Should we chuck some over?
How much wood could we chuck? That is, if we could chuck wood.
Sing it, brother. I’ve cut myself in every woodworking class save one. Some were minor (did you know that those little tiny teeth on a Japanese dovetail saw are REALLY fucking sharp?), and others produced more blood (lost grip on a spokeshave ended up with a bad gash on one thumb). Learning to stay behind the business end is important, as is learning how to put a razor’s edge on a blade.
Not sure what aspect of woodworking he is interested in but quite a few young men are getting involved in building all wood archery bows. They can do the entire process with hand tools with plenty of online guidance and support for a beginner. Boys seem to love bows and arrow once they get involved with them. They can also be works of art.
I have cut myself brushing shavings away from the end of my chisel. I took that as a compliment 
Chefguy is speaking truth. Learning to keep away from the business end is the most important lesson. A lesson much easier learned with hand tools. Besides, aside from heavy duty grunt work, hand tools do almost everything better.
I made a pair of walnut nightstands with only* hand tools for fun. Even resawed the drawer material by hand. Bandsaws are cool. They turned out pretty good I think.
- this was before I had a plow plane, so the grooves housing the bottom shelf were cut with an electric router. Everything else was hand tools though. Even the arch was cut with a coping saw.
Very nice.
When it comes to any kind of cutting tool, I would strongly advise buying the best models that you can possible afford and making certain that both you and your son have read any accompanying manuals or directions thoroughly before you use them. Cheap saws break down and that alone can cause injuries even if you are being careful.
Also, make certain that any woodshop you setup has plenty GFC outlets and that you keep any cords for equipment out of the way (to prevent tripping) and in good condition (replace any frayed or worn cords ASAP). Electrical shock is as big a hazard as lacerations and amputations in a shop environment, but it is often ignored.
Thank you. It was a fun project. The design was a very blatant rip off of Thomas Moser’s American Bungalow collection but since I charged myself nothing and improved 
on the design, I can sleep at night. Next to those awesome nightstands.
Really appreciate all the replies.
This is excellent advice from you and others; start off with hand tools and progress to power tools.
True enough for power tools, but for hand tools it can often be a waste of money. For example, I’d much rather spend $40 on an old Stanley jack plane in a second-hand store and put in a new Hawk blade, than $300 on a shiny Lie-Nielsen plane.
…but…but…you’re Crafter_Man - you’re already supposed to have a workshop!!
I am WordMan, and IRL, my friends and associates would attest that I use far more than my fair quota of words. 
Ya gotta *represent *that username.
I’d go a step further if you’re going to have power tools, and implement something like a lock-out/tag-out system so that you can lock the tools off when you’re not around to do it with him.
My little table saw (a Craftsman one similar to Chefguy’s DeWalt) has the lock-out key in the on/off switch, and when my sons get old enough to know what it is, you can better believe that key will be well secured away from the saw.
Maybe a router table? A few years back, there was a Canadian produced father and son (father–in his 60s, son–in his late 30s) TV show (PBS?) about working with a router table (I believe they built one from scratch). Very informative; router table seemed very versatile. Hope to get one myself, one day.
If money’s a concern, then look online or in the newspaper and buy a set of used tools from a carpenter’s estate or a business that’s closing. I have a number of machinist tools (which, sadly, are now gathering dust in the garage) which cost their original owner many thousands but for which I paid a grand total of 2k. I even paid his widow MORE than she wanted for the lot as I didn’t want to seem as if I was taking advantage of her.
She just wanted them gone.
But buying the best quality tools,used or new, is always the best bet, in my experience. I have only broken a few good tools. I have destroyed plenty of shitty ones.
Exactly. I had a good instructor who advised us as to where to spend our money, especially when just starting out. $100 on a Starrett square? Absolutely; there’s no substitute for an accurate square. $275 on a set of chisels? Might want to wait on that. He also advised that the old 40s vintage planes are still some of the best ones out there, cheap and easy to find. The same applies for other trades. I’ve never had a pair of Klein pliers fail me, but have actually had the handle break on a pair of Bokers.
I like the hand tools idea, but don’t stick to just those. As a kid I only got to use hand tools for a long time and I didn’t have as much interest in woodworking as a result. Hand tools are great for some people, I’m very impressed with FordPrefect’s end tables, I couldn’t make something that good with hand tools. If your son at age 11 shows a natural ability with those hand tools then I would encourage him to apply himself to those skills, they will have value in through the rest of his life.
Just to mention, some people consider routers and router tables to be the most dangerous tools in a shop. I remember the router guys on TV, they were good, and you could get plans for their custom made tables which were quite simple and looked much easier to use than the commercial models, mainly because you could pop the whole router and plate out of the table to change bits and adjust height. Still, routers run at very high rpms and bits can come loose and break, and often material has to be hand fed with fingers uncomfortably close to the bits. From experience I can tell you that finger boards and fences can lead to serious kick back from routers, and shards of wood can come shooting out of a piece being cut.
I have two Freud routers, excellent variable speed units, one mounted in a table and the other for free hand work. There’s a trick to these routers though, the wood has to want to be cut.
TriPolar:
I truly appreciate your comments/clarifications re: router tables. Those router guys made it look SO easy and ALMOST foolproof; even though they would occasionally say it takes years of practice and patience to get good with a RT, it would have been really instructional for them to show a tearout or some other mishap (hopefully no blood), but that doesn’t make for good TV, huh?
The last half of your last line should be the mantra of all woodworkers and should be made into a sampler and hung over the entrance of every woodshop. It’s almost elegant.
I once worked in a sheet-metal shop.
As in “punch press”.
There was exactly one machine in the shop I considered safe - the monster which required 2 operators.
There were 4 large push-buttons (momentary-contact) mounted on the upper platen.
To cycle the press, all 4 buttons had to be held down for the entire length of the cycle.
Nobody could have a hand off the either of his switches.
Some machines cannot be used with a hand to hold the work, but:
Look for tools which require the engagement of both hands before any dangerous operation will occur.
And: with saws, have lots of pushers, guides, things-that-go-between-hand-and-cutting-tool.
And buy expensive tools - they will have the safety devices the cheap ones skip or are so flimsy as to be discarded.
If I had bought a table saw with a smooth-operating blade guard, I’d still have all my left index finger.
I’m a bit of an amateur woodworker myself. I think one of the biggest frustrations in woodworking is cutting a straight line. If your lines aren’t straight, your joints don’t line up nicely. If your joints don’t line up, the whole thing looks like crap. Now, what looks like crap to 40 year old me might be just fine for an 11 year old, so YMMV.
You can get fairly decent straight lines on a bandsaw with a fence, but even then the blade will wobble a bit and you’ll get some wavy lines. The best cuts are on a tablesaw. You can cut a board lengthwise, crosswise, and diagonally very easily. But they are a bit expensive. A miter saw and circular saw could get you by for a lot less money, but the results won’t be as nice.
My advice would be to get a nice tablesaw that only Dad uses for now. That way Dad can cut the boards down to size and let the kid do the finishing work. A bandsaw is nice, but not really necessary unless you plan to make a bunch of bandsaw boxes or resaw lumber. Might I suggest either a scroll saw or a reciprocating saw. Again, manly for Dad to use until the kid is older.
Hand tools are nice as well, but if they are a lot of work. Unless you have a real sharp hand saw (and know how to keep it sharp) cutting a 4 foot board lengthwise is a real chore. Probably enough for either Dad or the kid to decide that woodworking isn’t nearly as much fun as the Xbox.
Most woodworkers enjoy the bench work. Beautiful dovetails that slide right together. Tenons that are just the right tightness in their mortise. Mitered corners that are nearly invisible. All perfectly do-able with hand tools and are fairly safe. All are nearly impossible to do without a straight cut.
When trying to keep a beginner interested in any hobby, it usually best to get them producing results as quickly as possible. I have a few posts in beginner guitar threads where I advocate for starting on an electric guitar since I consider it easier (lighter strings, distortion on the amp and power chords) to produce the kind of music they are usually the most interested in. Start easy and increase the difficulty level as the user progresses.
On preview, it looks like I may have outdone Wordman on my share of words. The TL;DR version:
[ul]
[li]Invest in an electric saw, nobody likes cutting wood by hand. (Also invest in a random orbital sander because nobody likes sanding by hand either.) [/li][li]Dad uses the power tools until the kid is old enough and deemed responsible enough. [/li][li]Let the kid use any other tools that the parents have deemed safe enough to finish building the project.[/li][li]Routers are awesome, but probably not needed right away.[/li][li]Do research on tool quality. Buy the best quality tool you can afford. The best ones will outlive your son.[/li][/ul]
Finally, if you find any Stanley planes from the 40’s or 50’s for under $50, let me know.
^ Shadowfyre:
Excellent post; you should write instructional books. Your beginner guitar technique is spot-on; it’s how I learned (but we didn’t have electrics–six string nylon played along to Peter, Paul & Mary. Good times). 
I see them here all the time, and ebay is full of them.