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I want to get some basic woodworking skills together. I can do simple household plumbing, and I'm not going anywhere near electricity or roofing, but I would l

by mbg721 5y ago

I want to get some basic woodworking skills together. I can do simple household plumbing, and I'm not going anywhere near electricity or roofing, but I would love to be able to patch up that corner of the staircase and have it look decent.

mr_tristan 5y ago
You might want to look up carpentry, instead of woodworking. They're actually pretty different in skills and approach. It's like, with woodworking, step one is often "make everything perfectly square". In carpentry, nothing will ever be square. So you just have pretty different problems to solve
- defterGoose 5y ago
  In construction contracting, an 1/8-1/4" tolerance is sufficient depending on the scale involved. With fine joinery, I typically find myself in the 1/32-1/16" range.
- mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
  I think of carpentry more like building a deck or a shed and woodworking is more of building a bench or a bookcase. Even with woodworking things end up not square and fixing/hiding those mistakes is part of the project, just using a smaller scale than carpentry.
- scotuswroteus 5y ago
  Man I would love to really get into either, but I have a 9-6 in the Bay Area and the one "workshop" weekend class I took was about tool use. It's really difficult to get into anything in a serious way, but any tips about somewhere in the Bay that really gets you into "carpentry" or into "woodworking" on weekends would be excellent!
codingdave 5y ago
It sounds like you are trying to filter out unsafe hobbies? Electricity can be done carefully and safely - just know your limits. I'd recommend at least getting comfy replacing outlets and switches. If you want to go one step further, light fixtures are also not too bad. Basically, anything where you just disconnect one widget from between two wires, and replace it with a different widget is fair game for most people. I call someone if I need new wires run or need to touch the main panels, though. Likewise, woodworking is not as safe as most people think. Saws can bite you, as can drills, routers, etc... even rough edges on wood, or flying chunks of wood when you are teaching your 14 year old son to build a workbench and he just stands up a piece of wood next to your head and starts up a hand-held belt sander on it without clamping it. The point being that tools that use electricity can be just as dangerous as the wires that carry the current, so plan accordingly.
- shaftway 5y ago
  I had my hand sucked into a router over the summer. I was really lucky, and now I understand what went wrong (it was a conventional cut, but I relaxed my hold and the bit pulled it into a climb cut. The wood got wedged between the bit and a fence and exploded, pulling my left middle finger in in the process). I'm as healed as I'll ever be and my finger looks normal, but I have no feeling in it, and effectively no fingerprint. That was a fun ER visit.

by mbg721 5y ago

mr_tristan 5y ago

You might want to look up carpentry, instead of woodworking. They're actually pretty different in skills and approach. It's like, with woodworking, step one is often "make everything perfectly square". In carpentry, nothing will ever be square. So you just have pretty different problems to solve

defterGoose 5y ago
In construction contracting, an 1/8-1/4" tolerance is sufficient depending on the scale involved. With fine joinery, I typically find myself in the 1/32-1/16" range.
mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
I think of carpentry more like building a deck or a shed and woodworking is more of building a bench or a bookcase. Even with woodworking things end up not square and fixing/hiding those mistakes is part of the project, just using a smaller scale than carpentry.
scotuswroteus 5y ago
Man I would love to really get into either, but I have a 9-6 in the Bay Area and the one "workshop" weekend class I took was about tool use. It's really difficult to get into anything in a serious way, but any tips about somewhere in the Bay that really gets you into "carpentry" or into "woodworking" on weekends would be excellent!

codingdave 5y ago

It sounds like you are trying to filter out unsafe hobbies? Electricity can be done carefully and safely - just know your limits. I'd recommend at least getting comfy replacing outlets and switches. If you want to go one step further, light fixtures are also not too bad. Basically, anything where you just disconnect one widget from between two wires, and replace it with a different widget is fair game for most people. I call someone if I need new wires run or need to touch the main panels, though. Likewise, woodworking is not as safe as most people think. Saws can bite you, as can drills, routers, etc... even rough edges on wood, or flying chunks of wood when you are teaching your 14 year old son to build a workbench and he just stands up a piece of wood next to your head and starts up a hand-held belt sander on it without clamping it. The point being that tools that use electricity can be just as dangerous as the wires that carry the current, so plan accordingly.

shaftway 5y ago
I had my hand sucked into a router over the summer. I was really lucky, and now I understand what went wrong (it was a conventional cut, but I relaxed my hold and the bit pulled it into a climb cut. The wood got wedged between the bit and a fence and exploded, pulling my left middle finger in in the process). I'm as healed as I'll ever be and my finger looks normal, but I have no feeling in it, and effectively no fingerprint. That was a fun ER visit.