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Don’t know about you, but working with wood was always something very appealing to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the necessary skills to make anything worth to mention. Although, I could always appreciate all those beautiful things made of wood.
With the course of years I have learnt a lot about woodworking and carpentry. Just think about all those possibilities: constructions, furniture, decor, flooring and much more.
As a matter of fact these skills will help you to understand the whole DIY and building process in much greater details. Plumbers do only plumbing and electricians do only electrics, but carpenters often needs to go far beyond what they already know.
Besides, it’s good for your mental and physical health. I have prepared this simple infographic you can find below for better understanding of how great it actually is. Ready? Let’s jump in!
Alright, it might not be the best trade of all trades, because that’s highly dependent on personal preferences and is very subjective. However, carpentry or woodworking is a good trade to be in. Very good in fact and definitely one of the best skills to possess.
Why? Well, first of all obviously because you can make money on that. You don’t need any additional certificates like with plumbing or electricity.
That also means level of entry is fairly low, so the competition can be rather high, but good craftsmanship is always on demand. And since we all have to live somewhere this demand is unlikely to drop in many years.
Plus the feeling after you have accomplished a project on your own is actually pretty special.
As mentioned above it’s also probably the trade where you will learn the most. Carpentry and woodworking require a lot of thinking.
On the downside you have to put quite a lot of tools and the really good ones can be rather expensive. On top of that it can be a bit frustrating at the very beginning when your manual skills are not that great yet.
But you have to remember Rome wasn’t built in a day and you don’t need all the tools from day one. I am covering whole where-to-start in next paragraph, so stick with me.
Honestly speaking I think it can be amazing career path for someone. Think about it.
Even if we assume steady demand and combine that with so many people choosing not-manual career paths… you see where I am coming from?
And although you might have to spend few hundred quid on tools you can get it back in form of savings from all the works you have to do in your own place.
First of all we need to make a clear distinction between carpentry and woodworking since I used them both in the above part of this article. In both cases you use similar tools and basic material is wood, but they cannot be used as synonyms.
Carpentry is much more advanced, although woodworking does not exclude dealing with complex projects. The easiest thing to say about the two is that carpenters make houses and woodworkers make furniture or small decorations.
We believe that if you are considering to get into the carpentry business the easiest way to see if it is a right thing for you is to start with woodworking. It will help you to improve your skills and get that feeling of what it is all about, before making serious money and time investments.
Hence, we have decided to follow this path first. Below you can find the ultimate beginners guide with tools, types of materials and few others.
I believe woodworking is widely regarded as intimidating. And I can understand that. Once you are fully equipped the amount of tools is staggering.
On top of that those things are not cheap, especially if you would like to buy only top quality power tools, like Festool for example.
The good news are you don’t need a lot of tools to start with and they don’t need to be expensive. The list of essential tools is fairly short. All you need is:
You could also add a mitre saw to that list. It’s not essential in my opinion, but can be really helpful with a lot of projects. Most of the above tools should not be too expensive.
You can get most of the power tools for 50-60 pounds a piece. Only router will require a little bit more funding. You might also wonder why do you need a jigsaw, but you will appreciate this tool when you have to make oddly shaped cuts and curves.
Once you have all the essential tools you really don’t need much. You can set up your workbench by simply putting a piece of plywood or mdf sheet on a pair of sawhorses.
If you have a room to do it like a garage or a shed then you are all set.
But even a tiny garden on a sunny day can be a perfect workshop! Flats are a little bit more tricky, although we heard of people using their spare room exactly for that purpose 🙂
There are many different kinds of wood, but luckily from woodworking perspective the main split is whether it’s hardwood or softwood. The latter would be trees like pine, cedar, spruce, larch and fir, retain their leaves throughout the year and grow faster than hardwood.
Hardwood on the other side trees such as alder, balsa, beech, hickory, mahogany, maple, oak, teak, and walnut. The list not complete, but these are the most popular trees.
The main thing you need to know is that softwood is much easier to work on than hardwood.
Another reason why people are a little bit afraid of these tasks is the amount of details you have to think about. I will not lie to you – it usually takes quite a lot of craftsmanship.
There are some thing that are easy, but not simple. Woodworking is not easy and definitely not simple. But once you start you simply get better with time. Your skills and ability to see finished product in your head are improving.
And boy, once you get sucked it is so much fun!
What set of skills do you need other than imagination? The most important is attention to details, you can’t go too far in this area if you don’t have this top-notch-end-product attitude.
That being said you will also need a lot of patience. Sometimes it’s not as easy as we originally thought. Other than that you will learn everything simply by doing.
Plainly said woodworking requires cutting and putting together different pieces of wood.
The cool thing about woodworking is that the only thing that stops you from creating amazing things is your own imagination. The material you will use is very ductile and perfect to achieve great results.
Imagination, but at the beginning also your own skills. Hence, I would encourage you to choose something relatively easy to accomplish.
And since you were planning to buy a workbench, why not making it on your own? Here you can find really good workbench plans to do it yourself.
Other also easy projects would be a shoe organiser, tablet stand or a bookshelf. It’s simply a perfect way to start your journey with woodworking.
I hope you will enjoy it, good luck and stay safe with those power tools!
Have you ever wondered why carpenters pencils are flat? If you have and don’t know the answer it’s fairly simple. To prevent the pencil from rolling away. Aside of that they are easier to grip and sharpen with a knife.
The core is also often much stronger than regular pencils.
#Carpenters pencils are flat to prevent it from rolling away. Aside of that they are easier to grip and sharpen with a knife. #woodworking #DIY
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