Welcome to my blog

2007-12-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

When it comes to building furniture, I am a novice. I started this blog for that reason. I want to share my successes, and my failures with other newbie woodworkers. We all read about the experts and the masters, and it's great that we get to learn things from them and that they inspire us to do great work, but what I don't read much about is the beginner woodworker. What are other beginners going through? Are they struggling with the same things I am? Where are they learning their skills, and where are they getting their inspiration? I'm asking myself these questions, and am wondering if anyone else is asking.

I want to start from the beginning: finding a place for my shop. I had three choices, the garage, the basement, or the shed out back. As you all can guess which one I chose, let me tell you a little bit about my humble shed. It is petite, only 9' by 13' (don't worry it's going to be a hand tool only shop). I live in the house my wife grew up in, and the shed is one her father built when she was a little girl. There wasn't any siding or a functioning door, and it was filled with my father-in-law's stuff (aka crap). Turning the shed into a shop came about when I received a gift. It was the gift of...(drumroll, please)... free siding. It was left over from a job we were doing this past summer. It happened to be just enough to side my shed. I also scored two double hung windows, and exterior lights from the same job. I'm almost done with the exterior, I have to finish the soffit, siding, rake trim, and I'm planning on building a door (I'll post that when I am ready) and then trim it. With my hectic schedule (I'm attached to a wife and three little ladies at home), I'm not sure when I'll be done with everything. As far as the interior, I pretty much have everything left to do. I'm not going to sheet rock or put down a plywood floor; I want to keep the space somewhat traditional. Because this little shop is where I want and need to be creative, I should be inspired by the space that I'm doing so. It's such a small space that the price really isn't going to break the bank, we're talking 117 sq. ft. Eventually I want to put in skylights, but right now it's just not in the budget.

My wife and I went to Winterfest at Valley Forge Convention Center in PA in November, and I met someone who has been inspiring me lately. His name is Adam Cherubini (you can go to http://adamcherubini.com/ to check out his blog--you'll learn a thing or two). My wife and I had a great time there. We spent about 3 hours talking to Adam and his wife. Wait, let me rephrase that...I spent about three hours talking with Adam about tools, furniture and technique while our wives talked about anything else...He's a very good teacher, and so enthusiastic about the craft, specifically 18th century work. We discussed many things about woodworking, even a little history. I asked about what kind of bench he would recommend. We went through couple of choices, and decided that the Nicholson bench would be best. It's simple to build, rugged, and inexpensive--everything I was looking for in a bench. I don't know how other people feel, but I want to spend my time building furniture, not my bench because, well, let's face it, I don't have too much free time. (I'll post about the bench when I'm building it.)

I'm not going to lie to anyone, I have built some pieces of furniture before. (I've actually sold a few.) The difference is that I built those with power tools, and not very good power tools at that. I also don't want to make it seem like I'm a master cabinetmaker and now I want to go in a different direction, because that's not the case. I did build my daughters' bunk beds with mostly hand tools. I didn't even have a shop at the time, so I used the spare bedroom (my wife loved that one), and my workbench was made up of saw horses and old bed rails. It wasn't very easy or fun to plane on. What's funny about that bedroom/shop is that it's pretty much the same size as my shed/shop. I've always wanted to build furniture completely by hand but I thought that it was an unattainable goal, I guess you can say. I felt that way until I started reading Adam Cherubini's articles in Popular Woodworking ( http://popularwoodworking.com/), and his blog which I mentioned earlier. Another great woodworker is Don Weber http://handcraftwoodworks.com. What I like about people like Don and Adam is that they are trying to bring back the ways of the past. After the industrial revolution, a lot of crafts were lost, or partially lost, I should say. Master cabinet makers and blacksmiths and other tradesmen had secrets that they passed down to there apprentices, and when they became masters they passed along those same secrets to their apprentices. I don't think there were many "how to" books written in the 17th and 18th centuries. I feel that we, as a society, need to preserve those secrets instead of trying to build some jig for our routers. I want to learn how woodworkers from the past worked, and I hope more people will, too. Even if your shop isn't going to be hand tools only, learning to cut joints with a handsaw and smoothing a board with a hand plane are good skills to have.
I hope to learn something from this experience, and I hope to help those other newbies out there. Maybe we can make some mistakes together.
-J.Moran

The Shed Woodworker

Welcome to my blog