I'm trying to get into woodworking with just hand tools.

I'm trying to get into woodworking with just hand tools. The guide I'm following has you build your own sawhorse as the first project. But even that's too complex for me. And I get frustrated and give up in the planning stage. Is there some small project I can do before that? Something easy that I can do while relaxing on my deck? I'm just trying to get a feel for the craft.

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    > But even that's too complex for me.
    Where does it get too complex? In my experience there are a lot of things in guides/tutorials that you can skip and get away with. Later on you’ll find out why they recommended some step in the first place.

    Like Paul Sellers always puts mortise and tenons on everything because he’s an old school professional furniture maker, while some joints could be made much easier and equally strong with a few screws. The screw joint may last only 5 years instead of 25 but that’s doesn’t matter too much when you’re starting out. Don’t try and make it perfect just yet, just get it finished.

    You could follow instructions until you can’t and then get creative

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >I get frustrated and give up in the planning stage
    You are literally moronic and autistic and entitled and hedonistic. There is nothing that can be done for you. Develop your addictions and escapism. This is all there is for you.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    are they the I-beam sawhorses? made from like.. 5 8 foot long 2x4s?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I become overwhelmed as soon as I've cut down the tree. There's so many steps you have to follow if you want the product to be remotely decent.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I just use a pair off rough low saw horses, place a slab on top and use that as my viceless workbench. But when you have the low workbench you just saw on that instead. Before I had the saw horses for my bench, I used the bench top very close to the floor to make the saw horses.
    You could even just do the staked low work bench without the low saw horses and do all your sawing on that.

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I started with hand tools only. The biggest problem I had was getting nice square, flat cuts on the end of lumber. Without those you can't do simple things like butt and mitre joints. You can use a mitre box but even that can leave a little unevenness if your technique is bad. Some people "shoot mitres" with a hand plane to square them off, and there's probably some other tricks you can use. But in the end I just got fed up and decided to use an electric saw. Chop saws in particular are the fricking breasts because it's so fast and easy to "trim" a little off the end to get the perfect fit.
    >tl;dr: just buy a chop saw, you'll thank yourself

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    woodworking is a craft that takes patience and practice
    if you can't embody either trait you need to find a new hobby because the only way to get better at a skill is patience and practice

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Carving is what you're looking for. Without the piece clamped in a vise you can't do any hand tool work. So unless you're putting a vise out on the deck look into carving. My dad last power blackout made a rabbit. There's allot of small easy projects you just need soft wood and a pocket knife

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      wedges and bench dogs, maybe some hold fasts. The japanese work fine with mostly a board and some planing stops, but they also use their body a lot to keep the stock in place.
      A saw horse is probably a stupid first project, and is also not entirely needed.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        sawhorses are great for a first project because they're easy to make and useful once you get to the stage of bigger and better projects
        however while you're still in that early stage it's not going to do you a lot of good having all these extra sawhorses laying around not getting used for anything, maybe sell them for just above what the wood's worth?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          If it is roughly built with screws and nails, it would be easy. I'm supposing op is trying to be a Giappetto with precise hand-cut joinery, which is possible but tricky without having figured out some work holding that few beginners know about.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Wtf you're a witch

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous
    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      If you have no clamps for the glue up bore some holes in a few scraps of wood at the distance slightly longer than the width of the bench top. Insert pegs and then drive in wedges.

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