber rollers are easy on softwoods.
4. Its nice to have books but in practice I get most of my info on the internet these days. For a basic but comprehensive book ' The technique of furniture making ' by Ernest Joyce is hard to beat.

Best of luck.;)

Hi Recipio,

Thanks for the reply.

Okay. So, from what I'm seeing, is that I need quality tools, but these are very expensive.

If you had to buy the least amount of tools first, of great quality, in one week, without giving your bank account a stroke... What would they be? And a brand. Second hand also. I'm not being lazy or anything, but I have drooled over tools for a long time, with great intentions.. But advice from those in the know is worth more than anything.

To make basic furniture, tables, boxes, dressers, etc.

Saws:

Chisels:

Planes:

Marking:


What models/sizes are essential, what brand and where to get. Do you have experience with this tool/brand?

Thanks

recipio

lostgoat wrote: »

Hi Recipio,

Thanks for the reply.

Okay. So, from what I'm seeing, is that I need quality tools, but these are very expensive.

If you had to buy the least amount of tools first, of great quality, in one week, without giving your bank account a stroke... What would they be? And a brand. Second hand also. I'm not being lazy or anything, but I have drooled over tools for a long time, with great intentions.. But advice from those in the know is worth more than anything.

To make basic furniture, tables, boxes, dressers, etc.

Saws:

Chisels:

Planes:

Marking:


What models/sizes are essential, what brand and where to get. Do you have experience with this tool/brand?

Thanks

Umm.... only you can make up your shopping list. There is no universal brand that suits everybody but there are brands that suit you particularly and it is up to you to do your own research. Most of the tools available in Irish shops will be from China so I avoid them and concentrate on the mail order market. The online shops now offer good value so browse www.axminster.co.uk amongst others.
We all start out with memories of honest toil with hand tools but the truth is that power tools do very accurate work in a fraction of the time.
For me, a 10" miter saw would be my first purchase but I would take out the plastic insert in the base and insert a zero clearance ply base and a 12 mm ply fence which makes the saw a lot safer.
You will need to ripsaw timber and the absolute budget option is to buy a mitre saw with a table on top unless you have the funds for a decent table saw.
There seems to be a lot of interest in second hand tools now but I've looked at them in auctions and they are mostly clapped out and beyond saving - but keep browsing.!
The only exception I've found recently to all of the above is a line of hand planes called quangsheng - made in China but of superb quality. Available from www.workshopheaven.co.uk . There's always an exception.:rolleyes:
I often wonder why I didn't take up a cheap hobby like golf......too late now.:D

Sparks

From one total newbie to another, don't buy new except for power tools. Old stanley and record hand tools on ebay are way better value for money, especially if you buy lots - as in, a job lot, not a large number (I bought the contents of a retiring shipbuilder's toolchest for about fifty quid when I started and got three planes, a marking gauge, some chisels and a few other bits and pieces).

Screwfix.ie were pretty good for me for buying power tools (of the hand tool variety like routers and circular saws). Keep an eye on its.co.uk for sales as well though (I got four diamond sharpening plates, the 8"x3" variety, there for ten sterling apiece a fortnight ago). And those I tend to buy new because sharp spinning metal near my fingers makes me a little wary

But most of my tools have come from ebay and are older than RTE. There are a lot of guides to buying second-hand woodworking hand tools on the net (little things like never buying tools from Irwin and never buying the handyman range from stanley, right out to how-to-date-your-weird-esoteric-hand-plane guides). Read those, then go set up some searches on ebay.co.uk (and only search the UK in those searches), and use addresspal to ship them from the UK to here (because up to 20kg, addresspal will ship them for €3.50 and they give you a mainland UK address to use which I don't think parcelmotel have yet). I do have some new stuff (japanese handsaws and a nice veritas marking gauge and small stuff like that), but most of it is second-hand stuff from the 1950s and earlier. Hell, there's a Diston and an S&J saw in a box here waiting to be refurbished that date from the 1880s or so, and they cost less than a new saw would have cost me in woodies (granted, I will need the saw file to sharpen them which brings the price back up to parity with woodies, but still, quality's way better).

Lastly, be warned that buying planes is addictive. You just need three for hand tool only work (a jointer, a jack and a block), but somehow I've wound up with somewhere around 25 of the things now.

Sparks

recipio wrote: »

We all start out with memories of honest toil with hand tools but the truth is that power tools do very accurate work in a fraction of the time.

True, but some of us are doing this in an 8x6 shed in the back garden (not much room there for a bandsaw, table saw, router table, jointer and planer). Besides, sometimes that toil is a cathartic release from the day job

Wossack

Im in a similar boat I reckon. Working out of my garage, with my workbench 80% complete now

I would suggest putting a plan together about how you're going to make your work bench, and work out exactly what tools that will require, and start with just acquiring them

YMMV, but mine needed (Paul Sellers style joiners bench):
Combination square
Combination/mortice gauge
Measuring tape
Marking knife
Sharpening kit
No4 hand plane
Bevel edge chisels. I only needed the 1", 3/4", 1/2", 3/8" from my set of 6
Chisel hammer (nylon + rubber faced)
Tenon saw
Stanley hardpoint crosscut saw (cheapy fella)
Mill saw file (single cut)
Sandpaper (roll of 120 grit and 240 grit)
Brace + bits
Sash clamps - Ive 6 pairs of heads. Biggest span Ive needed has been ~2 1/2 foot so far
Ive also 6 cheapy Aldi quick clamps (2x 1', 4x 2')
PVA glue

Have heaps more tools, but I think thats the bare minimum I needed for the bench to date

Wossack

Sorry just in addition, I decided I just dont have the space for any large machinery. With the planer / thicknesser its likely you'll need dust extraction, for example. If you're dead set, make sure your shed floor will be able to take the weight of the machinery (and double the area of it if possible..!)

Sparks

Not sure the chisels have to be bevel-edged for that bench build if you didn't already have them Wossack (I bought a set of three firmer chisels by footprint off ebay for €5.80 and they've done grand work on the bench build so far, and it's four mortice&tenon joints away from being done now).
I mean, if you already have a set, they're grand, but if you were buying tools to build the bench, I'd just buy firmer chisels off ebay because you'll get great steel in an old-fashioned chisel for pennies. The footprint make are pretty decent by all accounts, but anything from sheffield is probably grand. And once you have the bench built, start looking at the Ashley Iles round-backed dovetail chisels and drooling...

recipio

I probably came the heavy on Irish shops above and you will be fine with most tools that don't have a cutting edge. I just think the steel in Chinese chisels etc is too soft. The German brand CK is available in some shops and is excellent. Otherwise a set of wooden handled chisels by Narex, made in the Czech Republic is good to have. Sharpening is also a skill that has to be cultivated but everyone to their own.;)

Sparks

Also, thanks a whole bunch lostgoat, this thread made me think and then I went and totted up how much I've spent on tools since starting this back in February.
And then I had to sit down and have a stiff drink
Sodding tools

Wossack

Sparks wrote: »

Not sure the chisels have to be bevel-edged for that bench build if you didn't already have them Wossack (I bought a set of three firmer chisels by footprint off ebay for €5.80 and they've done grand work on the bench build so far, and it's four mortice&tenon joints away from being done now).
I mean, if you already have a set, they're grand, but if you were buying tools to build the bench, I'd just buy firmer chisels off ebay because you'll get great steel in an old-fashioned chisel for pennies. The footprint make are pretty decent by all accounts, but anything from sheffield is probably grand. And once you have the bench built, start looking at the Ashley Iles round-backed dovetail chisels and drooling...

firmer chisels are the more specialised ones (afaik), so I'd put them down the shopping list personally. Bevel edge can do everything a firmer/mortice can do, but dont think the same can be said in reverse..

good price for 3x chisels nonetheless!

Wossack

recipio wrote: »

I probably came the heavy on Irish shops above and you will be fine with most tools that don't have a cutting edge. I just think the steel in Chinese chisels etc is too soft. The German brand CK is available in some shops and is excellent. Otherwise a set of wooden handled chisels by Narex, made in the Czech Republic is good to have. Sharpening is also a skill that has to be cultivated but everyone to their own.;)

Aldi chisels supposed to be pretty good (after a bit of fettling)

Sparks

Wossack wrote: »

firmer chisels are the more specialised ones (afaik), so I'd put them down the shopping list personally. Bevel edge can do everything a firmer/mortice can do, but dont think the same can be said in reverse..
good price for 3x chisels nonetheless!

I think they are the more specialised ones, but they kept showing up on ebay a lot more often and at much lower prices than the bevel-edged variety, at least in the second-hand department when I was looking. The same set I got is now up on ebay going for €10.60 or so (plus P&P, but you can reduce that a bit using addresspal), so I don't think they were terribly special (but I'm so cack-handed at the moment that I didn't think it'd be worth wasting good chisels on me ). And I quite like using them, they hold an edge very well (I just strop every so often, I haven't had to resharpen any of them on the stones so far other than the ones I've dropped onto concrete).

Sparks

Wossack wrote: »

Aldi chisels supposed to be pretty good (after a bit of fettling)

Can we actually get them here though? They're very popular in the UK after Paul Seller's video on them, but I haven't seen them in Aldi here yet...