What...was your first woodworking project?

(interesting that your remember her name!) :)

well.. let’s see.. my first ever woodworking project that I did by myself, (not counting some pyrography)
oooooh think,, think.. what was it.. oh yes, let’s just go back and look at my project listings!!
There it is: the first woodworking project by MsDebbieP. built 393 days ago.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

8th grade woodshop, a cribbage board made out of red oak. First time I used a router, table saw and drill press. I covered the neighbors cribbage board with craft paper and marked the holes and then use that for a template to drill the holes. It was originally supposed to have turned legs but one of my glue ups exploded on the lathe…either I pushed too hard with the tool or banged the set piece in too hard..or did a crappy glue up. All I know is I got hit with a couple pieces of fast moving oak and ended up in the nurses room! Needless to say the cribbage board ended up being a table top model! man, that was…..34 years ago…and I still don’t like to turn!

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

Sounds like she made quite an impression on you. I’m glad you spared us the more intimate details. ROTFL!

I guess my first WW project would have been my pinewood derby car when I was in Cub Scouts. (You and I are about the same age, Dadoo, so that was 40+ years ago).

Of course I had a little help and instruction from my dad, especially with the finish. He was into making gunstock lamps at the time, and my car ended up with a french polish finish that put the other kids’ painted wrecks to shame!

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

Jr. high wood shop. A wooden spoon, then a chessboard. Then nothing for years after.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

When I was around 10, I got interested in old sailing ships for some reason, and started carving little models out of oak limbs that fell in the yard. I think the first one I made was the USS CONSTITUTION- that was my favorite.

-- Jon

I think I was about 7 or 8…my Grandfather set me up with an old table pedestal. I cut circles out for the top (2) the bottom (2) and small ones (4) that I used for pad feet. I stained and varnished myself. I think my dad still has it today.

My first school woodshop project was a small box. I still have that box on a shelf in my office.

-- Greg - Charles Town, WV

Cribbage board. Very uneven drilling, I might add.

-- Maplewood, MN

It is rough trying to remember almost 40 yrs ago but I think my first was a pinewood derby car while in cub scouts. I junior high shopclass I made a book stand that a cookbook sits on, for my mother.

-- Frank Auge---Nichols NY----"My opinion is neither copyrighted nor trademarked, but it is price competitive."

My first was a bookcase that I made in High school shop. My mother had it in the house. and when my parents passed away, my sisters got rid of it I guess. I’ve never seen it in years. It was built with Red Oak.

The second was a stereo cabinet with speakers. It might have even be just a Hi-Fi because stereo was just coming out at the time. It was built with Walnut.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

I think the first thing that I ever made was a board- nailed to the hardwood floor when I was about four. My Dad didn’t think a four year old could pound a nail through oak…

After that, The first thing that I remember building was a rocking cradle for my little sister’s Cabbage Patch Kid with my Dad. Then a medicine cabinet, also with Dad, then a fishing rod rack (still right behind me) also with Dad…

Now I’m on my own, and still building most stuff with Dad’s tools.

-- The only easy wood project is a fire

Pinewood derby of course. Then a pair of skim boards in middle school. California.

-- -John "Do I have to keep typing a smiley? Just assume it's a joke." www.flickr.com/photos/gizmodyne

Stacking circles puzzle, junior high school shop. Pine and orange shellac, from the nearly perpetually open gummed up jug of community shellac. Gawd awful workmanship and an even worse finish. It took forty years and dewaxed blonde Zinnser Seal-coat to erase the hatred of the nasty gloopy stuff.

-- "Bordnerizing" perfectly good lumber for over a decade.

Not my very first, but my first furniture project from 8th grade shop class(about 1959 or 1960).It’s made of cherry and was gifted to my older sister & brother-in-law back then for their first house. I received it back recently when they downsized to a condo. It’s been in the basement collecting dust and needs a re-finishing. Maybe it’s time to do that and give it to one of my kids. -SST

-- You get no points when you punt

I was about twelve, 4H project, a rabbit cage with help from my dad.

-- Ron Central, CA

First piece of furniture was a lathe turned walnut bar stool in seven grade shop class. It had dissapeared for years, didn’t know where it went. Two years ago I found it while getting my parents estate sale ready to go. I found it in pieces in my dad’s old shop. Soon as I get it back together and re-finished I’ll get it on here.

-- Les, Wichita, Ks. (I'd rather be covered in saw dust!)

I took high school wood shop and made a real basic entertainment center to hold my 8-track player. Wow, that sure dates me, eh? Just recently the old “entertainment center” was trashed after using it for many things, most of which was not for its original purpose. It was in pretty bad shape at this point. I didn’t do any projects for many years, until I purchased my own table saw about 10-12 years ago.

-- Tom, Michigan ~ Working with a renewable resource called wood

My first woodshop teacher was a very demanding man and he had the skills to back it up. He could do some amazing things with wood. He taught us all the basics and gave us a good foundation to build on. He loved to use the bandsaw and taught us to do so, every project that we made included a trip or two to the bandsaw. I loved that class! The first project was a hand carved nut dish. I posted pics on my projects page. After we cut the basic shape out on the bandsaw we had to hand carve the rest. Then he had us make some tables. We even got to do a little turning on the lathe and make a set of candle sconces (sp?) He was a paste wax man. IIRC we finished all our projects with paste wax. I really enjoyed it.

John

-- John -- Racine, WI -- Woodworking..."It's not just a Hobby, it's an Adventure"

First wood project ever? A key fob in grade 7. We took a trip to the high schools wood shop and made these things…they were a 1” X 1 1/2” piece of 1/4” walnut, to which you attached a picture then poured that heavy epoxy over to make a 1/4” layer. I still remember my “picture”, It was a garfield cartoon saying “I’m not over-weight, I’m under-tall” LOL…gave it to my (4’ 11” tall) mom :)
I guess my first “real” project was a large plate rack made in Grade 9 wood shop….still hangs up on the wall at my brothers house.

-- If you can't set a good example, at least serve as a horrible warning... www.rarewoodcreations.com

In 1954, in 9th grade woodworking class, I made a gun rack for my Mossberg 410 shotgun. My second project that year was a trestle type coffee table. I still have both of these projects – still have the shotgun too!

-- "Heaven is North of the Bridge"

first one that i can remember was a cedar chest that i made for my mother. in mt industrial art class while i was in high school. i seen it a few weeks ago,i had forgotten about it

-- Mike, Bruce Mississippi = Jack of many trades master of none

Other than Jr. High woodshop, my first functional piece was a doghouse with an offset door, double walls of 1/4 plywood to sandwitch insulation. It had a removable top for cleaning. After 20 yrs, it has house 4 different family members, including my son one memorable summer night when his Mom was very angry at him!

PW Derby! Great fun, and as much an ego trip for the victorious dads as the kid! My engineering classes convinced me that nearly frictionless axles and having the weight forward would be more critical than a streamlined shape. i remember having a brick on wheels when I was a Cub Scout that finished third, so we polished and polished on the axles, and cut out a basic ‘32 Roadster shape for my son’s car. This was before I got back into woodworking, so was working with a B & D sabre saw. (Sorry LJ’s ) It took first place at troop level and second at District.

Great post! Brings back a lot of memories for the LJ’s!

-- North Texas

My 1st project was a Xmas present for my parents about 5yrs ago.
It has no finish on it here, just made with cheap pine… many mistakes on it, but thats what woodwork is about.

my first project was a foot stool that I built in my dads shop, my dad was a german cabinet/ clock maker, he has since passed, my mother still has the stool,,, that was around 43 years ago, Damn dont time fly….
I was just 13 at the time.

-- Mark, Hancock Maine, rmarkham52@hotmail.com

i made a cutting board for my mother in shop class . thankfully i dont have a pic ! so ill post my first real project . years ago i leased an 11,000 sq. ft. building which had been a desoto dealship gone bust . half of which i used as my autobody shop and storage for antique cars waiting for restoration . the other half i subleased to a custom furniture maker . we were both quite taken by each others abilities in our trades and started . teaching each other our trades . under his direction i built this stereo cab. and speaker tables

in return i helped him restore his comaro

-- if you aint the lead dog the scenery never changes

oh….so your also “Mr. Bondo” ?

-- Women love me.....trees fear me

lol good one david . nope just an old tin knocker !

-- if you aint the lead dog the scenery never changes

My first was in Jr Woodshop also, a match holder with a striking stone glued on. My parents held onto that stupid thing for about 25 years before I finally told my Dad to throw it out (it was a family joke for every time I went to visit) LOL I guess I have to admit I didn’t show much promise in WW back then. I don’t remember anything after that for a very long time, when I got back into WW then it was a seedling starter box, with auto lift window that really got me going again. And THAT is a nice camero there “MR Bondo” [GRIN]

-- Jim Hallada, Newport News, VA, soon to be Chesterfield, VA

It was a small nail box in woodshop. It was made entirely with hand tools and we were marked off for every 1/64th of an inch we were off. None of the hand tools were remotely sharp and I still have nightmares about getting the dimensions right. One of my friends that I had woodshop with came over a while back and I told him to take a couple stroke with one of my planes. He said,”Wow that’s how they are supposed to work“

-- Woodworking is Life. Anything before or after is just waiting.--S. McQueen sort of

I failed woodworking in school , they wanted me to build stools and wooden cars and i didn,t want to so that didn,t go to far.
At the age of 15 i started building houses and renovations and woodworking came natural after that. My first piece of furniture was a canopy bed.

-- John in Cranbrook http://www.extremebirdhouse.com ....http://community.webshots.com/user/cranbrook2

Grade 9 shop. I made a really ugly thing that you put on the table for a hot pot/pan. That was about 35 years ago,plus minus and Mom still uses it up the cottage. For the next five years ot more my woodworking skills took a downward spiral…................very humble beginnings

-- http://www.furnituremann.ca/

This was going well, and now that there’s 1000 more members…time for a bump.

-- Bob Vila would be so proud of you!

Hog gates! lots of oak hog gates! My old man was a hog man and we needed lots of hog gates. Made with 8 penny nails and they had to be clinched. I still hate hogs. Except as pork chops, bacon or ham.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Wow! that made for fun reading, great posts all.

My first project was for (guess) my mom. I stayed home from school that day, I was about 7? I went down into my grandfathers shop and found a 1×12x16 piece of pine and with a chisel roughly carved out “I love you mom, happy Mothers day” or something pretty close to that. I think she still has it. I’ll have to see and get a pic of it. I stained it with some dark (I know now) wallnut stain and gave it to her, probably still wet, that night. Needles to say she loved it. I know it has hung on the wall in her last home (the one I grow up in) until she moved 5 years ago. That was 42 years ago.

-- "so much to learn and so little time"..

This is my first serious project.

I made a lot of different things before this, but I can’t remember them all.

Here’s where I get a chance to try a widget.

( I just remembered that I used to make wooden rubber guns, that shot inner tube rubber bands.)

-- Dick Cain, Hibbing, MN. http://www.woodcarvingillustrated.com/gallery/member.php?uid=3627&protype=1

I have a memory like lightening, in & out in a flash. But I think going back 50 odd years that it was a small french polished tray made at high school.

-- Grumpy - "Always look on the bright side of life"- Monty Python

my first real project was a printer table (not the one i just made). it was pretty bad. to save some money i made the whole thing out of 1/4” ply and there were 1/2” dips in all the parts that carried weight. i put the door over everything and it was too big so to change the printer paper you had to open the door. i measured for paper and made a holder put i forgot to account for the ply and it was too small. the frame was 4 2×2’s running up each side. also since the door was 1/4” the hinges when through and since i installed them after finishing i had to grab the hack saw and cut them off leaving spots where i cut through my finish. i didn’t really have much instruction or experience at that point though. i just kind got the wood and built it. i still cant believe i did it though as the only two tools i had were a jigsaw and a drill at that time. my newer printer table recently replaced it though and the old one met a sledge hammer (my favorite way of getting rid of things to large to get in a trash can)

Ryan.. while you were making your trip to the woodshop, we females were knitting a pair of ugly slippers and making a drawstring bag.. ooooh yah…

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Dahoo you are devious. OK my man as I remember it …. It was over 50 years ago and it was a solid redwood boat (18”x8”x2”) with a small airplane engine mounted on it. My father would get me started on a phase of it and then check on me from time to time. I was so proud of it and like to think he was too. We would then go to a pond in a park near us, start it and let it go. A great father son time.

-- Odie, Confucius say, "He who laughs at one's self is BUTT of joke".

Heh…wooden shoeshine box. I was about 7,8. Painted black on the outside, screamin’ lime green on the inside. Don’t know what eventually happened to it, but it was in the family at least 20 years.

Mine was a 12” by 16”, 6 foot tall bookcase made from 3/4 pine (all I could afford at the time), about 18-19 years ago. I still have it, and it still looks great. Serves it’s purpose.

-- As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)

It was in the 9th grade…

I had to Design, draw the plans, and build it…

It was a bedside end table, mahogany, tapered legs, & one drawer…

... didn’t know a dovetail from a quailtail… :)

Later, someone saw it, liked it, and wanted to buy it… I sold it (not knowing what I was doing) for $20… Back in about 1951… I guess that made me a “Professional” ... yes?! :) :)

I still have a scar in the tip of my Left Index finger where I slipped with a chisel, while I was cleaning out the grooves in the top… to hold the aprons… As I said, I knew nothing about joinery… It worked though.

-- Have Fun! Joe Lyddon - Home: http://www.WoodworkStuff.net ... My Small Gallery: http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=1389"

I made a bowl for my mother in 7th grade shop. When my mother passed, we found it in the kitchen cabinets 51 years later.

God Bless
tom

-- Mc Bridge Cabinets, Iowa

My first project was in 9th grade shop.

-- bryano

Mine was in 7th grade and we had a woman shop teacher from Massachusetts. I remember her saying, “If can’t sar the board right you can’t sar it at all.” I think she must have been a retired Marine drill Sargent, judging from the way she terrified us. Miss Cleeves- still have nightmare and that was in 1957. Oh, the project, a wooden school tablet cover with my initials on it.
Lew

Wow, I envy you guys shop classes. We’re making pencil holders out of pine…
Times-a-changing.
Remember field trips?

9th Grade after taking a construction trade class on a lark my dad wanted to build a shed that resembled an old Penn Dutch Hay barn. I designed and built the roof trusses for the shed by myself. My dad and I worked on the frame up together. It took a couple of weeks to build during the summer; but it is still standing after 29 years and countless hurricanes.

-- Chris

7th grade…book ends out of hand tools…

-- Matt, Napa, CA...SING WITH ME: "Sum...sum...sum...summ...summ...summ...summertime..."

In seventh grade wood shop it was a combined effort of all the students to make candle holders. Since they were a combined effort, I don’t really consider these to be my first, but in 9th grade wood shop the entire class made the same style of cabinet. Here is mine. I made it 29 years ago now. It has been used by: me in my room when I was growing up to hold my “stuff’; my sister when I moved out (she put a wet cup on it and you can still see the water ring today – she’s my sister so I gotta forgive her); my wife and I as a TV stand & junk/dust collector; my oldest son as a video game cabinet; and today my youngest son uses it as a storage area for his abundant supply of sheet music. It has been on the East Coast, West Coast, it even spent some time in the Azores (Portugal). It’s been around and I am glad to say that I haven’t had to do anything to it

-- Brian, Lebanon PA, If you aren’t having fun doing it, find something else to do.

Basswood handcut scotty-dog wallhanging. All handsanded. Anitque maple stain … 8th grade

-- I made a cool back scratcher !!

A maple magazine rack in 9th grade industrial arts class. Then I made a love seat in 10th, a dining room table in 11th, and then a queen size bed my senior year. I have never lost the bug, although I did take a 25 year break.

-- Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember it didn't work for the rabbit.

Does tree house count?

Several iterations of helping son with Derby Cars (and built some when I was a kid), Woodshop in school; but most recently a set of 4 cedar raised beds (4×8) for a vegetable garden.

-- -=Den

I’m not sure if this qualifies….... but….... I was about seven years old and I decided to sneak a hand saw out in the back yard. If my mom or dad had caught me my tail would have been blistered. Anyway, I had my eye on this small tree. I just knew if I could get it cut down I could build SOMETHING out of it. I didn’t really have a clue what. But here I go. I grab it with my left hand and start to saw with my right hand (right above and on the same side as my left hand). On about the fourth stroke, there it went…. right across the back of my left hand. There was lots of blood and stuff, but that didn’t keep me from getting a whooping….... I still have a nice scar to remind me about that episode. (from the saw…. not the whooping)

-- Make things with wood.

Grade 7 or 8, I built a letter/mail holder thing to hang on the wall. It was a piece of junk;..That was 40 years ago.

Just the other day, while cleaning out my Mom’s house I came upon it, You just have to love Mom’s that keep this kind of stuff.

-- Brian's Table Top Toys http://home.mountaincable.net/~bgraham/

Hello Dadoo
—-since I’m supposed to be showing safety conscious up-bringing….maybe I shouldn’t count learning to build campfires out of wood in those forests of my younger days. But then after building all those forts out in the woods, a campfire sure seemed nice.

Always carrying a pocket knife with me, now and back then….hmmm, I think maybe I was born with a pocket knife. So I was whittling and carving and de-barking from way back when….my first wood projects though must have been those wooden boats and dugouts of small size that I as always sending off in the many streams around my neck of the woods. But then what about all the bows and arrows and spears and swords which I had to design and make, in order defend my forts from all those images of my imagination, that lurked in the woods around me….

Hmmm, ....now that I think of it though, maybe it was the bookmarkers I would carve for all those Hardy Boy books I used to read. Now this has really got my brain to thinking and analyzing, since those Hardy boys where always hanging out in upstate NY at camps of ‘rustic’. Maybe my mind was being shaped even back then to forage in the woods for ‘rustic’ and ‘wood art’.

Also I do have a small bookcase in my office here made out of cherry wood, from back in the days of my being 11 years old. I’ll take a picture soon and post on here….

Thank you.
GODSPEED,
Frank

email at:
rusticwoodman@gmail.com

-- --frank, NH, http://frank.wordpress.com/

well my first wood working project was on the lathe a small goblet our of cedar i think it is running around my mothers house still. i was about 15.

my next project was a coffee table when i was 35, my wifes uncle had a piece of pine 22 inches wide and about 36 inches long the thing was beat to death but one side of it planned out pretty good at the local vocational school.

a friend told me that the best way to decide what i needed to do woodworking was to start with what i had and build a project so.

i had a table saw some oak barn wood , two sanders one high speed, and a nice piece of pine i spend about 4 months on that table mostly sanding the oak to smooth, lots of sanding disk. i would change a lot of things about that coffee table now but it still sits in the living room and the wife will not let me touch it.

jay angel

-- "not all those who wander are lost" JRR tolken

Mine was a maple mallet on a lathe, never used a lathe again until about 3 or 4 years ago. That was about 46 years ago. wow. am I gettin old.

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

Mine was banca (outrigger boat).A banca is basically a dug-out canoe with plywood nailed on a rabbet cut on the outboard side on the top so as to raise the side height. I made mine out of maybe a 3” x 14” piece of wood from a crate. Handsaw, a drill, a chisel and a hammer were all the tools that I had. I drilled some of the material out. Lots of drill holes because I only had a 1/4” bit. A chisel did most of the clean up and sandpaper finished up the carcass. I peeled a ply off a piece of plywood as the sides and oh yes stuck it on with TESTOR’S glue. I bet you all remember that. Push pins kept it in place till the glue cured. I cut a 3/8” X 3/8” x 14” piece as ribbing for the ply. I grooved it with a piece of a hack saw blade and mounted it on the ply. Rubber bands held it in place while the glue set. Man that was more than thirty years ago! I still can feel the excitement, enjoyment and sense of accomplishment I had with that piece. Don’t know where it is now though. But I remember my son playing with it.

-- "Real jocks do it on a bench"

My first woodworking project happened because I was taking a class to learn to tole paint. I was buying all my supplies from the local craft store, but I had to buy the project itself from the class teacher. When I was ready to paint projects on my own from a book, I couldn’t find the projects I wanted. So I bought a jig saw and a sander. Then I showed the picture of what I wanted to make to the guy working at the local hardware store, he showed me what wood I needed to buy. (I sure miss that store). I moved the car out of the garage and never put it back. I found I needed a router and a bigger saw and…it just keeps growing, and growing and growing. A few years ago I built my husband a shed to keep his lawn mower and junk in.

-- Berta in NC

It was a Boomerang book rack. Two boomerang shaped pieces with dowels connecting them to hold books. My Mother still has it. I was just a little guy …. a long time ago
David

I built a boat, out of plywood, the old man wouldn’t let me bring it to the lake, gave me fire crackers instead. He was good enough to not to say it wouldn’t float very long. To me it was a boat, to him it was a box with an angled end, hey what ya want from a 10 year old? My Mother just shook her head.

-- http://www.MSRDboard.com , http://www.riverviewwoodworking.com