What Kind of Project to Begin With???

Cutting boards, small boxes, and picture frames are great starters. Or you can look at popular wood workings “I can do that” series. I built a CD rack from it, they say most if not all the projects can be built with basic power tools.

-- Adrian ..... The 11th Commandment...."Thou Shalt Not Buy A Wobble Dado"

I would second that except I’d go for a medium-sized box rather than a small box. A little more forgiving!

-- Eric at http://adventuresinwoodworking.com

you are right eric…...sorry.

-- Adrian ..... The 11th Commandment...."Thou Shalt Not Buy A Wobble Dado"

Something the wife/so needs/would like to have.

wife gifts are worth big points and new tools :)

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

I’d suggest learning how to make a board with flat, parallel faces,
parallel edges and squared ends. Once you can do that (hard
to do without a flat bench) you can build some pretty cool stuff.

I don’t want to suggest that you don’t know how to do basic stuff,
but that there is a level of refinement in terms of what is flat, true,
and square that you’ll need to work on in order to build nice furniture
and things like fine drawers.

You’ll need at least a jack plane and a stone to sharpen the iron with.
A strop will work for fine sharpening…. and sometimes I have used
a buffing wheel on a grinder, charged with green “rouge” – which
puts a razor finish on tools if you don’t buff too much and round
the edge over.

If your bench is made of solid wood it is probably twisted or sway-backed
to some degree. You can flatten such a bench with winding sticks
and a jack plane or by cobbling up a router jig.

A flat bench can also be made with a particleboard top attacked to a
hollow-core door, which will tend to be fairly flat.

So these are things I would advise you to get together:
-flat bench with a stop for planing and a front vise if you have one
-winding sticks
-sharpening system
-jack plane

-- http://amherstcabinets.com - also a marketing consultant with expertise in direct response marketing for woodworking and online businesses - http://COPYMATCH.COM

You can get lots of ideas just looking through the projects others have done. There are also some great blogs on how projects were completed.

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

Make something you like, something no bigger than 10 pounds, and something without complicated joints. A simple clock, like I made, was easy, fun and useful. It was gifted to a recent graduate.

-- -Be Blessed!, Patrick

I totally agree with Loren above….good luck. ;-)

-- Only the Shadow knows....................

I started with picture frames, shelves, coat trees, etc. Basically small things around the house that would jazz it up. Starting with well illustrated plans is a good way to take the design pressure off of you until you feel more comfortable designing your own stuff (which is very gratifying). I pretty much only do Craftsman furniture because I love the style, but another nice factor is that it’s very simplistic with considerably less detail work than say something Federal, Victorian, or Chippendale. Gifts for others are nice ways to build things that may not fit the design of your home. I started with a contractor table saw, hand-held fixed-base router, small jointer, shop-vac, band saw, miter saw, drill press, and a bunch of cheap hand tools, so you probably are pretty much set. In woodworking, there’s usually at least two ways to do anything. For example, box joints can be made on a table saw or a router table, ripping can be done on a table saw or a band saw. Build stuff you like because interest and passion make up the difference between the cost of the wood and the man-hours involved vs. just buying it already made. I’ve only recently broken even on the price of all my tools (I’ve seriously upgraded my shop over the last few years) plus the cost of the wood, compared to the “street value” of all the furniture I’ve produced. Following through and making nice stuff for your home will give you the “kitchen pass” to upgrade your shop over time. Getting to the point where you will eventually be able to make yourself $15K worth of new, handcrafted kitchen cabinets (if you ever want to take it that far)” is priceless. I’v finally, after several years have made it to the point where I could tackle a project like that if needed (I’m actually working on closing a commission for that very project). Anyway, enough about me. IMHO, start small, start cheap, and start simple. Gain experience with wood prep, joinery, wood selection, finishes, hardware installation, thinking steps through before you mess up the wood, minimizing chip-out, SHOP SAFETY, batch cutting stuff and minimizing setup, and all of the other myriad issues you’ll run into on a daily basis in the shop. Large, complicated, beautiful projects are only a bunch of small, simple steps in series. Good luck and keep us posted. I hope this helps.

-- You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails

Re-modeling a closet or providing storage for her laundry room is a sure way to keep the wife happy. I’m doing both with shelving and drawer units.

-- "Heaven is North of the Bridge"

I bought a small (and I mean really small) table saw for building projects for model trains. My first project was a double towel bar. Our bathroom has limited wall space, so there was only one towel bar and two of us using the shower. So I built a double that pretty closely matches the one that was there originally, including the mounting screw placement; it’s a rental so I didn’t want to drill any more into the wall.

The wife loves it.