Hello!

difalkner said:

That really depends on what your plans are for projects. Oh, and we do like photos so show us what you've built, your shop, tools, etc. whenever you're ready.

Click to expand...

For the most part, it's fixing furniture for my wife's business. But I have done some simple stuff, I consider myself a beginner for sure. Here are a few examples of what she and I do.


These are our signature pieces. We take old bentwood rockers and remove the wicker and I make pallet wood seats and backs and my wife paints em up pretty.

This is a beer caddy I made for my brothers one year for Christmas. I have sold a few of these but they don't move fast so I haven't made any in a while.

This is a Victorian era buffet we refinished for a customer. It was in horrible shape and I had to do a lot of veneer repair, gluing of parts, and glass installation. It is a beautiful piece in my opinion and deserved to be brought back.

I made these planter boxes with some plans I got from a YouTuber and sold them to the salon where I get my hair cut. (It's called Salon Pink hence all the shades of that color.)

I have a "shop" as it were but it's not in any condition to take pictures of lol.

Thanks!

mwigington said:

Very friendly, indeed. I have a table saw, a tabletop band saw, a tabletop drill press, a tabletop router, some hand planes, (I am smitten with the small antique hand planes for some reason. If I find one at a junk store I will buy it.) I have a plunge router, and the usual suspects of jig saws, circular saws. and a scroll saw. Two compressors, and some sanders. Just the usual stuff I suppose. I would love to get a new table saw, mine was bought used and it works but it is not as accurate as the newer saws. Do you recommend any specific tools?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I'm with you on the table saw. My first was a Delta, 1hp, on a clearance sale new for $300. It was OK, but I then bought a Laguna Fusion saw, and the difference in accuracy was amazing. More power and convertable to 220 as well. Laguna is best known for their band saw, and I later bought a Laguna 14 inch 14/12, which is a wonderful and beautifully engineered saw. But most of the time I use a 6 inch table top band saw, which has a brand name, but is identical to the WEN saw for a third less than the brand name.


What are you doing for sawdust collection? Sawdust, especially the ultra fine stuff will clog your lungs and shorten your life. I have two Harbor Freight units, one for my back yard shop, the other for the big tools in my garage. The shop is too small to hold the big tools This is a picture of my shop DC setup. The shop shed is right next to my outside office shed, so I enclosed the space between and keep the DC in that chamber. This allows recirculating cleaned, air conditioned or AC air. The DC units were on sale, so I bought two for $152 each. The shop shed has a Wynn drum filter that catches down to one micron. If you look at the wall on the right, you can see there is another 20x20 filter where the air returns to the shop. The cone is the large version of the Dust Deputy cyclone and that's a 30 gallon drum--easy to empty.


Like you, I love hand planes, and have several made by WoodRiver. I have a #4 and #6, plus a couple of smaller ones. A block plane, and one for tenons. PLlus one I rarely use that I got because it's so beautiful, called a router plane. It has attachments for cutting inlays, and it's wonderful to use. Made by Veritas.


I have a 10 inch Bosch sliding, compound miter saw, but I don't use it very often and wish I'd just bought a simple chop saw and spent the rest on wood. I make picture frames for my wife, so I have some specialty tools to cut perfect 45 degree miters.

I prefer to do most of my router work on a table. Marc Sommerfeld has a series of YouTube videos on using his tools, which are wonderful for learning to use a router. I use a Triton TRA001, the same as Marc's, which has a built in lift and plenty of power. I have a couple of Bosch 1617s, one was used to be in the table. I hardly ever use them anymore so I"m likely to sell them soon. For the hand held work, I have a Bosch Colt, which I use for mortising for hinges when I replaced all the interior doors in our house. There are mid size trim routers that are better choice now.

My shop shed and garage are finished and wired for the tools. My wife treated me to an electrician who set up a 60 amp sub panel for my shed shop. It has three, 20 amp circuits, all color coded so I don't overload any one. My wife once asked if I was ever going to make money from all those tools, I replied, "about as much as you will from your quilting equipment," which cost about the same as all my tools combined.

I got old and a little fragile, so I don't do as much woodworking anymore, just picture frames for my artist wife. But it has been a very satisfying hobby for decades now. As a kid I grew up in an old farmhouse that needed constant repairs, so I have been making sawdust for a long time.

I've attached a pdf of the 18 areas and things that accelerated my learning curve for woodworking. It's long and very detailed and has lots of pictures. It is meant to help others avoid some of my expensive mistakes. Just remember you don't have to buy everything all at once. But do buy good quality tools, even if you have to use a little credit. Buy in haste, repent at leisure.