Thread: My woodworking journey so far...

Hi everyone

Seeing as this forum likes photos of projects, including WIP ones, I thought I’d put together a post of my journey so far, how it’s evolved and where I’m at now (an enthusiastic novice with lots to learn still!)

I’ve always enjoyed basic ‘carpentry’ and have built the odd deck/fence etc. But this has always been using pretty basic carpentry skills.

My first couple of attempts at building something other than decks/retaining walls etc. was this cubby house for my boys. Took me months but was great fun - a mini version of the house. Then I got hold of a shipping crate from work and made this outdoor ‘dresser’ from it. All the wood was twisted/warped but the only preparation I did was using a belt sander (the horror!). No joinery to speak of and lots of bolts and coach screws. I was able to bend and force everything together and it's incredibly solid for no joinery.

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After building the dresser I realised I really like this woodworking stuff so bought myself a power router, biscuit joiner and a few other handheld power tools. I decided to make my own bench-top router table using lots of ideas from Pinterest etc. and combining them into something I could make and use. I used this for a bit to make a few things using joints made with it – e.g. storage unit for my sister’s hobby materials.

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Shortly after this I inherited my Pa’s old hand tools (Stanley mainly, circa 40s I believe), saws, chisels, planes etc. I was very grateful to receive these and decided to restore them. I also wanted to plane the top of that dresser to even it out a bit. Didn’t have much luck with the plane so turned to YouTube to learn how to sharpen. That’s when I came across a Paul Sellers video and that got me interested in hand tool woodworking.

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Never ended up planning the top of the dresser…hehe. But went on to attempt my first hand cut dovetail joint just using some standard grade DAR Tas. Oak from the local hardware store. I was surprised it came out reasonably well, so thought, “better turn it into a box!”. I came up with the design and sourced a piece of Tasmanian Myrtle for the top. I used ‘Bull oak’ for the splines and was amazed at how hard this stuff was. Anyway, I was hooked, to say the least. And I then bought lots more hand tools, much to my bank account’s horror.

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I started watching more of Paul Sellers and am now working away at building some of his projects to learn new aspects of joinery with each one.

The first one was the ‘sharpening station’. As I was too scared to attempt freehand sharpening of my new tools, I incorporated the honing guide housing – just close or open the jaws to secure in the recesses. And I just *had* to recess the stop blocks for the angles as I’d just bought a router plane, and enjoyed using it so much (probably my favourite hand tool used so far).

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Next I tried the half blind dovetails, first attempt is my avatar using celery top pine – love the colour difference with the end grain. I then decided to rearrange the shed and incorporate the router table into an old desk and also turn it into storage for my power tools (to make room for my hand tools!) So I made my first half blind dovetail drawer face.

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The next two things I made were gifts for my family for Christmas. The tray is also a Paul Sellers design. The stand I came up with for my mother so she could rest her ‘e-reader’ on it at the table. Got to use more of the hand router plane for this ;-) I ended up making a couple more of these for other family members. Sassafras, Myrtle and Huon pine for all of these projects, resized from the random pieces of ‘craft’ stock I bought as my first ‘minor species’ timber purchase (if that’s the correct term to use). I really love the figure on the inside of the rear (in photo) tray side.

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Now I’ve just completed another Paul Sellers design – well, my take on it. Two wall hanging shelf units, one for each of my boys. This has taught me housing dados, stopped and through-tenons. I particularly liked rounding the edges of the through-tenon using a method he teaches. Just used cheap radiata pine for these. As my version is quite a bit larger (and heavier) than Paul Sellers’, I didn’t want to mount it from the top shelf as he does as there would be too much strain on those two housing dados, so I came up with a modified version of a French cleat. It works really well and as it spans over two wall studs, I can pretty much place it anywhere on the wall.

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I’ve also learnt a lot from this forum, thank you for all your wisdom and excellent posts here, and just love the journey I am on.

Well, that’s it for now. Sorry for all the ramblings and photos but thought I’d use this as a way of introducing myself some more, and to let others know how I got into woodworking, and where I am now. And I hope this is the right place to post for this.

Regards
Adam