From: pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis)
Newsgroups: rec.woodworking
Subject: Re: Want to get started in woodworking...
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:03:24 GMT
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering, U. of Washington, Seattle

In article <11335@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:
>colaluca@cs.utexas.edu (Mark Colaluca) writes
>
>> If someone like myself wants to get started in woodworking, what would be the
>> best route to go?
>
>There is no "best" route.  For me, I took Krenov's "The Fine Art of
>Cabinetmaking" out from the library, and it prompted me to sharpen an old plane
>and try it on a piece of plum firewood.  [ ... history elided ... ]

Nick's "how I began" prompts to recount how I got into this as well,
if only because this seems like an interesting anecdotal thread.

Back when I was about 14,  I started helping out my uncle. He used to
build "modern" furniture - lots of nice beech plywood, african and
japanese hardwoods, laminates (formica), routing, and buffed acrylic
paints. I got to have a profound respect and healthy fear of most
of the power tools he had around: table saws and routers in
particular, but more importantly, got some kind of intuitive feel for
how you use those things.

A few years ago, I moved out to Seattle, where the art of fine
woodworking is considerably more in evidence than in London. Visits
down to NW Gallery of Woodworking on 1st Ave continue to leave me
awestruck. Last year, we bought a house; my adventures with wood
started with installing skylights: crude butchery, but helpful to
remember what it feels like to cut things, measure them, figure out
how to join them and so forth.

From there, I've rapidly moved onto building a flight of stairs. This
involved marvelous feelings selecting clear vertical grain douglas fir
as well as gorgeous cocobolo for the inlays and plugs. The math for a
set of retro-fitted half-winders was tough, but the joy of inlaying
1/4" cocobolo, planing down that beautiful fir for jointing, seeing
joints come out perfectly, assembling rabbeted risers & treads
together: ahh, its all *so* worthwhile.

Yes, there are gaps. But the satisfaction of a big project like this
totally outweighs my sadness at not getting it "perfect".

To get all this started, I bought 2 good handsaws, a fixed/plunge
router (P-C 690* combo), 2 Record planes (#8 & #4), a good set of drill
bits, including some forstner bits, a circular saw, various router
bits, clamps, and measuring/marking stuff. I borrowed a crappy table
saw. Then I went to the library, subscribed to FHB and borrowed back
issues of FWW, spent a few hours in my local bookstore, and got started.

Some people wouldn't advise starting on such a major effor; others would
label this type of work "carpentry" and not "woodworking". However,
its working for me; next I move on to cabinets and custom built
shelving. Mastering the router is the biggest goal I have; when I
think backto what I saw my uncle do with it, its clear I'm a mere
novice. The best feeling so far has come from doing, say, jointing
entirely by hand, and realizing just how nifty all those gadgets in
the leichtung catalogue will be when and if I buy them.

-- paul

-- 
"what various paths are followed in distributing honors & possessions" 
Computer Science Lab, University of Washington 	<pauld@cs.washington.edu>