Woodworking for Engineers

by jakear • 6 years ago

715 293 6 years ago

gomox• 6 years ago

Matthias Wandel's channel is a true YouTube goldmine. My favorites of his are the DIY woodworking machinery videos, featuring things like making a table saw from scratch, without a table saw.

https://youtu.be/RBucMKhrL8M

jbergknoff• 6 years ago

Indeed. I went through it all about three years ago and learned a ton (starting from essentially "I have a table saw but I don't know what the miter slots are for").

For people interested in this stuff who haven't seen Next Level Carpentry, I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXRNHTVpEdhz9BIvomETGiQ.

mkl• 6 years ago

Seconded. I highly recommend watching the back catalogue.

Also fascinating are the many videos about making and using pantorouters, a very versatile machine of his own invention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_72hOY2vPg (see video description, and there are older videos of different models too).

He sells plans for many things he's made on his website.

barking• 6 years ago

Good channel I found it through my interest in making cider. He made an apple scratter which works fairly well ( https://youtu.be/htT-gZ7ck64?t=147 ) but having done more research I think Claude Jolicoeur's (renowned cider maker) is better ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuEqqSgoGcQ ). You can see how superior the latter is in the videos which because of its "wedge angle" has no need for a hand plunger to force the apples between rotor and the stator

jmkd2• 6 years ago

It feels churlish to point it out, but occasionally he delves into new areas and makes some dreadful beginner mistakes by trying to invent solutions from scratch without any knowledge or apparent interest in conventional wisdom. For me this takes the engineering approach too far. Prefer when he understands traditional solutions and explores scope for improvement / reinvention.

wil4212• 6 years ago

There’s some other YouTube channels I liked but after watching for a little while I noticed the same thing. I want to learn the right way to woodwork not how an engineer or a very clever person would invent a solution for an already solved problem.

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

Some specific examples would perhaps make your case, instead of just making an unfounded assertion.

jacquesm4• 6 years ago

He's got a pretty nice ribbon saw though!

Also:

"Actually, I did use a table saw to square up some of the pieces."

TheRealWatson3• 6 years ago

The irony is that some of his most popular videos are about mice games and mice traps.

RNCTX10• 6 years ago

Very nice.

Woodworking has been a hobby of mine off and on my entire adult life. Two things stand out as having a big impact on woodworking in the past 15 years or so, related to this post:

1) The large-scale adoption of Sketchup as a drafting/designing tool. If you go to any woodworking forum you'll find lots of people talking about it, and it has raised the skill level of a lot of people who are new to woodworking considerably, just by making it a "computer friendly" hobby and making more complex designs possible for people without a high amount of basic knowledge.

2) The social aspect of the internet generally, results in a lot of knowledge about paints, finishes, equipment, and methods being shared. Before the internet, fine woodworking was still something that could only feasibly be learned by apprenticeship. These days, you see people buying historic homes that need a lot of work, for example, and "just figuring it out."

PS: for anyone else who might try playing with wood, the answer to how close your measurements should be to make mortises fit JUST right is 5 thousandths ;).

jakear2• 6 years ago

I agree, SketchUp (and woodgears) was a big part of how I was able to pick up woodworking as a kid.

I don’t have much love for the product as it is now however. I would prefer the free SketchUp from 10 years ago to the current free tier (web app).

Does anyone know if any good open source SketchUp-like tools?

andyfleming• 6 years ago

The open source tools I’ve seen aren’t great unfortunately. An alternative to sketchup is Fusion 360. Autodesk has a free hobbyist license.

northwest65• 6 years ago

Are you me? They really shit the bed with the way they've steered the product. When I think about Sketchup these days, it's more, "What shall I learn next to replace it?". Man it has served me well, it's a real shame. I'm thinking Blender. It's considerably more complicated, but the things you can do with it are considerably more expansive.

joshspankit• 6 years ago

I’ve been really curious about whether there’s a Sketchup-like application that has simple digital woodworking tools.

Bring in a couple 4x8 sheets, cut taking blade width in to consideration, join, test whether the edges are flush, etc.

Maybe even import plans, then give you a cut list that maximizes the wood you want to use. (Will I need 6x or 7x 8’shelving pieces? Ok, 7, but oh right, it’s reminding me to get and extra one to allow for mistakes.)

Jedd• 6 years ago

I recently needed a tool like this ... and sadly concluded that there's no clear winner in the free software world.

Sketch-up's non-Linux presence is a pain, but can be worked around - the web version's useless for me, but again you can download the last .exe version they released still, from the official page (albeit they've hidden it).

FreeCAD and LibreCAD are worth diving into just because they're going to be around for a while, and at least one of them seems to be well supported.

Blender's another option, and though it doesn't align feature-wise quite as well, and has a steeper learning curve - learning it is going to be useful forever, and for a wider range of use cases.

ageofwant2• 6 years ago

https://www.openscad.org/ Its not SchetchUp no - but its an immensely powerful tool if you like building parameterized models. Combined with https://pypi.org/project/openpyscad/ you can program your next project in Python :-)

You write your project in you code editor of choice, auto-run on save, and set the OpenSCAD viewer to ato-load on file changes. So you have the immediate feedback of a 'visual' tool, all text driven, git managed and you are probably already familiar with most of the tools.

Yea this approach is not for everyone I'm sure.

tda• 6 years ago

so much this, I was always able to draw simple projects in minutes. I tried fusion360 for a few minutes and figured that I would need to invest some serious time to get productive with it. I settled for the limited web version of sketchup, but it is a step back from the desktop sketchup of a decade or so ago. In some way it's kind of a relief that it's not me, there really isn't a proper alternative to sketchup of yore. Anyone looking for a startup idea here?

avhon1• 6 years ago

Solvespace is a FLOSS CAD program you may be interested in. There hasn't been a release in a while, but development has been steady on github.

m0nty4• 6 years ago

Someone mentioned Blender now has Sketchup-like facilities. Haven't yet tried it.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+vs+sket...

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

The best replacement for sketchup these days is OLD sketchup (version 8), from ten years ago. You can still get it. More on that at http://woodgears.ca/sketchup

skybrian• 6 years ago

Hmmm, why SketchUp and not OnShape? When I talked about getting into 3d printing I had two people independently recommend OnShape to me.

pabs3• 6 years ago

Is there an open source equivalent of Sketchup?

paulstovell• 6 years ago

+1 your second observation. We bought a hundred year old house a few years ago. In that time I’ve gone from “knowing how to hang a picture” to full owner-builder, enclosing a garage, and lots of projects in between, all from YouTube.

mattbrewsbytes2• 6 years ago

I'm just starting the hobby and found Sketchup to be cumbersome and too big of a learning curve. I have been using graph paper and pencil to do 2d drawings, side, top, etc. to get the idea down.

I found a channel from the UK of a cabinet maker [0] that uses Graphic for mac - simple, easy and I can do the same style drawings.

Maybe Sketchup is more helpful when you have complicated joinery or need to sell plans online.

0 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_FksrzP3q-IuoWTiG501LQ

mywittyname5• 6 years ago

Sketchup isn't too bad, ime. It's a lot easier than other cad programs. It's important to find a tutorial because it has some idiosyncrasies which you aren't going to happen upon solving. But overall the program is well documented and easy to use once you learn.

After about 3 projects on Sketchup, I'm now proficient enough to crank out simple furniture in a few minutes. That 15 minutes spent modeling things in sketchup pays dividends when it comes time for cutting and assembly.

richsu-ca• 6 years ago

I made my shed using his design and techniques. Every fall, when we stow away backyard furnitures, the umbrella, and Cycles into the shed with ease. I thank him.

https://woodgears.ca/shed/shed1.html

frosted-flakes2• 6 years ago

Interesting shed. He put the roofing screws in the wrong place though. They should go on the flats, not the ridges, so that the gasket is fully compressed. In heavy rain, that roof will likely leak. My shop certainly does, and whoever built it also nailed the roof like that.

I have a friend who owns a company that manufactures and installs metal roofing, and this is his professional opinion.

nkurz• 6 years ago

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this recommendation.

Searching, it seems to be somewhat contentious. Most --- but not all --- manufacturers recommend installing in the flat (usually with shorter screws at the ridge to join panels). Sometimes a distinction is made based on gauge and style of panel: very thin is always on flat, rounded corrugated is always on the ridge. Some local regulations though appear to require installing through the rib. Discussion here points to some of the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches: https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/179392-metas-ro....

If you find a firm manufacturer's recommendation for the style of panel that Mattias is using, perhaps email him? I think this is the sort of thing he'd be eager to get right.

doctoboggan• 6 years ago

Matthias is one of the all time greats of YouTube woodworking. I’ve been following his channel for probably close to 10 years.

He does have an HN account and may show up here if he notices enough inbound traffic from this submission.

aaronblohowiak• 6 years ago

This is good for functional stuff. For fine furniture, please subscribe to Fine Woodworking digital which gets you access to the back catalog of magazine articles and video workshops. Fine woodworking features articles and workpieces by professional woodworkers while the editing of those articles is done by professional writers to make it accessible to amateur woodworkers. It is an amazing resource - please help support it.

dfc2• 6 years ago

Thank you for saying this. I'm the woodshop steward at NovaLabs and I can't tell you how under appreciated FWW is. People bring in half baked plans some YouTube/Instagram influencer all too often. Most if the time they don't even have a cutsheet.

jml7c5• 6 years ago

To Matthias, in case you do pop in to this thread: you've forgotten to set a character encoding for pages, so some browsers display gobbledygook instead of apostrophes. For example, on https://woodgears.ca/faq/video.html: "Howâ€™s your (shoulder?)"

simonebrunozzi• 6 years ago

I took your suggestion and emailed him (mentioning it was from you on HN, of course). Hopefully he'll read it.

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

fixed that page.

war10252• 6 years ago

A bit unrelated, but I discovered "The Woodwrights Shop" has the most recent ten seasons available on pbs.org. Something very satisfying about his approach to woodworking.

JKCalhoun• 6 years ago

Love that guy. Pretty sure he's always high tho.

nabilhat• 6 years ago

Think of Roy Underhill as the Cliff Stoll of woodworking instead of klein bottles. Imagine Roy waxing philosophical about klein bottles then reproducing an oaken klein bottle he found buried under a barn that one time. Working frantically, nearly but not quite done in 25 minutes flat, but! with five minutes devoted to showing off that one of a kind klein bottle plane a friend just happened to have given him as a gift ten years ago, because showing off that one oddball tool was the entire point of this whole episode.

Roy's the best kind of nerd. He REALLY loves what he does and how he does it, and makes it so contagious that I kinda want to take up woodworking just so I have an excuse to attend one of his classes.

modeless• 6 years ago

Thanks for this, it brings back many childhood memories. Can't believe the show is still running.

mattbrewsbytes2• 6 years ago

If you are ever in the Raleigh/Durham NC area, Roy has a school nearby where he actively teaches.

https://www.woodwrightschool.com/

Animats2• 6 years ago

I miss the Techshop era, and access to CNC woodworking tools.

Now that the documents from the TechShop bankruptcy are out, it's clear that the gym-type business model did not work at all. The business was kept going by finding new investors to pay for growth. It never paid for itself from membership fees.

mandelbrotwurst2• 6 years ago

Do you happen to know approximately how much higher the dues would have to have been to be for it to work?

Animats2• 6 years ago

Well, Human Made in SF has most of the old TechShop machines, and they charge $250 a month, plus they got subsidies under some job training program. TechShop was at $100, then $125, then, as "TheShop.build" (which, we find out in the bankruptcy litigation, was more closely associated with the original operation than previously believed) at $150. This is the SF bay area, though, and the real estate and labor costs dominated. The equipment wasn't really a big fraction of the cost.

There are smaller nonprofit shops and hacker spaces, but they tend to have fewer and smaller machines and not enough working room. The surviving spaces are more into the college prep education business - it's where you send your kid to get their STEM ticket punched for college. Lots of kids working through the same canned projects. Some at the construction paper and scissors level, like advanced kindergarten.

The fundamental problem with the gym model (pay by the month, come as often as you want) is that people who sign up for shop spaces show up too much. Some are there every day for most of the day, doing work. Gyms rely on only a small fraction of members showing up at any one time. At one point, TechShop had ten laser cutters cutting out Etsy stuff from opening til closing, and the laser cutters were booked weeks ahead. Then Etsy allowed outsourcing manufacturing, that stopped, and the Etsy crowd dropped their memberships.

dahdum• 6 years ago

I loved Techshop, I learned so much. The way they aggressively pushed people to invest in their last 2 years was a huge red flag for me though.

at_a_remove• 6 years ago

Yeah. I lucked into something where they (foolishly) offered me all of the classes I could take in three months, so of course I hoovered each class but three up, but I paid attention to the instructors. I spent some time asking them how they liked teaching the classes and watched them pretty carefully, so when I found out that instructors weren't getting paid, I wasn't too surprised.

I extended for a couple of months to finish up some projects, but that heavy push at the end is usually the sign of a Membership Death Spiral (if you look at it upside down, it's a pyramid). The folks I quietly warned did not listen and ended up having paid for something they'd never get. I heard of someone at another Techshop who donated some enormous, expensive milling machine to them in exchange for a lifetime membership. Whew.

Still miss it.

dheera2• 6 years ago

The main thing I miss from Techshop is access to a laser cutter. There are an incredible variety of amazing, extremely professional-looking things you can build quickly from craft-grade plywood, a laser cutter, some wood glue, and your favorite wood finish.

detaro• 6 years ago

Access to a laser cutter is probably also one of the easier things to find, since they're easy to run compared to many other machines.

imtringued2• 6 years ago

I don't get it. CNC machines for wood are cheap. Rigidity requirements are fairly low. Some people even built their own CNC machines out of wood. Even a 3 axis CNC mill that does aluminum is reasonably cheap but you'll have to assemble the kit yourself. If you want to do steel then you might as well give up.

cpwright2• 6 years ago

A minimax bandsaw costs about $2-3000. A sawstop around $3000. A jointer/planer combo another $5000. So you're all in for a complete woodworking setup for $10,000. But then you need a couple hundred square feet to put them in with sufficient room around them to store wood, maneuver and perform assembly. At $100/sf for a garage area, you are hitting $20,000. You generally can't just add 200 or 500 sf to your house, and moving is expensive. The space is more expensive than the actual tools that fill it.

starpilot2• 6 years ago

The most frustrating thing about this hobby in the YouTube age is every "DIY" video employing a full shop with $8,000 worth of tools. How is this different from professional woodworking? Where are the resources for beginners?

ink_13• 6 years ago

You may be interested in Matthias' videos where he makes his own tools, such as a table saw or a bandsaw.

mturmon2• 6 years ago

You might like to look at Paul Sellers' videos? He can get a lot done with hand saws, marking tools, and chisels.

But in general, among hobbies, woodworking is pretty gear-intensive. Even if you try to avoid it.

mbrock• 6 years ago

Rex Krueger is worth checking out too. The series he’s been making now is all about getting started with real woodworking using minimal inexpensive tools. There’s some craft-historical topics too especially in his approach to workbenches: he first makes a simple low bench in an old Roman style (inspired by Christopher Schwartz’s research) and later an English workbench with a big leg vise. Both relatively easy constructions from cheap softwood with ingenuity and definite pragmatism.

Ma8ee5• 6 years ago

It's just too easy that any hobby becomes spending hours drooling over equipment you want to buy rather than actually doing stuff (whether it is woodworking or playing the guitar). This is one reason I really like Paul Sellers: You don't need so much.

arnarbi• 6 years ago

Check out Steve Ramsey: https://www.youtube.com/user/stevinmarin

His channel is specifically for beginners on a budget.

johnpowell2• 6 years ago

And he also has a thing on getting a pretty good woodshop going for under a grand.

ajot• 6 years ago

Matthias has an older video making a table frame with minimal tools [0].

I would also suggest watching Steve Ramsey [1], he puts a lot of effort to explain simple and beginner stuff. I believe he still has a PDF in his website about filling a workshop for under 1000 USD.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFPLFyxkhzc [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/stevinmarin

jabl2• 6 years ago

There is a large woodworking subculture that uses only (or at least mostly) hand tools. While new good hand tools can be expensive, you can get good stuff at a more moderate cost on eBay.

See e.g. Paul Sellers or Chris Schwartz.

Sure, you're not going to set up a furniture factory that can compete with IKEA on price using hand tools, but who cares? You're doing it for your own enjoyment. And hand tools are enjoyable to use, much less noise and dust than machine tools.

preommr• 6 years ago

Doubt anyone would save much money on hand tools. Going all hand tools is more of a luxury - those hand planes and speciality saws are not cheap and an absolute nightmare to maintain.

Any woodworker is going to need a collection of both. Things like a good chisel set are going to be essential no matter what.

The basic power tools like a circular saw and a table saw aren't all that expensive either. Even cheaper if you buy them second hand. Add in a drill press, a jigsaw, router, sander and that's pretty much the basic ensemble. With good sales, all of it can come around to 1-1.5k

The real expensive stuff is when people buy useless festool crap when they can make a jig.

marttt3• 6 years ago

+1, I'm in the same camp. Check out a Hungarian woodworker building a chest in 1955: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V0gQ9M45G8

I wonder how many tools an average contemporary hobbyist/industry worker would need to build that same thing.

I'm from Estonia, and I recall a local master stating that in the 1930s a typical farmer had to do a lot of woodworking for his own use. And often they only had five(!) tools: a knife, a saw, a wide chisel, a narrower chisel, an axe. Most even didn't have a plane. This is all the equipment they used to even make furniture.

Unplugged woodworkers of HN might find the book "Estonian woodworking" [1] interesting (it's a true classic of Estonian etnography, translated to English without permission in the 1960s and circulated as hand copies back then; these days published in English by Chris Schwartz). Or build a Roman Workbench (=Estonian workbench :) [2].

[1] https://lostartpress.com/products/woodworking-in-estonia

[2] https://blog.lostartpress.com/2019/07/24/free-download-roman...

johnpowell2• 6 years ago

When I was getting my woodshop going I was hitting up estate sales/auctions. There was one I auction I scored a nearly brand new SawStop table saw, Dewault planer, and ShopFox joiner (kinda crap) for under 600 dollars. All the stuff was pretty much brand new.

I have hit the point where I have more tools than space.

raister3• 6 years ago

Several resources for manual woodworking, now, if you're thinking about power tool woodworking, then, I agree, you'll have to spend money... there's no way around it, at least not with nice and quality tools.

Now, if you want to venture on manual woodworking, several resources from the following masters:

- James Krenov (in memoriam)

- Paul Sellers, a Lifestyle Woodwoker

- James Wright, Wood by Wright

- Mike Siemsen

- Rob Cosman

- Frank Klausz

- Shawn L. Graham, Worth The Effort

- Roy Underhill

- Joshua Farnsworth, Wood and Shop

- James Hamilton, aka Stumpy Nubs

- Matthew Cremona

- Jay Bates

- Shannon Rogers

- Simon James

- Rex Krueger

jeromenerf6• 6 years ago

- Lemongrasspicker hacks through projects on his balcony. - Mr chickadee silently uses hand tools on his homestead.

monksy4• 6 years ago

It just enrages me everytime I see a festools used. (It's the biggest brand on ask this old house) They're really expensive.

mturmon2• 6 years ago

We should be glad that such fine tools exist, no?

cpwright2• 6 years ago

Festool has started sponsoring TOH, but they used the tools before that. The track saw, domino, sanders, and dust extractors are very well built tools. The amount of dust from my Dewalt 5" ROS was night and day compared to the 125mm Rotex. The domino makes joinery much faster, and has become an essential part of my workflow.

My beef with TOH is now that all the houses are so expensive and the work is so custom or complicated that it is not relatable.

rkangel2• 6 years ago

Why does it cause you rage? It causes me jealousy!

When I used to do Theatre carpentry, I regularly used Festool equipment (that wasn't mine). It was an education in how careful thought to your product design can make something much better to use. I have an Evolution Sliding Chopsaw at home. It cost £200 and it's great. The Festool Kapex is just better in a lot of small ways - the mechanism for adjusting angle is quick and precise, the laser lines mark out kerf width accurately, the airflow has been designed so that dust extraction works well etc.. It's 10 times the price though, so obviously not worth it for me at home.

jacquesm4• 6 years ago

Woodworking is very flexible in how much you spend. Most of the expensive tools are time optimizations, you can get by just fine without them but it will be a bit slower.

Also, in woodworking you always want that one more tool.

avar• 6 years ago

A lot of these tools aren't even time optimizations at the hobbyist level.

There's been so many times I've had to saw say a meter of plywood, by the time I've gotten out the circular saw, plugged it in, taken the extra safety precautions such a power tool needs, sawed the wood, then spent more time afterwards cleaning up.

All to realize that I've spent maybe 5-10 minutes in total (almost entirely setup time) making a cut with a powertool I could have just made in 2-3 minutes max of very leisurely sawing with the handsaw I already had at hand right next to me

heinrichhartman• 6 years ago

How is this different from professional woodworking?

Professional wood-shop costs easily >$100K :)

Number one cost factor, IMHO, is space for a shop. You need enough room to store and handle lumber. If you have that, you can start with hand tools (saws, chisels, planes) for let's say ~300$. This will in-principle allow you to do everything. People have done this for ages, this way.

Power tools make woodworking much faster. I would start with a jig saw, drill press, circular hand saw. This will be another ~800.

The first expensive mile stone is the table-saw. This will be the most used tool in your shop. Everything gets better when you have access to a good table saw. I have spent 1.2K on mine.

Next upgrades are miter-saw, band saw, planer, jointer. They need a lot of space and are not cheap. This is were you enter the more professional realm.

To get high quality versions of all that tools will cost a lot of money. Oftentimes ebay has used tools for small money. E.g. I bought 15 hand planes for ~100 EUR last year and 50EUR for a used drill press.

Happy woodworking!

mywittyname5• 6 years ago

Decent "job site" tablesaws are in the $600 USD range. And there are plenty of designs out there for building a work bench that can incorporate one..

cthalupa10• 6 years ago

$8,000 is actually really cheap for a hobby like woodworking. In reality, if you're watching even a remotely large DIY channel on Youtube, outside of ones specifically targeting those that are budget conscious or those that specialize in hand tooling, it's probably closer to $30,000 or $40,000. All the SawStop, Festool, etc. stuff you see is all quite expensive. Freestanding jointers and planers, drill presses, router tables with lifts, bandsaws, drum sanders, dominos.... Even just the lighting in a shop, especially one that's on a YT channel, could be thousands of dollars.

But, here's the thing: Most of those tools are about saving time. You don't need a $2000 planer, you can use $200-$300 in hand planes. You don't need a $4500 table saw, you can do nearly everything with a $200 circular saw and straight edge. You don't need a $750 rotex hand sander and a $2000 drum sander, you can use paper and sanding blocks. You don't need a jointer, you can buy pre milled lumber. Depending on what you're working on, you might not need things like a bandsaw or drill press. A handheld router can be turned into a plunge router with some work, you can use jigs instead of a router table, etc. etc. etc.

Once you learn how to use a handful of tools - and there's lots of youtube videos on that - and understand how and where they can be used, you can start translating from all the fancy stuff you see in the YT shop to what you have on hand. It'll just take longer.

The other aspect of it is... yeah, a lot of people that just do it as a hobby are also spending nearly that much. A lot of the DIY guys are also doing projects that have similar requirements on accuracy/repeatability, etc., that you would see from people doing furniture level woodworking. People doing that for a hobby and using powered tools are going to be spending tens of thousands of dollars, generally.

If time was no constraint, you could do basically everything in woodworking with a few different hand saws, hand planes, hand chisels, a mallet, some gouges, sandpaper, and high precision marking and layout tools. And a lot of clamps. You need a ton of clamps if you ever use glue to join material.

As for a beginner resource on a limited budget - Steve Ramsey's Woodworking for Mere Mortals is great.

jeromenerf6• 6 years ago

"Time" is not the only constraint, "effort" is as important. Woodworking features many health altering hazards, from the obvious cuts to dust poisoning, and what is rarely discussed: joints and back pain, due to repetitive movements, heavy lifting and bad posture.

Power tools are easier on the body, but also more dangerous, noisy and dusty.

My personal approach has been to learn how to do everything by hand, from felling frees to making doll house furnitures. What I enjoy doing, I do with hand tools, the rest I do with power tools.

It takes time to build muscles, posture and risk awareness.

RNCTX10• 6 years ago

Collecting machines from craigslist is a necessary part of the hobby, imo.

A 1,000 dollar Powermatic tablesaw is functionally immortal. It will always be worth 1,000 dollars, so you buy it and use it until you don't need it, then sell it to someone else for what you paid for it.

When I last had a big shop full of stuff at home, my machine and cost list was...

1) Used Powermatic 66 table saw ($1000)

2) A used Woodmaster 18" planer ($1200)

3) A router table I spec'd to my local machine shop which attached as a replacement wing on the Powermatic 66 to share its fence ($500)

4) A used Grizzly 8" jointer ($500)

5) An "American Sawmill Machinery Unipoint" miter saw from the 1950s ($300) (^)

6) A General International mortiser ($1000)

7) Couple of routers, one big one and one 1.5hp one ($600)

(^) This was the best machine I ever had, sold it for $500 when I was done with it. Imagine a miter saw that's all cast iron rather than aluminum and plastic that can cut invisible miter joints.

So not 8,000, more like 4,000-5,000 if you buy a bunch of used stuff. I can't think of a reason to buy new woodworking machines, when there are so many used machines floating around craigslist or exfactory on any given day.

Any of these machines could be lesser/smaller alternatives, which would not limit the quality of output but rather just limit the size of raw materials you could use and perhaps slightly increase waste. For instance there's no reason you can't cut small pieces on a small table saw and break down 4x8 sheets of ply with a Skil saw. The only thing the big cast iron saw gives you is the ability to skip the Skil saw and minimize waste, really.

Similarly, anything that I did on my custom built router table (or a shaper) could be done with a hand router and jigs, it'll just take more time to build the jigs. About 80% of woodworking is learning 'clever tricks' and learning how to conceptualize jigs to accomplish repetitive tasks accurately. Machines can do it for money but your brain can do it for cheap, just a matter of learning how.

Look at this dude: https://youtu.be/RYzgP_Ucs1I

Doesn't have a shaper but he has raised panels at the end of the day ;).

I mean, I've stumbled across guys that make a living building wooden windows, doors, and cabinet doors with a small army of used Powermatic 2A tenoners (no longer being made, you can only buy them used). They're not required to build a cabinet door, though, they just reduce it to unskilled labor simplicity.

rkangel2• 6 years ago

This is a route I'd love to go down, but for someone who's newer at this it's hard to know which are the solid immortal ones, and which ones are probably already broken.

If anyone can recommend UK equivalents to some of these brands I'd be very grateful!

mauvehaus13• 6 years ago

That's a nice fuckin' miter saw[1] for $300! At that price you practically stole it, and you pretty much gave it away while making a $200 profit. The list price for a new one is $16,700. And no, that is not a typo [2]. If you ever have another one you'd like to sell at that price, please contact me :-)

For those not in the know, Northfield makes only industrial tools. There's a reason you don't see their stuff at your local home improvement store. Or your local Woodcraft/Rockler.

Tannewitz, incidentally also still exits and is still making the GHE.

Sadly Oliver, once one of the greats, is now another badge stuck on the same castings coming out of the same foundries as Powermatic, Grizzly, and everybody else.

[1] Actually, it might be the nicest miter saw mere money can buy.

[2] http://www.northfieldwoodworking.com/pricelist/pricelist.htm

anjc• 6 years ago

If you want a functioning shop, and you were limited to four initial options:

1) prohibitively expensive power tools

2) prohibitively expensive hand tools

3) cheap hand tools

4) cheap power tools

...I'd go for cheap power tools every time. You could get more tools than you'll ever need for $1-2k buying cheap but usable brands. They probably wouldn't stand up to more than DIY use, but they will work, and you'll learn what items you really value. For example, I now know that I use my cheap table saw enough that I could justify a more expensive one, however I'll never buy an expensive scroll saw.

I think it's bad advice to start with good hand tools unless you have a high tolerance for manual labour or are apprenticing under someone in a fine woodworking area (e.g. luthiery).

mywittyname5• 6 years ago

The "prosumer" market has done wonders for tool availability. Companies no longer make stuff that lasts a lifetime, but the trade-off is that you can get the same tools a professional would use for much cheaper. Turns out, even pros don't need tools that last a lifetime because they so often get lost, stolen, or dropped off a roof and need replacing after a few years anyway.

And you can move down market and get something with a 100-1000 hour service life for half or a quarter of the price.

jpitz6• 6 years ago

Woodworking for mere mortals. https://woodworkingformeremortals.com/

swalsh• 6 years ago

You don't need every tool. There are multiple ways to get the same job done. There are some things I'd consider essentials. A table saw, drill, some decent chisels, and maybe a #5 plane. And you can get pretty far with that. You can get started for < $500, and be productive. A band saw is a nice addition as well. A planer is a super productive, and nice tool to have. I'd be lost without mine. But I COULD use a hand plane. It's just slower. I dream of having space for a large 8" jointer, but I don't so I get along with my #7 hand plane just fine. Honestly though, that #7 is a luxury too. I could do everything with just a #5 hand plane.

dekhn4• 6 years ago

You can get by with a $250 table saw, $150 miter saw, $100 drill press, a cordless drill, and about $100 in drills and other hand tools. That's enough to make fairly complicated stuff quickly. I'd love to have a jointer and planer, but it looks like cheap ones aren't worth it.

fimdomeio3• 6 years ago

There are a few youtubers dedicated to low cost woodworking rex kruger and "woodworking for mere mortals" are good resources. "home made modern" and "modern builds" also tend to be light on the tools needed.

On a broad sense I think the most important tools if you want to go the power tools route, are: a table saw, a tracksaw (or just a circular saw and a jig, if you're ok with loosing some precision), a router, a drill, an impact driver and a random orbit sander. Then one or two hand saws a chisel a hammer, wood glue and some clamps. Table saw is the most expensive and probably one of the most dangerous machines if not operated correctly but I really which I didn't took that long to invest in it. You can do a lot with it that is very difficult otherwise.

Than I would say the best is to start with simple projects so you can keep frustration/success levels in a good balance. and then slowly move to more complex ones.

fimdomeio3• 6 years ago

And I forgot, buy a shop vac to collect all that saw dust. :)

panzagl• 6 years ago

Check out "Anarchist's Tool Chest" from Lost Art Press. It's basically an intro to hand tool woodworking through building a tool chest and what you need to fill it.

Not that hand tools can't get just about as expensive as power tools.

war10252• 6 years ago

I've been eyeing that book for about a year now. Really should just go through and buy it.

deberon• 6 years ago

Chris Schwartz (of Popular Woodworking fame) wrote and printed "The Anarchist's Tool Chest". Goes through building an actual tool chest and filling it with basic tools needed to accomplish most anything a hobbyist would be building. These are all hand tools and a great resource (it's one of a handful of books on my shop bookshelf). https://lostartpress.com/collections/books/products/the-anar...

k_sze• 6 years ago

There is a very surprising statement on his "Gear Template Generator" page (https://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/index.html):

I recommend printing the gears with an ink jet printer. Even cheap ink jet printers print very scale accurate but Not all laser printers are accurate.

Does anybody know whether that's still the case, and why?

Cerium• 6 years ago

Laser printers project the image onto a drum using a laser and a spinning mirror. There can easily be issues with the scale accuracy. Ink jet printers conventionally move the head along a linear rail with a timing belt and stepper or servo motors; that better guarantees the precision as the pully diameter and step size or encoder resolution are the items determining precision.

NortySpock• 6 years ago

And nowadays the lasers have been replaced with LEDs, perhaps that changes the equation yet again!

https://youtu.be/_saDCwsB9Ww

mikey_p• 6 years ago

According to Matthias, this is because inkjet printers require accuracy since print heads for black and different colors, or even each color are spaced differently.

So for the alignment to stick (anyone else remember when you had to manually align inkjets?) they have to move very consistently across the page.

monksy4• 6 years ago

This is pretty funny.. I just finished a few shelves for my media area. (Went from pineboard to finished product)

https://imgur.com/a/VOeWisn

All of them are level.. however I do need to work on my cable organization and slim down some of the cables.

mod2• 6 years ago

Looks pretty good for pine. You must have used pre-stain conditioner?

monksy4• 6 years ago

No pre-stain. However, I did sand them down quite a bit.

gorgoiler• 6 years ago

I love digging out a saw every now and then. I just built 20x bamboo cages for filling out canvas tomato pot bags, to support plants up to 6’ high.

The first ones look awful. The last ones look ok. I rated myself on how strong they are, how quickly I built them, and how few steps they took rather than on how good they looked.

It felt analogous to iterative hacking in a scripting language. Oh how I’d love a workshop in which to do some actual quality work as opposed to random hacking!

ludwa6• 6 years ago

Must-see presentation (~1hour) for anyone interested in this topic is "Programming With Hand Tools" by Tim Ewald: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShEez0JkOFw

robotmay6• 6 years ago

Has anyone found any good non-American-continent woodworking YouTube channels?

Nothing against the Americans/Canadians etc, but this is one area where regional differences make a pretty huge difference in terms of wood and products available. If, like me, you're in the UK and looking for vaguely specific details regarding woodwork online, you're going to find an awful lot of American content and very little local stuff (a blog opportunity there perhaps).

A good recent example of this effect for me was when I was looking up pine stains. You will find constant references to something called "pre-stain conditioner" online; this basically doesn't exist in the UK. Everyone online is insistent that you need it, and you can just about buy it here (it's expensive), but it turns out it's pretty irrelevant. In the UK our pine is typically a different variety, and so therefore has a different composition, and our terminology is different here too; wood stain in the UK is, I think, "wood dye" in the USA? Please correct me if you know better :)

For reference I use this stain: https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/product/manns-pine-wood..., which makes no mention of pre-stain conditioner, and I've had very good results with it so far.

Ma8ee5• 6 years ago

Paul Sellers have moved back to the UK. In addition to his website [0] and blog there's plenty in his YouTube channel.

And my feeling is that Europeans in general don't insist on staining everything like Americans do. Or maybe it's just us in Scandinavia that actually think the bright natural color of birch, but even pine, is quite beautiful.

[0] https://paulsellers.com/

robotmay6• 6 years ago

I learnt to carve spoons from a few Swedish guys so I have a lot of love for a simple linseed-oil finish :) Can't get any nice, bright, linseed-oil paint in the UK though, which is a bit of a bummer.

I ended up using stain for this current project as the room called for dark wood, but the only two real-wood options for skirting boards in the UK are pine or oak, which are both light woods, so I opted to stain pine for it.

And thank you! Someone at work mentioned his videos recently and I completely forgot the name.

m0nty4• 6 years ago

The one thing I find (as a UK woodworker) when watching US or Canadian channels is (a) they all seem to have massive workshops, like size-of-a-barn massive, and (b) they have machines for everything. I could not tackle many of the projects they do because of limited space, which restricts the machines I can accommodate.

Paul Sellers definitely understands that many UK woodworkers are in their garage or garden shed and keeps that in mind for his projects, and uses predominantly hand tools. I'm not saying I don't like the North American channels, and Matthias is a true hacker as well as a woodworker, but it's a different world.

Just to add my own recommendation: Alain Vaillancourt does some excellent stuff, from his vast workshop located somewhere in the New World:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCsdIja21VT7AKkbVI5y8bQ

jpitz6• 6 years ago

Most of the fine woodworking folks I follow in the US don't typically use stain much.

cthalupa10• 6 years ago

I watch a ton of woodworking channels on youtube, and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen anyone use prestain conditioner. If anything, they all seem to love single coat stains.

There's quite a lot of non-US/CA woodworking channels out there, though.

Paska Makes, Australia

Woodshop Junkies, South Africa

Paoson Woodworking, Spain

JSK-koubou, Japan

Laura Kampf, Germany

Crimson Guitars, UK (Mostly luthier projects, but Ben does some crazy stuff that I think woodworkers could find inspirational in general)

Dekay's Crafts, Korea

Get Hands Dirty, Portugal

Resin Timber, Lithuania

I've seen plenty of others - these are just some of the ones that I subscribe to.

Freak_NL2• 6 years ago

JSK-koubou, Japan

Damn that man for working so incredibly neat and tidy. No stains on his virginal birch-ply, ever — not even a smudge. Sawdust seems to bend to his will, and all cuts and holes drilled are surely accurate to the micrometer.

His workspace is as clean as an operating theatre.

Yeah… That's not ever going to happen in my shed.

chowderhead• 6 years ago

Thanks for the list

Paska Makes https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNyGbxoEo6CQvaRVEvItxkA

Woodshop Junkies https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzHueSosfT92NUVmhrz7Hjw

Paoson Woodworking https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4PI8VEr1ZaKn4TBcXoy3qg

JSK-koubou https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCez62GvvsH05IunJJsRuvuQ

Laura Kampf https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRix1GJvSBNDpEFY561eSzw

Crimson Guitars https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdD1Cqxr8aINzWs1agg3tEQ

Dekay's Crafts https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYVugiFOe-aoh7FXtAuiGxw

Get Hands Dirty https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCETeXD_3awsQv-9rSdCYXQQ

Resin Timber https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCZ2m-mgto7R-4uEgROP2pQ

dfc2• 6 years ago

Staining pine and to some extent pine in general is not something that you see in American woodworking outside of early beginner work.

robotmay6• 6 years ago

Which is a shame really, as the sustainability of it is quite a merit. I opted to use it for all the wood in my office as I could get a finish I was happy with, whilst also not spending an absolute fortune on wood (posh woods are very expensive in the UK right now). Unfinished, as I'm redoing the door architrave soon, but here's a photo for reference: https://i.imgur.com/OHzUPfb.jpg

Our options here generally seem to be pine or oak, from normal stores. At more specialist stores you might be able to pick up some stuff like sycamore and walnut, but it's a bit hit-and-miss as to what dimensions are available.

jfk13• 6 years ago

The other transatlantic issue I notice is space. North American content tends to assume "shop" space on a scale that's much less likely to be available to the average UK person.

sshagent• 6 years ago

oh for sure. "here is my shop space, some spare room" thats the size of my entire house. And on the table top gaming front, very envious of US households i see with their similarly sized D&D room with a floor space that rivals my entire ground floor.

jmkd2• 6 years ago

Matt Estlea - talented, clear, dispels myths, but his personality is an acquired taste https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWzA3ZlYEOLr1JkKH0ZMyg/vid...

Stephens 8x6 Workshop - tiny space, clever projects. At the real ale end of woodworking https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8SLw_zYEappZL5rROwvZ1w/vid...

Peter Millard - cabinet making in a tiny workshop, some good meta content on the reality of being a YT woodworker https://www.youtube.com/user/petermillard1/videos

Pask Makes - Australian but totally transferrable to UK materials, lots of reinvented basics https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNyGbxoEo6CQvaRVEvItxkA/vid...

Charlie DIYte - general DIY with plenty of carpentry, good for beginners and those with few tools https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7x7wk8yeN2ZEJCo6BgP2ag/vid...

Ishitani Furniture - Japanese but essential inspiration and meditation https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FkqjV8SU5I8FCHXQSQe9Q/vid...

Sampson Boat Co - UK boatbuilder in US, any woodworking list on YouTube should have this at or near the top, relevant or otherwise it's astonishing https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA

m0nty4• 6 years ago

+1 for Ishitani and Pask, and thanks for the other links. If we're talking about boat-builders, don't forget Louis Sauzedde, who seems recently to have returned from a long hiatus:

https://www.youtube.com/user/TipsfromaShipWright/videos

miccah• 6 years ago

+1 for Matt Estlea. I find his content very watchable, and I like that he explains the theory before showing you how.

AlexMuir• 6 years ago

Peter parfitt is good too.

Fiahil• 6 years ago

If you can understand french, I'd recommend the amazing Olivier Verdier (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvDpfkniGG6WkX5L7DwyGaA) and Samuel Mamias (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9fGq2-6FaftcegcIadLf6A).

Quai• 6 years ago

Marius Hornberger from Germany is one of my favorites.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn7lavsPdVGV0qmEEBT6NyA

itamarreif• 6 years ago

Adrian Preda does some of the best work I've seen (mostly hand tools, Japanese). Pretty sure he's somewhere in central/eastern Europe:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0HkNaD01K5VNzE87eMAEvw

a2tech• 6 years ago

Peter Millard and the 10-minute workshop is based out of the UK and I find him very watchable.

sarchertech• 6 years ago

Rex Krueger is American, but he makes a lot of traditional English projects and uses hand tools.

mattmaroon2• 6 years ago

I've actually done some side by side tests with stains using conditioner vs not. I wouldn't call it necessary by any means. Depends on the stain and the wood but sometimes I did feel the result was noticeably better, sometimes I couldn't tell the difference.

nkozyra• 6 years ago

Parent commenter might specifically be talking about yellow/white pine, which is notorious for splotchy staining and yellowing over time, which conditioner can mitigate a bit.

If you're working with oaks or hardwoods, I agree with you.

relativeadv• 6 years ago

Not furniture-making but still wood working. I follow this dude on IG and he is based in the UK https://www.instagram.com/archery_handcrafted/?hl=en

blackkat• 6 years ago

There are Mitch Peacock: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCHNLNiFWZcy39ew7OskHdtw

And Matt Eastly: https://mattestlea.com/ https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCxWzA3ZlYEOLr1JkKH0ZMyg

marttt3• 6 years ago

I like Unplugged Woodworking. I think he is also from the British isles. Found him when I was googling for Roman workbenches; he built one.

YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcO75TzblV9-_WqgXX1mNxg/vid...

Blog: http://www.unpluggedwoodworking.com/

sjs382• 6 years ago

Here's some:

Badger Workshop is UK-based https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSQRZgy9lvGsLrWn6sFHZHw

Nick Zammeti is UK-based https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3-0S7vXfwYY2jj5EkMpymA

Rag N Bone Brown is UK-based https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVyE_6jEtVZGmYGXtUOL5FQ

Ishitani Furniture is Japanese https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7FkqjV8SU5I8FCHXQSQe9Q

Giaco Whatever (some woodworking) is Italian https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYH-XXUE2QDaWKvABsWJh8w

Cactus! Workshop is from Spain: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCupK5wJGXHDemXmHFMCMtHA

Lignum is based in Croatia https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfSdejZFhw0rrDFlj9McyNA

Marius Hornberger is German https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn7lavsPdVGV0qmEEBT6NyA

Laura Kampf is German https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRix1GJvSBNDpEFY561eSzw

Ollari's is based in Hungary https://www.youtube.com/user/Sepirabbit

jdboyd• 6 years ago

Get Hands Dirty https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCETeXD_3awsQv-9rSdCYXQQ

I'm in the US, but I find a tend to like european woodworking channels better.

castis• 6 years ago

MTM Wood is also exceptional, he's from Russia: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWBTyvNhUXq0ofu6ta1EAaQ

sleavey• 6 years ago

Thanks for the Badger Workshop link, I've spent the last two days watching loads of his videos. What a nice chap.

fimdomeio3• 6 years ago

I share your pains. That an the fact that a lot of tools here (portugal) cost twice as much as they cost in the US and we have way lower wages. For finishes I just realized I have to do my own offline R&D the to learn what works well with the brands I have here. Started doing my own wipe on poly (it's harder than it looks when most brands don't even refer the finish is polyurethane). Also my finishing techniques tend to be a lot slower than what you see on youtube, which I guess makes sense, since I'm not on a schedule, don't need to be profitable but want my pieces to look as good as possible.

simonrobb• 6 years ago

Matt Estlea is only young but he has a real talent for teaching. Fun to watch, goes pretty deep into the basics: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWzA3ZlYEOLr1JkKH0ZMyg

giardini• 6 years ago

I've stained wood (USA) for decades and never used a pre-stain conditioner. This is the first I've heard of it. One article says:

"A wood conditioner is basically a wood finish reduced to a very thin consistency."

Sounds like a money-making product to use on very porous wood that has water-damage (rotted?) or has been repeatedly treated with solvents, leaving only weak wood fibers. I usually replace such wood.

There are also products for "rejuvenating" rotted wood:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=rejuvenate+rotted+wood&t=opera&ia=...

I suppose these have their place but I have been lucky enough to not need them.

jmtulloss• 6 years ago

They’re good for woods that are blotchy when stained with the stains normally available in US hardware stores, namely birch and pine.

robotnixon• 6 years ago

I've used pre-stain conditioner when applying a dark oil-based stain to pine. It does seem to help even out the finish with soft woods. It is pretty useless on harder woods though, and since I don't typically use pine or stain I have maybe used it once or twice.

jmuhlich2• 6 years ago

Regarding finishes, I highly, highly recommend the book Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner. Flexner applies a very no-nonsense scientific approach which greatly demystifies the process. For example he explains what that pre-stain conditioner actually is (chemically), what it achieves (with photos), and exactly when you would want to use it. There is a lot of marketing and folklore around wood finishing which makes it a lot more confusing than it is, and this book helps cut through all of that.

kls2• 6 years ago

Wood dye and wood stain are different in the US, here is a good article on the differences:

https://www.woodcraft.com/blog_entries/stain-or-dye#:~:text=....

You can make your own wood conditioner by mixing 70% varnish with 30% mineral spirits or a 60/40 of Denatured alcohol and shellac.

You only need a conditioner if you are staining a soft, sap wood such as American yellow pine. We have a pine here called slash pine that is similar in properties to your pine, but it is virtually extinct. It does not need pre-stain conditioning because it is a harder pine, and it was mostly harvested from old growth forests.

Point being it is really not, the specific wood, it is the characteristics of the wood, mainly hardness, porousness, sapling harvest or heartwood harvest and oiliness.

If you have a soft, pours, sap wood harvested, with little oil content it is going to need conditioning. If you have something like Ipe, hard as a rock, oily and a tight grain, you will not need it and most likely need a dye to actually stain it.

flir• 6 years ago

Your wood conditioner recipe sounds like sanding sealer to me. Is wood conditioner a new name for an old product?

bg4• 6 years ago

Paul Sellers https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulSellersWoodwork

starpilot2• 6 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWzA3ZlYEOLr1JkKH0ZMyg

Matt is from the UK. His vid on applying OSMO finish was a lifesaver for me.

yurish• 6 years ago

HeARTwood, from Russia: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheVersatileMG. Quite a lot about woodworking.

speg• 6 years ago

Paul Sellers and Matt Eastlea.

raister3• 6 years ago

I saw someone commenting on YouTube that there is a lot of people from software looking into woodworking.

I guess it calms you down after a stressful day.

Nothing relax you more than hand planning a crooked board and making a simple dovetailed box.

jays• 6 years ago

For me, it’s also about building something that will last longer than a few years.

Seeing something physically taking shape and the pride of your craftsmanship after it is completed is quite rewarding.

jabl2• 6 years ago

I think it's due to software people often liking to build things, be it software or something else.

For me, it's that, but also something simple, concrete and long-lasting.

At work, I sit in front of a computer, wrangling with something as abstract as "information" through 147 abstraction layers, standing on the shoulders of software and hardware high-tech representing certainly $trillions of investment. In some ways, it's the pinnacle of human achievement, but it also means that you're but a very very small cog in the whole machinery.

In contrast to that, woodworking with handtools is something where the tools have existed for hundreds of years, if not millenia, the techniques are largely millenia old, and whatever I do is something physical I can see and touch, and won't be obsolete in a few years.

wetmore• 6 years ago

Woodworking and building things in general also requires similar related process such as "debugging", but I find the debugging to be a bit more fun when working on physical objects because you can visualize more easily and use physical intuitions.

m_fayer2• 6 years ago

I wonder if anyone knows of any resources for people who want to maximize the woodworking they can do in an average-sized city apartment. We don't have the space to for a real woodshop. But what we can do is dedicate a sizable closet to tools, try to get as far as we can without the big stuff, and live with woodworking involving a significant "set up a temporary shop in the middle of the living room" and then tear it down phase. I've been doing this for small projects, improvising and making do, and would love to hear stories of how others have managed.

perpetualpatzer• 6 years ago

The standard advice for this if you want to woodwork as a hobby (not for utility, that is): learn to use handtools. Paul Sellers is a good youtuber for this (and there are many others). The r/woodworking subreddit is also quite active and has good starting resources. Dust control for power tools is much harder, so if you're limited to working in your living space, it can be a problem.

saalweachter3• 6 years ago

Also, if you are using an electric saw in your apartment in the middle of the city at any time of day, you are probably a bad neighbor.

I think a lot of the question is going to be, is your goal to work with wood and make things in general, or do you have specific sorts of things you want to make?

There is really no limit to what you can make by skillfully assembling small pieces of wood into large panels, but it's a lot easier to make inlaid wood boxes in an apartment than bookshelves and desks.

A lot of the woodworking you see is furniture making, which typically involves a lot of dimensional lumber and large wood panels which are easiest worked with table saws, planers, joiners and routers, and a large shop and lots of machinery is a boon.

But inlay, woodcarving and even scrollsaw work can be done with smaller pieces of wood and little or no power tools.

DataGata• 6 years ago

Matthias's beginner page is on their Wiki![0]

[0]https://woodgears.ca/beginner/

beams_of_light• 6 years ago

I'll add to this: unless you have a lot of money, hand tools are going to not only be the quiet option, but the best option overall.

I recently bought a Craftsman bench jointer, and tried to flatten some walnut for furniture making with it. I went over and over the jointer with it, and it still wasn't flat. I tried various techniques found on YouTube, read until my eyes crossed, and still couldn't get the walnut flattened. Granted, maybe my particular jointer is bad, but I had limited walnut stock and didn't want to continue grating on the pieces I needed until they were too thin and unusable.

So, I threw my hands in the air and just went at it with a hand plane. It was a bit of work to get the pieces flat and square, but planing is kind of enjoyable. You're also not creating a ton of sawdust - just nice, silky shavings. On top of that, the surface of the wood looks great when hand planed vs. sanded or machined in other ways.

jhallenworld2• 6 years ago

Just do it. I bought a table saw to make a living room table for my rental apartment. It was a Sears 2 HP one, where you could take the legs off, so I often used it right on the floor.

These days they have much better "job site" table saws that are fold-up portable.

cwkoss• 6 years ago

If you are in a city, there are probably several rent-a-shops in your area that function much like co-working spaces - basically a wood-focused makerspace. A friend of mine used one:

- you go in and pay for some hands on time with the shop master to learn the rules and prove you can use the tools safely.

- Once you're vetted, you can rent non-master shop-time at a much lower hourly rate.

- If you encounter a problem, can rent an hour of master time to get advice and help.

- They had spaces where you could leave items being glued, etc. Store your in-progress work with a sign that has your contact info - they'll reach out if you leave it there too long.

I helped my friend with the glue up as he built a pair of end tables. Was a pretty cool space.

Discoverability is a bit tough, but seems it could be ideal for your use case.

jackhack• 6 years ago

Build an acoustic guitar in your kitchen: http://acousticguitarbuild.blogspot.com/

throwawayForMe2• 6 years ago

I am a big fan of Mr. Chickadee, he doesn’t talk much.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHkYrJ2Fbe7pBjEZvkFzi3A

wandering-nomad2• 6 years ago

Does anybody know of any Indian youtube channel/blog/website which dispenses similar knowledge. I am deeply interested in pursuing woodworking and such in my spare time but haven't been able to start because of paucity of resources applicable to Indian context

_kwmj2• 6 years ago

Not really. There ares some who do workshops/etc (I know some in Bangalore - Masterclass, Kaydo) but they don't really have much info online. Try talking to them. By the way if you are from there, there's IWST you might want to look at.

The tools and the wood - I kept trying but I couldn't really figure out a way to procure these easily and with some help in selection. Getting them from abroad would cost multiple limbs.

wandering-nomad2• 6 years ago

Thanks! I am in Bangalore and will definitely give IWST a try. Btw, I found a DIY woodworking site from India https://indiandiy.blogspot.com/

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

Matthias here (surprixed to see my website hit the front page of HN). Got any questions for me?

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

Matthias here. Surprised to see my website hit the front page of HN overnight. Got any questions for me?

jhallenworld2• 6 years ago

I'd love to know how much you make on your software... I imagine much more than the youtube ad revenue. This seems like a great formula for success- youtube content provides free advertising for your side project. EEVBlog does the same thing with his meters..

I did buy your gear template generator and tried it on the laser cutter. It's cheaper than the solidworks add-on that does the same thing :-)

Which is more successful, your plans or your software?

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

The software is a good chunk of the revenue, but youtube makes more than the sw. But when others talk about how much they make on youtube, it's alwas more than me per view. Biggest revenue contributor is plan sales.

Dumblydorr• 6 years ago

Hi Matthias!! Huge admirer here in Providence, RI. Your site is extremely helpful, but would you recommend seeking a master to learn from? I feel I'd progress faster as an apprentice than as a YouTube learner. My goal is to do dining tables, bed headboards, fancy boxes, currently I'm just doing picture frames.

Also, that pantarouter is incredible, kudos! When you routed 3 dowels I was very impressed. How did you envision the machine?

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

Being an apprentice is probably bretter, yes. But I have no idea where you would find a master who wants an apprentice, let alone a master at all.

crossman• 6 years ago

Hi fellow geek/woodworker from Providence. RISD has lots of woodworking related classes that you can take without being a full time student.

dheelus2• 6 years ago

I'm subscribed to your channels and it's pretty much the only thing I watch on YT (besides some other channels you recommended like Jeremy Fielding).

Is there any tool / machinery design in your head that you've been unable to execute yet due to time / space / $$$ constraints?

+1 for your thoughts on patents.

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

Mostly time constraint. Have been thinking about building a gear cutting machine using a table saw or angle grinder as the cutter. Sort of a single purpose CNC machine.

GoMonad• 6 years ago

Hey Matthias! I know this is off topic for the thread but thanks for jhead! I used it for years in order to sync up the exif times from friend's cameras when we traveled together. I was pleasantly surprised to see your name when looking at the man page.

Love your channel. All the best with your new little one!

gitgud• 6 years ago

Hey Matthias,

Long time admirer of your work. I'm curious how you manage the massive amount of content on the site. Is your website plain HTML and CSS? Or are you using some kind of cms?

Cheers, Ben

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

Just plain HTML, versioning managed with GIT. Just can't be bothered to learn and deal with a CMS.

mywittyname5• 6 years ago

Hi Matthias. I'm a guy who recently discovered a love for building things with wood. I don't have any family who are experienced in this area, do you think think this is something that a person can learn to do from home with practice, or is in-person instruction an invaluable component?

MatthiasWandel12• 6 years ago

Lots of woodworking youtubers have had no background in it. Its evident that they are learning it as they go, but it also shows that it's possible without schooling or a teacher.

sinker• 6 years ago

Hi Matthias, fellow woodworker here who shares a love of toolmaking and problem solving.

Have you ever felt constrained by your selection of tools? It appears to me you rely mostly on woodworking tools for your projects. In my own experience I've frequently felt that if I had the capability to mill or turn materials to exact dimensions I could more easily produce better quality tools.

It seems to me that your style of work would naturally lead, at least in part, to using machining tools and metal as material. I'm curious why your path hasn't lead you to transition here.

Thanks!

ZekeTheLeek• 6 years ago

Matthias it's so good to see you here! I consider your videos my gateway drug into woodworking. What do you think is an essential skill a woodworker should that is not usually mentioned?

agumonkey2• 6 years ago

Oh hai there,

no question but some praises, not only your wood related material (pun slightly intended) but also the video editing, it's very well balanced and extremely relaxing. A joy to watch..

May you sand for long

kriberg• 6 years ago

Hey Matthias,

Recently got a new tabletop saw. What are the essentials jigs I should build first?

wondringaloud• 6 years ago

Put another way:

Hey <programmer>, I just bought a new laptop. Which IDE should I install on it first?

TheRealWatson3• 6 years ago

How do you feel about your most popular videos on YT being mice-related? :) Did that catch you by surprise? Bother you at all? I guess not, since you seem to enjoy making those fun videos.

richardw• 6 years ago

If you’re not a woodworker, try it. I watched a bunch of YouTube and spent my December leave building my daughter a kitchen step. Such a nice experience to work with something physical. Creative and exacting. Start with a plank and an idea, end with a much-loved piece of furniture.

The outcome: https://www.reddit.com/r/woodworking/comments/ex4hej/first_p...

b0rsuk• 6 years ago

Woodworking looks strangely appealing and it's satisfying to make something with your own hands, at least once in a while. But with how absent-minded I can be I'm scared of losing a finger. Around here we say every carpenter loses a few sooner or later. Are there foolproof ways to keep them?

bicx• 6 years ago

Only use unpowered hand tools maybe. Unfortunately, using powered saws is always a little dangerous. Some table saws have a detection mechanism if it hits your flesh that causes it to hit the brakes immediately, but there aren't many other saws with that sort of safety feature. There are safety devices and safety protocols, but it's probably best to avoid them if you know that you tend to be absent-minded. Any safety device that lets wood near the blade will also let your finger near the blade.

SkyPuncher• 6 years ago

I have a strict process that I go through with any powertool that can get me quickly (not really worried about drills or sanding equipment).

* Never leave the tool running * If I can't keep my fingers at least 6 inches away, I need a jig. Many tools I keep 12+ inches away. * Clamps and wood scraps are your friends. * Unplug every tool immediately after done using. * Hand and body check immediately before turning on a tool. * Again, jig everything that I can.

jeromenerf6• 6 years ago

« A useful tool is dangerous » is what I teach children. Some could say that a blunt chisel is more dangerous than a sharp one, but that’s the next level class :)

Risk is accident probability x damage potential. I guess that if you think your nature increases the probability factor, then I would choose the tools with the least damage potential, I would stay off power tools.

oflannabhra• 6 years ago

Probably the most dangerous tool in a shop is the table saw. SawStop is really the only truly foolproof method to prevent injury. Unfortunately, they are not licensing their patent (even though they tried to initially), and they have shut down several other companies who have come out with similar mechanisms (at least Bosch).

The downside to this is that the cost of safety is relatively high ($2000+), and there is no way to retrofit high-quality used saws from the used market ($500+)

dacohenii2• 6 years ago

Even a SawStop won't prevent kickback, which is the most common type of table saw injury. However, it will prevent you from losing fingers, which was enough to convince me to buy one.

crimsonalucard1• 6 years ago

I'm waiting for the day where 3D printers become so powerful that I only need a minimal set of these "physical" DIY skills to build random physical objects.

Anybody know of a printer that can get me very close to this goal?

sq1020• 6 years ago

All this woodworking and carpentry stuff seems so interesting. For those who are experienced, what's the most efficient way to gain basic woodworking skills? And what's the best advice you would give a beginner who's starting out? I.e. things you wish you had known when you were starting out.

BannedInSweden• 6 years ago

Actually - I started out by building the bed from this website (woodgears). Youtube has a tone of good basic tutorials and this site provides basic plans (mind you - they needed some tweaking, there were errors in sizing and the twin bed we bought was actually larger than this specified).

Turned out great - except the headboard wasn't tall enough (kid bangs his head on it occasionally so re-doing that soon).

In general, just find something you want to build and build it. You will learn a LOT. Its very much like programming in that sense. You can do very simple 2d plans in openoffice draw or similar visio style tools and then buy the basics at home depot or lowes or wherever. Hand tools are ok to start but would suggest some basics like a circular saw or a portable table saw to help make things a little more straight. If you don't have any of these things then expect to spend a few hundred dollars on tools to even do something basic. You can get away with cheap tools for a project or so but if you are serious about doing this long term you are better off buying fewer higher quality things than more lower quality things as they won't last (ie dewalt over ryobi and anything from a woodshop over anything from harbor freight).

As for things I wish I'd have known when I started? Buy a good face-mask for dust protection. I had no idea how freakin toxic pine dust is. If you don't have a super high quality (read thousands of dollars) dust vac system then work in a well ventilated area (like outside) with that mask on then clean up after each session before you go inside so you don't track that junk in.

Oh and hand planing is the suck.

MarkusWandel• 6 years ago

Matthias's brother here. Handy by general standards, but two left hands by the standards of Matthias and our dear departed dad. The most important thing about starting woodworking: Have something you want to make, and no exaggerated expectations. Example from real life: Want a little wall shelf for salt and pepper etc. for over the kitchen table. At the time I had no planer or circular saw, just a ragtag assortment of tools. But you can do a reasonably square cut with a small garage sale bandsaw, and I had a hand plane that was reasonably sharp, and a random board actually looked really nice once I planed it and put a clear varnish on it. Presto, shelf. What's there to lose from trying? http://wandel.ca/pic.cgi?a09614c7

Actually I think I also had one of those "Miter box" type guided hand saws, and used that to make the square cuts. If I were starting out now, I'd get a decent handheld circular saw and improvise a jig to make a clean crosscut with it. That too can be fun experimentation and construction lumber is cheap material.

Later wanted to hang a lamp over the table, and going all the way to the ceiling and back with the cable, for a lamp this low, didn't seem right. So added a stick of wood to an IKEA shelf bracket, and: http://wandel.ca/pic.cgi?4db2d897

The key is not to kick myself because I can't do as good a job as my brother or my dad, but rather take pleasure in what I can do.

conroydave• 6 years ago

i just got smoked by that eyeballing game

davexunit4• 6 years ago

Woodworking is a hobby I really enjoy, but I've found nearly every public figure in the community to be pretentious and exclusionary (I don't actively watch Matthias' youtube channel, I just know him as the "wooden band saw guy", so I'm not applying this to him), much more so than other hobbies I've tried, programming included. Seems like everyone who is a "real" woodworker has a giant dedicated shop space filled with Sawstop and Festool brand everything, massive planers and jointers, a wall of expensive hand planes, and an elaborate dust extraction system. Going into a Woodcraft or specialty lumber yard for the first time sucks because some old white guy makes you feel dumb. Am I a "real" woodworker if I just have part of a basement/garage and a few Ryobi tools? Am I a "real" woodworker if I make things out of pine instead of black walnut? What if I use pocket screws or rabbet joints instead of hand cut dovetails? Steve Ramsey's Woodworking for Mere Mortals youtube channel and his online courses (costs money, but quite affordable, IMO) are the best resources I've ever found for lowering the barrier to entry. I would have given up long ago if it weren't for his stuff.

Itaxpica• 6 years ago

Hilariously, around like the third sentence of this I thought to myself "I bet this guy would like Steve Ramsey". He really is head-and-shoulders above anyone else making content in the hobby.

davexunit4• 6 years ago

I'm gonna sound like a paid shill if I praise him anymore than I already have but there's no way I'd be building my own cabinets if I didn't try making his BMW (basic mobile workbench) back in 2017.

mrgzg1• 6 years ago

imo you are a real woodworker if you build something, regardless of the tools you utilize. "A Tool is Only as Good as its Use"

I've gone down the rabbit hole of finding perfect tool to accomplish a task, be it in software realm or woodworking realm, only to realize I lost sight of the end goal in search for THE tool.

Thanks for pointer to Mere Mortals channel!

Pocket holes are one of those non-intimidating techniques that have kept me in the game too. I was pretty impressed by Kreg's mission: https://www.kregtool.com/about-us/mission.aspx props to them and any one else leveling the field for novices.

"Kreg products are designed to make wood projects less intimidating, to build confidence, and inspire success." I've been very satisfied by their pocket hole jig

davexunit4• 6 years ago

Pocket holes are so controversial in the woodworking world and I think it's a form of gatekeeping. I love my pocket hole jig. It's so much quicker to put together a cabinet box using pocket holes instead of setting up the dado stack and cutting rabbet joints.

funkymike• 6 years ago

You should check out Paul Sellers' videos and blog. To me he is the opposite of what you describe, preferring hand tools over machines. He describes himself as a lifestyle woodworker rather than someone trying to create results as efficiently as possible.

davexunit4• 6 years ago

I guess woodworkers fall into one of 2 groups: Those that are into it primarily because they enjoy the process and those that enjoy the results. I'm mostly interested in the results. I like the process, it's a hobby after all, but I want to take the shortest path to complete my project. I tried using a handsaw before I ever picked up a power tool and getting a square cut is way harder than it looks! When you try and fail to cut a joint with a handsaw over and over it can be pretty demotivating. Power tools gave me some quick success that motivated me to keep building. The only hand saw I have right now is a small flush trim saw.

sosuke• 6 years ago

There are snobs in every hobby. Don't let it get you down. I've been "woodworking" for 3 years now and I'm still holding my projects together with bubble gum and paper clips. But I've built a handful of things that get used.

cthalupa10• 6 years ago

Going into a Woodcraft or specialty lumber yard for the first time sucks because some old white guy makes you feel dumb.

I've found people to be generally really helpful and patient. My experience is that they really love newbies coming by - there's fewer and fewer people doing woodworking, so the chance of getting a long term repeat customer is a pretty big deal.

I'm sorry you've had poor experiences like that. I've not been involved in the community for an extended period of time, and have found people to be generally incredibly helpful and patient.

TheRealWatson3• 6 years ago

Agreed. Love the people at my local Woodcraft and Rockler.

pknerd• 6 years ago

I would like to know some more X for engineers like:

- Cooking for engineers - painting for engineers. Etc.

jakear2• 6 years ago

Modernist Cuisine a good option for “cooking for engineers”. It was actually made by a former CTO of microsoft, Nathan Myhrvold.

__turbobrew__• 6 years ago

I find Cooks Illustrated is another good option. They tend to focus on the science of cooking and do a lot of exploratory work on how to hone/simplify traditional recipes to work better at home.

agumonkey2• 6 years ago

This chinese elder makes stuff that ressembles mechanical jigsaw puzzles https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClaEdLrmti779-tyovta8zw

Woodworking for Engineers

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