Thread: Two Beginner Questions

Welcome to the forums.

Sounds like you have a reasonable starting point if you are interested in woodworking, lucky you.

Not sure what you have available around you in terms of wood suppliers but most places in my area (geelong) don't carry a great deal of variety. If you don't mind softwood timber then you can't really go past douglas fir (aka oregon), especially if you can get your hands on some old growth stuff that has been salvaged from old homes. Otherwise you will probably want to start with some victorian ash/tasmanian oak or any of the other plantation hardwoods that you can readily find at the big warehouse hardware stores. You can also find the same stuff at places that recycle building timber as well, often at a discount, especially if you are willing to dimension the timber yourself. These messmate (generic term for several common australian hardwoods like vic ash) timbers as they are sometimes referred to are quite hard and can be picky when planed as they sometimes have alternating grain but they are usually relatively cheap and sand and finish very nicely.

In terms of joints you will probably want to avoid screws for any real furniture you make. The most common methods for 90 degree joints are butted joints (where strength is not an issue since end grain does not glue strongly), dowel joints (can be quite strong if you use the 1 dowel per inch "rule") and finally the mortice and tenon joint which is widely considered to be the number 1 joint to use in furniture making. I've made pieces using all of the above methods with good results for all, the main consideration is how much strength you need. For shelves or chairs/stools you would definitely not go with a but joint. If the wood would be under compression however then you might consider a butt joint as an option.

Feel free to post some pictures of your designs if you have any sketches or if you have time download Google SketchUp and do a couple of youtube tutorials to learn how it's used and you will be designing in no time. Whilst i'm on the subject of YouTube, you will find lots of useful ideas and techniques on there for your woodworking. I found some good ideas for jigs i could make myself and avoid having to buy costly machinery in some cases. If you plan on doing most things by hand then definitely check out Paul Sellers videos. He's an Englishman who does a lot of tutorials for hand tools, very good tutor.

Good Luck and please post some photos of your work as you go.
Cheers
Mat

Chris,
Face frame construction is the next step for you. The basic box carcase can be solid wood or sheet material with a wood face frame attached. A back panel is fitted in a rebate so it is not visable at the sides or top. The back and face frame really stiffen up the construction. The box itself can be butt jointed but rebates are better. All sorts of jointing methods can be used like dowels, biscuit, pocket hole screws, glue and pin/nail and even the old mortice and tenon in the face frame. It is a bit hard and long winded to describe all the detail so read up on face frame construction. Plenty stuff on utube too.
Regards
John

Chris, I can recommend a book called "Good Wood Joints" published by Collins as ideal for a beginner. It covers such things as

How to select and construct the best joint for the job.

Step by step instructions for every traditional hand cut and machine cut joint.

Includes hardwoods, softwoods and machine-made boards.

If you have a router I think a really useful joint is a loose tenon. I have attached a link to an example. It may not be the best example but there is any number of examples on you tube and various woodworking web pages.

Loose Tenon Mortise Jig Part 1 of 3 - YouTube

Gday Chris,

Depends where you are but when I was starting out I got most of my timber from a place called 'Tile Importers' in Clayton. Tile Importer, Timber Yards, DIY, Hardware, Kitchen, Bathroom, Doors, Tiles, Taps, Oakleigh, Melbourne
They had a good range of Tas Oak and Jarrah most of the time at very good prices. Also had Oregon, pine, Merbau and others. You can sort through the pile and pick the boards you want. Also cheap Plywood sheets and MDF. Half the price of the bunnings. (this was 3 years ago though)

As for joints, why not go all out and start with the dovetail.

I'll chuck in a few more comments:

First, if you end up pursuing this as a serious hobby, I'm sorry to say that you will soon enough discover that the cost of material is not your major expense, once you get going - tools & gear can eat up far more of your budget for the first few years! However, as someone looking back at more than 50 years of mucking about with bits of wood, it's a very satisfying hobby, and far better than pharmaceuticals..

Given that you don't have the equipment to surface & thickness recycled stuff the easy way, you will probably want to start with dressed timber, which will limit your options on types & sizes & where you get it from. You can, of course, take rough timber all the way to a finished article with hand tools alone, but it might detract from the experience in the beginning, while you are still learning to drive planes & saws well. One thing you will have to accept is that all timber is 'precious', these days, at least according to the price! But if you buy your wood sensibly, and use it well, you can easily quadruple the value of the raw material in the finished product. If you go at it sensibly, and take your time, you can make just about anything it's possible to make. Don't stress too much, some mistakes, like cutting a board too short, can't be fixed (so best avoid that wherever possible ), but most mistakes can (or just incorporate them into the 'design'. ).

My advice if newish to hand-tools is to stick with medium-density woods to start with. The principles of working any wood are the same, but medium-density woods just plane, saw & chisel well. The much-maligned radiata is not a bad wood in this respect, if you select denser boards with reasonably tight rings. Like all softwoods, it's horrible to stain, you have to go through quite a rigmarole to do it even passably-well, so really only suitable where you want light-coloured woods, but it is good practice material. Tassie oak is a relatively easy hardwood to work, and widely available in a range of sizes. If you pick over a pile, you can often find pieces with interesting grain (though these will be a bit harder to plane), and it's a wood that stains easily & can finish very nicely for a Eucalypt. There are lots of really lovely woods from northern NSW and Qld, but they will cost you several times more than T.O., of course.

As some others have suggested, get some help, either from books, internet videos or better still, join a w/working group if there's one handy to you. Not only will you meet a bunch of like-minded individuals (as far as woodwork is concerned.. ), you will get useful information on where to get your hands on the stuff you need. Sometimes, having someone show you how to do something can speed up your skill acquisition by a factor of ten or more.

And lastly, don't expect to be James Krenov by week two - it does take a lot of time & practice to develop that sort of skill. Collect scrap wood (old softwood crates & pallets are great sources) and practise planing, sawing straight, & cutting joints - you can even make quite attractive & useful things as practice pieces. I'll tell you a secret (as long as you don't tell anyone else ), cutting dovetails, which seems to be the acme of fine woodworking to the uninitiated, isn't all that difficult - making a truly perfect mortise & tenon joint is actually harder, I reckon, which is annoying, because no-one but another woodie ever notices the quality of that joint (until the badly-made one falls to pieces), but both can be done well by anyone, if they go at it carefully & methodically.

Cheers,

I started out before there was any talk of an internet, when such things were science fiction. Now just about anything you want to know can be read about, pictured and watched on any number of videos any time you like. The first thing I ever made was a small shelf made out of chipboard and held together by nails. But I made it and I was hooked. As for joints, not being naturally skilful I have had to practice a lot to produce anything acceptable.Small tables are a good project. You will only need to joint boards together for a top and make some mortice and tenon joints, but in doing so you will practice planning and chiseling and sawing to a line.It will make your life easier if you get a few good tools and learn how to sharpen them right at the start. Making nice things is hard enough without the burden of second rate and blunt tools. And especially get a marking knife. Cutting to a marking knife line is easier and more accurate than a pencil line. Also if you are going to cut mortices a dedicated mortice chisel is easier to use than a bevel edged chisel I think.Lastly you had better get used to the fact that some proportion of the things you make will end up in the scrap bin. When I first learned to cut dovetails I spent several weekends just cutting joints, cutting them off and starting again before I ever tried to apply them to a project.I have known men who say that they are bored. If you get addicted to wood you will never be bored. You may be frustrated,confused or poor but never bored.

When I said I was not naturally skilful I wish I was only trying to be humble but it is just a statement of fact. That said I have never let that stop me from trying to make just about anything. I look at the work some men do, even men on this forum, and I could despair of ever being as clever. But I have learned that the product is not the point. I am not doing this to produce useful objects. Goodness me! If it was furniture I was after I could go and buy it.

It is the making that that matters. Sharpening a plane and getting paper thin shavings, learning to use a new tool or how to cut a new joint. Even researching, saving for a buying a new tool or searching the markets for an old one to restore. These are the things that make the craft so addictive. The actual objects are a by-product.

Originally Posted by chook

....... The actual objects are a by-product....

Not quite the line to take when convincing your better half that we need some expensive new tool, chook, but I get your drift.

However, I think you overstate the case a little in making your point. Surely the quality of the by-product does matter, as well? As amateurs, we enjoy the process, most certainly, but most of us do strive (not always with immediate success, of course), to reach levels of competence we can be satisfied with. Also, I find it helps maintain domestic harmony, & justifies (some) of the hours spent 'down in the shed' if you produce an object that meets critical standards, from time to time.....

Cheers,

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the advice.

I'm probably a bit unusual in that I'm interested in learning how to use the tools I've got and also how to take rough material through to a finished item more than actual finished products (if that makes sense!).

Face frame construction, Tassie Oak, Good Wood Joints, Mortice and Tenon joints are all things that I'll look into. Funnily enough, I know Tile Importers - when I was at uni I worked for a renovator and he got most of his materials from there.

For my first project I think I'll try a face frame cabinet held together with dowels.

Cheers,

Chris

the best advice I can give it so start out with what you have and learn and acquire more tools as you go. Dont start out with too ambitions a project or you might get disheartened.

My own story is that I did one term of woodwork at high school, Class was on a Monday in term one so I missed a third of the normal number of classes due to public holidays. All we made was a sample piece with a rabbet cut in one end as if for a half-lap joint and two dados cut through the piece, one at right angles , the other at 60 degrees, and we glued a piece of matching timber into whichever of the dado's it fitted in better.

But I was hooked on woodworking and I used to do small projects at home with the help of my dad until I left home at 17. He taught me how to plane with a Stanley #5. He taught me mortise and tennon joinery and I even cut some dovetails by hand. A lot of the stuff I did was just practice pieces. Dad had heaps of scrap wood.

After i left home I didnt do any woodwork until I got married at 27. I started making furniture for my growing family. I had a 7 1/4" circular saw, an old black and decker workmate borrowed from my Father-in-law and a three pack of chain-store chisels, a hammer, a drill, a bottle of glue and a can of estapol and a paint brush.

I made a couple of dining chairs out of crapiata pine because it was cheap I made a two seater lounge chair. As time went on I added six more dining chairs, an eight seater dining table, another two-seater lounge and two matching single seaters, coffee tables, a massive corner unit, bunk beds with rollaway toy boxes under them. Basically a whole houseful of furniture - with very basic equipment.

I learned as I went and found better ways to do things. I was rapt when I could cut out a mortise in 15 minutes (there were 18 of them on each dining chair) but I was probably being over-careful of the inside of the mortise which nobody would ever see after assembly, but I am a bit of a perfectionist.

Nowadays I have just about all the equipment I could possibly need and too much to fit in a 6 x 10m shed and I have built a lot of skills between the ages of 27 and 54. But as someone else mentioned it is so much easier now than it was then to find the information. The internet as we know it was not there in 1987. Looking back, I cant imagine doing what I was doing without the online resources we have today.

I made a lot of mistakes, I wasted a lot of wood, I made a lot of functional furniture out of cheap crappy timber. I learned a lot and I am still learning today. But it is easier today. Google is the amateur woodworker's friend.

If I had to do it all over again I would spend more time studying timber itself and understanding more about how wood moves, little things that make a difference like "the inside of the tree is the outside of the drawer", knowing how to read the grain to know where the board came from in the tree so that you can make sure it is suitable for what you want to do, the difference between quarter-sawn, plain-sawn and rift-sawn. Some of my earlier works needed some rebuilding because I did not take the time to learn these things early enough. But as I found, the wood itself will teach you the lessons, if you will only stop and listen to it.

Hope this helps

Doug

Originally Posted by IanW

Not quite the line to take when convincing your better half that we need some expensive new tool, chook, but I get your drift.

However, I think you overstate the case a little in making your point. Surely the quality of the by-product does matter, as well? As amateurs, we enjoy the process, most certainly, but most of us do strive (not always with immediate success, of course), to reach levels of competence we can be satisfied with. Also, I find it helps maintain domestic harmony, & justifies (some) of the hours spent 'down in the shed' if you produce an object that meets critical standards, from time to time.....

Cheers,

I am in a somewhat special position with respect to better halves. I have never had to justify any purchase. Even years ago when we were quite poor, she was always scheming of ways to get me tools. One Sunday morning last year she came home with a big box of old wooden planes because she thought, correctly, that is would like to restore them.

I know that this is not normal and that some men, many perhaps, do not get the same support I do. But it has allowed me the freedom to take such ability as I have and to explore the boundaries of what I can produce.

If you are building a 19 inch equipment rack...realy..you have to trurn your back on most of the conventional cabinet work methods.

I have come across many equipment racks built by cabinet makers or using cupboard like construction.....they are generally impractical and insufficinely strong.

remember you will be hanging equipment off its front edge off the raak strip.....especially if there are power amps involved..this puts a lot of load on the frame.

I've built my share of 19 inch racks for installations.

From bitter experience I strongly recomend you turn your back on solid timber.

good quality plywood edged with hardwood is the best option.

What you are looking for is a sheet board that is dimensionally stable and remains flat.

I have had best consistencey out of the asian structrual exteroiur plywood......usually meranti ( or another name for meranti)
I would edge it with tas oak.

Remember mostly with 19 inch racks you need both front and rear access...so using a back sheet to brace the structure as in most cabinets is mostly out.

the other thing you need to consider is fixing the rack strip.

The scheme I have developed is to build the front edge ( and sometimes the back edge )of the rack from two thicknesses of ply....I have in the past used 15mm but you can go as thin as 10mm...as the edges will be twice that....yopu need at least 20mm to screw into to mount your rack strips...if you are mouting power amps or other heavy gear..tend toward the 30mm and screw the rach strip in ever rack unit space

I will generally glue up the side forms with the double thicknesses about 100mm wide front and rear.
Then I will machine the edges flush and square on the table saw..if its a furniture piece...then fit your edging......pva glue and fine brads works fine...but mmake sure you remember where the brads are.

After the edgeing strips have been fitted and sanded or planed flush, cross cut the sides to height....

the bottom and top are then but glued onto the sides....if youlike you can then thicken up the top and bottom boards to match the sides with inserts.

Now if you wnat a better look and donet mind a bit more fiddle......use the same method as a bove but fit the edging after the whole box has been built...you can then mitre the edges sort of like a face frame that does not over lap.

with the right stain and finish...the plywood can look damn fine.

remember the internal dimension for the width of the rack is 487mm if using penn fabrications rack strip.


If you intend to put a door on this rack, remember that the door has to allow full width access to the rack so you can fit and remove equipment with out removing the door.

Also if the rack is to be operated a door can be a real PITA.

A trick I developed is to mount the hinges on the outside of the box...big ones....this allows the door to swing a full 270 deg to lie flat against the side of the rack when open.

for this to work the cabinet has to be at least as deep as it is wide.


The double thickness of ply if cut properly flat and square may give enough bracing for a short cabinet...if you think more bracing is required a short square board about 100mm high top and or bottom inside the rear will brace up fine.

There are a number of ways this method can be fiddled, depending on what presentation you want.


I will sometimes step the secong thickness back from the front and or rear edge...at the front this can allow a back stop for the door to sit into..at the rear it can allow the brace boards and or a full back to sit flush with the back edge.

Where a full back is required I will fit brace boards top and bottom, permanently fixed and have the centre removable.

Mostly I will screw and glue all joins....but there are other options appart from straight thruu screwing.
Using very good glue and either brads or clamps sort of works.

if you do not want to see any end grain....taped mitre joints can work but they do need some additional support.

a taped mitre joint is where you cut you boards with an accurate 45 deg mitre....present them end to end....flat on the bench..then use good mashing tape to hod them together like a hinge......apply glue to the inside of the mitre and fold up.

the built up edges thing will work fine....but a couple of 45 deg gussets in the insides is advisable.

getthing a taped mitre to set acurately can be a bit of a thing.....using some sort of squareing jig is almost imperative.

the rear brace boards can perform this function and provide much needed stength.

cheers