Three woodworking tips for beginners
Of all the materials that can be used to make things, wood is probably the most popular with people looking for a good hobby. We Canadians, more than most other nations, are especially interested in home woodworking as proven by the steady stream of questions from people interested in learning the craft or getting better at it. In cases like these, I always suggest three tips.
Tip 1: Start small
Woodworking is a large and varied field, and it’s quite possible to buy a whole lot of tools when getting involved. Don’t do this, at least not at first. If you’re just getting started, there are a few reasons you should satisfy yourself with only a few tools. One is uncertainty. You don’t really know if you’ll like woodworking, so it’s wise to make a minimal tool investment when getting your feet wet. What would a minimal woodworking tool collection look like? Tape measure, combination square, pencil and a cordless drill all make sense, but so does a good handsaw. Even if you invest in a power saw in the future, a good handsaw will remain valuable no matter how far you go with woodworking. Visit bailey lineroad.com/handsaw-guidewoodworking for a video tutorial on my favourite handsaw and to see how well a good handsaw can work in the real world. I think you’ll be surprised.
Tip 2: Embrace quality and struggle
The most important thing you can do to build success as a woodworker is to buy tools for future needs, not current ones. This means rejecting the common idea that cheap tools are “good enough for what I’m doing.” I’m not saying every aspiring wood hobbiest needs the best tools, but without sufficiently good tools your progress will grind to a halt as you encounter more hassles than accomplishment. The fact is that consumer desire for cheap tool prices means that the bottom end of all tool categories are not worth buying in my experience, both for professionals (obviously) but also hobbyists, too. Save your money and buy better-than-bottom, but there’s one other thing you need to keep in mind. I’ve often found it helpful to intentionally allow myself to struggle for a while without a tool that would probably make things easier, and I encourage you to allow yourself some struggle time, too. Struggles let you see particular challenges in detail and become expert at understanding them. This knowledge will also empower you to choose the best tools to solve the problem, and help you appreciate the problem-solving tools more deeply. I still marvel at how precise and smooth a chopsaw cut is, for instance, in part because I only used a handsaw for several years.
Tip 3: Compartmentalize your expectations
This is one of those things where you need to think one way in one part of your brain, and another way in some other part. On the one hand you feel enthusiasm for woodworking and want to make something that will look good and be successful. This is where motivation comes from and it’s essential. But on the other hand, if you’re too emotionally invested in accomplishment and success, then you’ll get discouraged as things turn out less well than you expected, or that results take longer, or both. The solution to this contradiction is the same mental gymnastics you need to do any time you want to learn anything new. Use enthusiasm to get you going and give you motivation, but then put that enthusiasm and all the expectations that come with it on the back burner when you’re actually learning and making mistakes. By keeping the enthusiasm in one part of your mind and grace with yourself for lack of skill in another, you’ll avoid discouragement.