Woodworking Dopers-Newbie here and need some (or lots) of advice please!

In My Humble Opinion
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I would also try to pick up a circular saw (“skilsaw”) for crosscutting long boards and breaking down sheet goods. Pretty useful for the price. A handheld random orbital sander is also very useful and inexpensive.

You will probably want a dado set for the table saw for making rabbets/tenons, especially if you don’t have a router table.

Ultimately you will want 2 routers, one in the table and one to use handheld. Router bits are expensive :frowning: Hearing and eye protection is highly recommended for using a router.

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I don’t think you need a band saw. Band saws are mainly used for cutting curves and for resawing lumber (for example, ripping a two-inch thick board into two one-inch thick boards). Unless you see a need for these kinds of cuts in the furniture you’ll be making I would move it down the list.

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I wouldn’t say he doesn’t need one, but I agree it is a lower priority if he sticks with mission style.

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I’d flip 1 & 2, and maybe move #2 farther down the list. In the ideal world? Sure, go with the order you have. Is it necessary? No. I’ve been an amateur woodworker for about 10 years, accumulating tools now and again, and have built lots of stuff for my own house (furniture, cabinets, knick-knacks) and others, and don’t have a dust collection system. The garage gets dusty, but in between each project I bust out my ShopVac and spend a couple hours cleaning up. Easy peasy. Space is at a premium.

I use my table saw every day I’m out there. If I have a day of heavy sanding ahead of me, I’ll roll my workbench out into the driveway and wear a dust mask. Or in the winter, just wear the mask. That’s why up above, I listed it 3rd out of the three items I suggested. The dust collection isn’t going to make you a better or more skilled woodworker, just a cleaner one.

As for 4 and 5, it’s a toss-up. I’ve had a router for years but not a bandsaw. Having one would make things easier but again, for most of what you’ll be doing, a router is one of those tools that there isn’t a suitable alternative. If you’re trying to make a piece of stock thinner and don’t have a bandsaw, you can resaw on the tablesaw, or just run it through a planer, if you have access to one. If you’re trying to round an edge detail into a piece of your work, there isn’t really another way to do it except by hand, which can take forever. I’d flip 4 & 5.

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If you’re going to be starting with mission style, you should swap 4 and 6. You’ll use the mortiser a whole lot more than the band saw.

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I get a lot of use out of my chop saw (compound miter saw). It’s probably just a matter of personal preference but I use that more than my table saw. The next most often used power tool is my router, which I can attach to a relatively inexpensive router table. Next after that is a drill press. That’s my list, FWIW. I don’t own a band saw. It would be nice to have once in a while but I haven’t felt enough of a need to spend the money on it yet.

Oh, and did anyone mention that you should probably get a lot of clamps? And then some more clamps. And don’t forget to get some more clamps. You always need clamps.

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I would say start with a descent table saw. You can rip (cut along the grain, usually the length of the board), crosscut (cut perpendicular to the grain, usually the width of a board), miters (angled cuts for corners), as well as dadoes, rabbets and tenons (with a dado blade set). Plus I tend to use mine as a workbench and assembly table for small projects.

I have my grandfather’s old Craftsman table saw that he got in 1956. He never used any dust collection and worked in his shop daily. I’ve had it for a few years now and plan on adding dust collection in the spring. If I were as diligent as he was about cleaning up after each set of cuts, the dust issue wouldn’t have been too bad.

I just finished building a wall o’ cabinets and shelves and a new kitchen table for my wife. The cabinets are 8 feet wide by 8 feet tall and 15 inches deep. All I used - in order of time spent using each tool - was my table saw, circular saw, drill, router, and drill press. I could have used my drill instead of the drill press, but the drill press was good for drilling the same holes for the European hinges on the cabinet doors. 25 hinges in total.

I did rail and stile cabinet doors with a flat plywood panel. I cut all the grooves and tenons on the table saw. All the plywood panels were first cut down with a circular saw on saw horses, then cut to final size on my table saw. All the hardwood was cut to length on my table saw.

I did some dadoes in the large side panels with the router.

I drilled pocket screw holes to attach the face frames with my drill. I also used a jig to use my drill to make holes for adjustable shelves.

I forgot to mention that I used a Random Orbital Sander, but not very much. Since I was using Baltic Birch veneered plywood, I was wary of sanding through the veneer, so I mainly stuck with hand sanding everything. I mainly used it on the table legs that were rough sawn at the lumber yard.

There was a lot of dust. So much that I refused to do any more projects until I redo my workshop. Everything is going to get put in a cabinet or drawer.

My workshop is a single bay in a 3 car garage. I can move the cars out for more room when I need it, but I have to keep things small and mobile. I am going to redo my table saw cart so it incorporates the router table and jointer more seamlessly. I am going to redo my workbench and add some storage near my drill press. But the very first thing I will make next year is a Thien Cyclone Dust Separator for under $30 to make it much more enjoyable place to work.

28

If you’re going to do dovetail joinery, nothing replaces practice.

Take two scraps of wood and make a dovetail joint. Then do it again 40-50 times before you decide to actually MAKE dovetail joints for a project.

That being said, there are some fine jigs one can purchase to use with a router (with collar attachments) to make dovetail joints.

29

When doing finish work don’t get stingy when buying blades. Plywood and paneling blades, ripping blades and cut off blades. An expensive blade will do a much better job, last 10 times longer and can be resharpened. I spend anywhere from $90 to 150.00 for my 10" table saw blades but they last a very long time.

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No DC is OK if you have a garage door you can open up, or a very large space. If you are working in a small indoor room or basement, the air is going to become very saturated with particulates.

31

If you planning to mostly work with hardwoods rather than sheet goods and are able to purchase a 6" jointer or are willing to delve into the awesome world of hand planes, you may want to consider a decent bandsaw as your first saw.

In my current shop (split it with my Dad) we have a decent table saw and puny bandsaw. If I were to strike off on my own, I would be hard pressed to want to buy a table saw, would rather put my money into a good bandsaw.

Crosscuts can be made with a miter saw or with a handsaw. I tend to cut most of my crosscuts by hand, even with a miter saw and a crosscutting sled for the table saw only a few feet away. Exercise, no need for dust collection, no need to manhandle a board into place, no need for hearing protection or a dust mask. Just the sound of steel swishing through wood :slight_smile:

That being said, Mission style has a lot of same sized parts, it’s seemingly a style that came about because of the repeatable nature of table saws.

Basically, you will think you never have enough tools, until the day comes when you realize that gizmos don’t make up for practice. Embrace the practice and the process, not the end result and you will find yourself chuckling at the latest greatest gadget in the woodworking magazines.

One tiny tip, don’t buy chisels in sets. Buy what you need, when you need it, and start researching sharpening systems. I use King water stones from Lee Valley, probably one of the cheaper long term solutions. When my stones wear out, likely 15 or 20 years from now, I will try the newer, higher end water stones that are coming out, but till then, these will do me just fine.

Enjoy your new hobby

32

Here’s another question I’ve been wondering. I’ve got some plans to make a couple things, but since these will be my first attempts, should I use a cheaper and softer wood like pine to test it out first? (I’m assuming pine is a cheaper wood than oak).

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There are plenty of woodworkers who prototype in a cheaper wood. I fall into the, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” camp so I am not a good example of that :slight_smile:

Oak is a tough wood to work because it is hard, brittle, prone to splintering. Pine isn’t much easier due to how easily it is compressed. You need sharper chisels in pine than you do in oak, for instance.

An easy wood to work in is poplar, somewhat harder and around the same price is soft maple. Soft maple isn’t too soft, it has a similar Janka rating as cherry and walnut. But is much softer than oak.

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As far as wood, I’ve found that Menards has some nice lumber to work with. Poplar, Maple, Oak, a bit of Ash… It is all mainly 1x stock in widths from 2 to 8 inches. (Due to kiln drying, that is actually 3/4"x1 1/2" to 7 1/2") I’ve found Home Depot - at least around me - usually only carries construction lumber and some millwork pieces in pine, oak and poplar for baseboard and chair rails and such. The Menards hardwood is usually one aisle behind the sheet goods or directly across from the sheet goods.

It’s a good place to go and see what kind of wood fits your budget and maybe play around with some little projects.

I don’t like oak. It dulls tools quickly because it is so hard and I don’t particularly like the pronounced dark and light pattern of the grain. Some people love it. I’m not one of those people.

I started out making everything out of pine. That’s what my grandfather always made stuff from. Now talking with my grandmother, it turns out that he was just cheap and pine is about the cheapest you’ll find. It can also have a very pronounced grain pattern like oak. Pine is also very soft. I picked up a pine kitchen table when I was first married and my wife’s friend came over and did some homework on the pine table (she was still in college). She used a pencil on a piece of notebook paper directly on the table top. From then on, whenever she came over I would point to the table and tease her about the negative sign she dropped in a math problem because it was permanently etched in the table.

I haven’t done much with poplar so I can’t say too much other than a lot of people don’t like the Baby Poop Green (BPG - so common that it even has it’s own acronym) color of some of it’s grain. If you plan on painting - no problem!

I’ve mainly been working with maple. It’s a pleasure to work with and gets nice and smooth with just a bit of sanding. But it is a pain to finish. It has uneven pores so stain can get into some pores and not others. That leads to a blotchy appearance. I used analine dyes (rather than stains) for my past projects to get a more uniform coloring. The dye molecules are smaller than the stain molecules and can get into the both the small and big pores.

35

If you don’t mind my saying so, I’d give exactly the opposite advice: never buy anything, least of all a lathe, from Harbor Freight. Their business model is to sell Chinese rubbish for cheap. When you buy crap like that, you’ll only experience the kind of frustration that makes you want to quit. Always make it a practice to buy high-quality tools.

The one thing no one has mentioned here is a good bench. It’s the foundation for anything you might want to do. You can buy one, but a top-quality one will cost you thousands. And as with the lathe, if you buy a cheap one, you’ll only rue the day you were born. If I were making a bench again, (and I may well, soon) I’d probably use engineered lumber for the top. Some of the Home Depots around here carry laminated structural lumber in about 16-foot lengths, maybe 20 inches wide. It’s cheap, strong, and nice and flat. Maybe fir 4x4s for the legs, held together with 1 x 6s, and the whole thing skinned in plywood for extra rigidity. It might be crude, but it should be steady as a rock. You’ll have to spend a fair something for vises, I’m afraid.

36

This is not actually the case. Kiln drying shrinks the wood somewhat, but not to that degree. The difference between nominal and actual sizes has to do, or at least originally had to do, with the difference in size between rough-sawn and surfaced lumber.

(There’s another rant here – and when it comes to wood, I’m full of them – and it has to do with the fact that even the “actual” size is now a nominal size. Go to Home Depot and measure a 2 x 4. It’s not actually 1 1/2" by 3 1/2". It’s something smaller. And so too with just about everything in the store.)

On the subject of poplar, I’ve recently become a big fan, after discovering that it’s cheaper than pine. I happen to love to the color of poplar, but would be the first to admit that it goes with nobody’s decor. It can of course be stained or painted. For the inside components of furniture, it would be the first thing I’d use.

37

I’m bumping this old thread as I’ve got a question regarding bandsaws and making tenons.
My current project is to make this set of pet steps. which has the mortise and tenons for the braces. I tried to do the mortise and tenon by hand using a chisel and really don’t have the patience or the precision to do it. So, I found that drilling holes into the wood then using a scroll saw, I can make some spot on mortises without having to buy a mortiser or use the chisel. (It’s a cheap scroll saw from Harbor Freight that I decided to use to see if it would even be possible before upgrading).

Now, I need to make the tenons and really want a band saw to do it. Space is tight so I’m hoping to get by with just a table top model. More specifically, this Ryobi model from Home Depot. My question is, can it cut the tenons when the wood is on its side (so about 2" thick)?

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In the specifications, it says it has a depth of cut of 3.5 inches, so theoretically, the answer is yes. You may just have to go slow.

39

The Ryobi claims to have 3 1/2" vertical cutting so, it should manage a 2" deep cut.

I am a hand tool first guy when it comes to joinery, so my advice is only worth what you paid for it: I would spend that money on a nice, entry level handsaw instead. Here is an entry-level priced hand saw with the performance of a high end handsaw. The rip saw will meet your needs and leave you some spending money for other doodads that you might need.

40

I’m tempted to go that way and that’s how I learned how to make them, but I’m finding I prefer power tools more than the hand tools. Mostly because it’s easier to set up a fence and repeat than to rely more on my (current lack of) skill. I think as I start to build more, I’ll gravitate more towards hand tools though.

On a side note, I did finish my first project last month, a semi-Art Deco restyle of a Adirondack Chair:
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