Sept. 9, 2024

For a while I've very lightly dabbled in some woodworking. Last year I signed up for a one day course to make a wooden toolbox. I also made a simple raised bed to sit in my garden. This was done with the most basic tools like a power drill, some planks, a garden saw and some nails.

Woodworking has been lurking in the back of my mind as another interest I would like to pursue, since it could be so useful. You could make furniture or anything home or garden related, all of which potentially high value items. However, there is a learning curve and it requires a proper set up space with the right kind of tools. Even then, so much woodworking nowadays is done predominately on power tools like chop saws, band saws, track saws, which are dangerous (in my opinion) and quite impractical and expensive to have at home. 

This summer I joined a woodworking studio for a brief period, where you pay for three hour sessions and get to use all their power tools with guidance from the owner. This was a great experience, getting to learn how these tools worked and seeing a few woodworking techniques. I made an octagonal wooden pot, which took some effort to put together; each side had to have a perfectly angled bevelled edge, which I cut with a table saw, set at the right angle. I'm not sure how this would be done by hand, without much effort and experience.

The workshop had to close down after just a few weeks of my being there, so that got me thinking... I would like to have my own mini home set up. Then I wouldn't need to pay every time I wanted to make something, and could spend as much time as I needed. Of course, the paid workshop studio set up is a very good model and you get a community and professional guidance with it. But as I didn't want to rely on so many power tools, I was now thinking more about what I could make with just hand tools and focus on more traditional crafting. 

I started watching some YouTube videos of traditional hand wood workers and found two guys, probably quite well known in the community, Graham Blackburn and Paul Sellers. These YouTube channels teach you methods on woodworking by hand, which we have done for 1000s of years... Who needs power tools anway? 

So I finally got inspired and knowledgable enough to consider setting up my own workshop. Which meant rearranging my craft room and fitting in a workbench, which I'm hoping to double as a study desk / sewing table. I found this bench shown below on Ebay for £100 and so far its looking great! 

From the research in the woodworking studio and YouTube videos, I had a short list of tools I needed to get started. I'm looking for high quality traditional tools, just the essentials to get myself started. This includes:

- Set of chisels

- 90 degree squares

- Wooden mallet

- Two planars (one regular and one for a groove) - not so experienced with planars yet

- 3 saws - Japanese pull, Tenon, Coping

- Sharpening Kit

With the desk and tools, I will call this set up proejct done. However there are a few side projects that have spawned whilst getting this workshop fully ready. For example, I want to build a bench hook, which in itself will become a tool, and a Pegboard to hang up the tools in an orderly way. These will be good starter projects as well, which I'll create as separate pages here, so look out for them! 

Final note: I don't swear off power tool compeltely... I'll probably still be using a drill. And I plan to buy my wood 'pre cut', where the supplier will take your cut list and give you exactly the pieces you need, which cuts down A LOT of the prepping time. At least that's what I'm hoping for. So I'll still rely on power tools, just mostly not at home!

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