Comment by exDM69 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by exDM69 | Hacker News Reader

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An alternative path would be going with hand tools. Mathias Wandel is a very good wood worker but he tends to use a lot of power tools, not all of which are affordable and they require a ton of space. If you're interested in hand tool work, check out Tom Fidgen's (the Unplugged Woodshop) and Paul Sellers' YouTube channels.

For a budget of about $1000, you can get a very nice, full featured suite of hand tools that you can build pretty nice projects with. And this price is for getting premium quality tools brand new. If you've got more time than money, you can get second hand vintage tools from online auctions and real estate sales and refurbish them to work as good as new ones (I wouldn't recommend going this path if you have no prior experience).

By contrast, you'll blow your entire $1000 budget on a table saw and a planer, and you can't even get very good ones for that price.

Word of warning: do not buy new hand tools from the big box hardware store. Either buy vintage ones or premium tools from woodworking speciality stores. Modern, mass produced hand tools (e.g. saws with hardened teeth) aren't very good, they're harder to tune and are not designed to last a lifetime.

Working with hand tools isn't all that much slower than using power tools, unless you'd do something very repetitive where you do the same cuts on a ton of pieces.

I do woodworking using hand tools almost exclusively (I visit a shop once a week, where I have power tools). I find it really enjoyable and relaxing compared to working with power tools with all the noise, the dust and the danger (the power tools at the shop aren't great quality).

I'd recommend the following tools to get started:

    * A rip saw and a cross cut saw (or a Japanese Ryoba which has both)
    * 4 chisels: 1/4", 1/2", 3/4", 1"
    * A #4 smoothing plane (if you have a good workbench or intend to build one)
    * OR a low angle block plane (if you don't have a bench)
    * Sharpening equipment because tools don't come sharp out of the box
    * A saw file if you got a re-sharpenable saw
    * Optional: a coping saw or a fret saw, depending on what kind of joinery you're into

The above will cost around $200-300 and is enough to do quite complex projects.

The Anarchist's Tool Chest by Christopher Schwartz is a great book for understanding the basics of woodworking using handtools.

Both of these books are excellent.

I'm lucky enough to have a full three car garage full of top-of-the-line power tools, but there's no substitute for a set of well sharpened chisels and a few handplanes (and the skill to use them).

I absolutely endorse the idea of starting with hand tools.

Christopher Schwartz has gone so far as to create a list of the 48 hand tools you should buy (in order). It's in the above referenced book, and you can also google it.

Agree 100%. And even if you progress to power tools, using a plane teaches you about tearout and grain direction. Everyone thinks "against the grain" means "across the grain", but it doesn't.

If you look at the side of the board that you are planing the grain (unless it is super straight) will tilt up to the face you are planing. If you are planing in the direction such that you sheer off the fibers, that's with the grain. If you are planing such that the blade digs in and tries to lift the fibers up, that's against the grain and causes tearout.

A jointer is just a plane with 3 blades running really fast. It can produce tearout just like a plane. So you need to know how to look at the board and turn it so that you are with the grain. Hand tools teach you that in a hurry.

Paul Sellers series of videos are an engaging introduction to woodworking, focusing on why we have certain hand tools as well as the surprising amount they can accomplish.

His woodworkers bench project is a great place to start when planning an entry level tool set.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v

This is offtopic, but I put "unplugged workshop" into Google (without the quotes) and got very few results. I added "tom" to the end of the query and instantly found his page. I would have thought the first (less specific) query would have generated too many results and adding more terms would have narrowed it down. In this case, the opposite appears to be true.

Even though I own some rudimentary power tools, including an ancient Sears tablesaw, my hand tools get the most use. For one thing, though I have made a fair amount of furniture, the biggest return on my woodworking skills has come from maintaining my house. A few basic tools can go a long way.

Besides, the tablesaw is almost always piled with crap, mostly from bike maintenance. ;-)

>or a Japanese Ryoba

I remember reading about Japanese saws in the Whole Earth Catalog years ago - and it mentioned how they were different in design and features from traditional Western saws, with some advantages. (Used to do amateur carpentry as a hobby when a teenager.) Do you know about the Japanese saws and their benefits? I remember some had very different appearances from Western ones. I looked in Wikipedia, but interested to know your opinion anyway, if you know about them.

I can answer this, I've used both in my shop (pictured below).

I much prefer the Japanese style saws (and I have some very nice old as well as modern, aka expensive, western saws).

I like them better because they cut on the pull stroke (I find it easier to cut accurately that way) and they have a very thin kerf (easier to cut less wood, also possible to do more delicate cuts).

Japan Woodworker (now gone) used to have Korean copies of a dozuki for about $30. The closest I've been able to find is the Lee Valley version:

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=32936&cat=1,428...

Unfortunately, that saw is now $42. Here's a good getting started article that references the same saw back in 2007, it was $19 then. If someone finds a source for saws like that that is cheaper than Lee Valley, please post it.

I'd start there, those are fine saws. Don't get sucked into spending a boatload of money on hand crafted yadda yadda saws, these saws are delicate in comparison to western saws, you don't resharpen, you buy another one when it is time.

Everyone likes shop pictures, here are some from mine:

http://mcvoy.com/lm/luckydude-shop

Thanks for the info.

Good shop pictures.

> Do you know about the Japanese saws and their benefits?

Yes, I use both, Japanese pull saws and Western "push" saws and both have their good and bad sides.

First: Japanese saws work on the pull stroke, Western saws with a push stroke. This requires very different handling of the saw (body position, etc). It's difficult (if not impossible) to rip straight with a Japanese saw in a typical stand-up position with the work piece in a workbench vice. Japanese woodworkers work sitting down on the floor, and rip saw by standing up, foot on the work piece.

Second: most modern Japanese saws have hardened teeth and can't be sharpened, the blade is disposable and you put in a new one. Western woodworking saws (not your big box store construction saw) can and need to be sharpened (they're not sharp out of the box), and it's pretty easy to sharpen. A good Western saw should last several lifetimes if kept in condition. My Japanese saw needs a replacement blade after two years of work.

Third: because of the pull stroke, the saw plate is much thinner and the cut is narrower. I might be able to use the piece straight off the cut with a Japanese saw if I saw straight enough. With a Western saw, I typically plane the end grain a little (optionally on a shooting board) but I often have to do this with a Japanese saw too (because my sawing skills aren't good enough to hit the knife mark on both sides).

If you're getting into woodworking and have no good saws, I'd recommend getting a Japanese Ryoba, which has a fine cross cut side and a coarse rip cut side (cheapest alternative for a fine woodworking saw IMO). The rip cut is too coarse for fine joinery, so you could get a Western Gent's saw or Dovetail saw to complement.

In Internet discussions, Japanese saws are often said to be "better" than Western saws but it's not true (unless you compare it to a big box store hardened teeth cross cut saw). Both Western and Japanese saws are capable tools in the hands of a craftsman and it boils down to getting practice with the tools you have.

Thanks for the answers. Interesting stuff. I think it was a Ryoba I saw in the catalog long ago.

Ryoba is the most common type, it's the two sided (rip/cross cut) backless kind. They're really widely available these days - I've seen them in my local big box hardware store.

Dozuki is a back saw, with usually fine teeth and narrow kerf (my favorite Japanese saw is a fine cross cut Dozuki). A Kataba is a backless, single sided saw.

There's a handful of other types too but they aren't nearly as common.

Cool.

Agreed. For myself, I find I like working with high-end plywood in my projects (I started making speakers and MAME cabinets, heh, heh).

That means though that the smaller hand tools won't fly. My table saw is what I use 90% of the time.

Orbital sander, drill, the occasional router...

At the same time, I had no need for a planer, joiner, lathe — those bits of large equipment.

I've gotten by without a bandsaw as well (but that would sure be nice form time to time).

But Mathias is right, start small, see what calls you. (Hand drill and circular saw is where I began. I made what I now call "dorm furniture".)

I recently sold my Delta Unisaw to make room for a CNC milling machine. Something had to go and that was the obvious option. Since then I've been thinking about a replacement for the tablesaw functionality (mainly ripping) that might occupy less space. Router guide tracks are one possible solution.

Any suggestions?

If it's only once in a while there is a trick you can use with a circular saw (a retired fireman from Texas taught this, found him on some usenet group decades ago).

Summary: make a guide, clamp the guide to the work, rip with a circular saw.

Buy a 4x8 sheet of masonite and a decent circular saw if you don't have one (note that even if you like a a worm drive like the Skillsaw SPT77WML, the traditional circular saw with the blade on the right side works better, more of the base will be on the guide).

Measure the distance from the blade to the saw blade (and standardize on a particular width of blade, a thicker blade will mess this up). It's typically about 5 inches, give or take.

Chalk line an 8 foot by 10 inch chunk, cut that. Go to the opposite side of the sheet and chalk line an 8 foot by 4.5 inch chunk (if your saw has a different distance to the blade adjust accordingly).

Take the smaller chunk and glue it to the bigger chunk, lining up the two edges you just cut. Make sure that the bigger board sticks out more than the distance between your blade and the edge of your base (in our example that's 5 inches, we are putting 4.5 inches on 10 inches, leaving a 5.5 inch base).

This leaves the factory cut edge of the smaller chunk as the guide. Clamp that contraption someplace where the edge overhangs by an inch or so and put your saw on it, push up against the lip made by the smaller chunk, and cut off the extra 1/2 inch.

Presto, you now have a guide. Want to rip a sheet of plywood? Measure, clamp the guide to the marks, run your saw along the guide, away you go. Clamp the guide over the chunk you want and you don't have to worry about saw kerf, it's coming out of the waste.

Once you have one of these you'll make another one only about 5 feet long so you can do cross cuts.

If this isn't clear, email me and I'll try and draw a picture. It's really a lot more simple than I've made it appear, the details are there because it's easy to not think of one of them (like changing saw blades). For that reason, and others, I have a dewalt saw that I use only for these guides. Circular saws are cheap enough that I have several, the guided one, one with a diamond blade for cutting up my driveway, a worm drive for framing, a battery one for when I have no power, etc.

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