r/BeginnerWoodWorking

Took quite a bit of time working on my first chair. Wanted to do a Z chair with a danish weave. Mainly curly ash with red oak accents as I ran out of ash and had some red oak scraps that worked out. The angled mortise and tenons weren't as bad as I thought but doing the shaping of the curves took a fair bit of work between a saw, chisel, and drill with a sanding spindle.

I wish someone had told me how long and how much cord doing a weave takes but I'm pretty glad with the results.

Used almost 1500 ft for the whole chair with a waste of about 17 ft from off cuts and trying to hide the knots in decent places.

This is the biggest project I've taken on myself.

The stringers were the hardest part. The rise/run was originally for carpet and I didn't realize the difference until I had it all staged. I traced the skirt since you can see there was no "real" stringers and then learned my mistakes and did the calculations for rise and run myself.

I really wanted to add a third, middle stringer, but time was crunchy as we had a house warming coming up. I opted against it since it wasn't there in the original build

Once I got about 3-4 stairs in I started realizing the stringers weren't perfectly leveled despite my best efforts, so I kept the treads as level as I could which resulted in a couple gaps in the risers.

What did I mess up? What could I have done better?

I wanted a workbench along the wall so my mobile bench could stay available for larger or more flexible projects.

Materials used:

2.75×2 in lumber

4×4 in support posts

0.75×4 in boards

3/4 in MDF top

I’m not a professional—just someone who enjoys building and learning with every project. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Always wanted to try making custom furniture by myself.

First photo is the final result.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Simple design with a small touch of color that I like.

I'm not much of a handyman, so I was a bit confused about what materials to use. I ended up choosing something that wasn't ideal for this project, but lesson learned 🫡

I didn't realize I bought melamine until I cut into it, so I had to fill the edges with wood filler before applying the paint.

Already planning another project that I will share once it's done!

Cat for scale

I just started wood working as a hobby. We needed a shoe stool for the house so decided to make it as my initial project. It turned out pretty well. I only have circular saw, sander and drill/impact driver, used pocket holes for the joinery.
The hard part is painting, the paint pools at the bottom… since it’s my initial project i didn’t use stain.
Any tips for better painting? I used roller and brush but getting in at the corners is hard.

Also whenever I think and get excited for next project, it’s almost always cheaper to buy. How do you guys decide to buy vs build?

I am currently in the process of making wooden clocks.

I need to take 8-9cm x 1.5cm of wood out the back of my wooden round to fit the clock work.

I've done it with my dremel but it took ages.

Surely there is a tool that could do this quickly that doesn't cost the earth?

Hope someone can help!

I’m building a silly little photo frame out of MDF as a joke gift for a friend that is going to house electronics to make noises out of some speakers on the back of the frame. Its not my best work, and whilst I’ll still need to smooth other the routed channels for the electronics with sandpaper, I ideally would like it a bit more hidden.

I’ve created a thin “back plate” (included pictures of both frame and the back plate) to place on the back to hide the electronics, but I want it to be removable should the batteries need replacing. Will threaded inserts work here? Reading some mixed things about their staying power in MDF. I can’t imagine the batteries being changed all that often.

Thanks all.

My wife and I built this table together, it’s the largest slab we’ve worked with and there were so many lessons along the way that we learned, but now we’ve finally got a hardy finish which will hopefully stand the test of time! It started as a slab of bare wood with a split so bad that it was being held together with a metal strap, we did the epoxy fill, bow ties, leg pockets and all the finish ourselves, just working out of a tool cupboard!

Initially we finished it with Rubio monocoat because YouTube led us to believe that it was magic, but surprisingly it doesn’t work for everything - this wood was so soft that the Rubio couldn’t protect it. Dents and deep scratches happened easily, and the surface cracked around the dents like it had a thin layer of glass on it.

So reluctantly after a few years of mild regret, now it’s had a full refinish with several coats of penetrating epoxy to stabilize the soft wood, then oil based poly to give it some uv protection and toughness. It took about 6 weeks to do, because of the extreme cure time for the poly, but it looks and feels so much tougher.

We’re looking forward to having it develop a whole new set of scratches and dents, as this is a piece we plan to live with, not just look at!

Good morning all. On Friday I decided to break and buy a Dewalt 735x Planer. So far it’s one of the machines I LOVE running in the shop and is very satisfying. The not so satisfying part is the clean up of debris the planer spits out. I’m trying to find a dust collection system that won’t break the bank as the planer just cost me a pretty penny. I saw this on 731 Woodworking YouTube and wanted to know if anyone had tried this thing? I’m also in a two car garage that cars still come in and out of, so it can’t be huge either.

Made it with 4 2x4s.

So I was cutting some pine today on a relatively new CMT blade. Half way through a cut I noticed lots of very fine silvery shavings on top of the wood.

Stopped the cut and inspected. First off I figured I’d hit a nail or something but nothing there. Also the pieces were not chips. The were extremely thin, curled up and very soft. Definitely metal though (ferrous).

Looking at the blade teeth there’s lots of ‘clean’ bits just at the edge of the teeth.

Only thing it has cut is pine and Formply. As far as I know I haven’t hit any metal or anything like that.

Any idea what’s happened here? Is this something I stuffed up or possibly a quality control issue with the blade?

To preface this, I have been doing “rough in” and some trim carpentry on and off for 10 years, but never really did any wood working per se. Just cutting boards to length and chopping miters 🤷🏼‍♂️ My wife has been wanting a mail organizer for us and a little organizer shelf for her toiletries. So I grabbed some scrap wood and just kind of free styled it. Did a little sanding with an orbital I have and threw some stain on it. Definitely nothing special but it was a very fun, relaxing way to enjoy my Saturday.

I love her. Walnut everything. Six coats of wipe on poly (ArmRSeal oil based). The legs are the way they are for reasons that I promise are too long and boring to explain, but I like the look of them.

Built this stand to hold a decorative bowl. Used a square cherry dowel that was on sale at Woodcraft and a round poplar dowel from Lowe’s. It was hard to get all four legs to be in contact with the table (not sure if it was warping in the dowel or inaccuracies from drilling), but it became flat with bowl on it. Also put together this jig to help with drilling. Overall pretty happy with it and it helped me work on my sawing skills.

drew up a simple design I needed for a fairly small space in my bedroom. used some plywood and made some miter joints. happy with the end product. probably wouldnt stain pine again though. next time I think I’ll be more comfortable just using hardwood.

I have this old part of an apple tree for a few years sitting in my garage and finally have an idea what to do with it.

I want to hollow most of the inside out and put a lamp inside

But i am not sure if the dark part of the tree is still usable or not. The wood in the second picture (the inside of the hole) got a mushy/soft feeling to it.

I'm grateful for any tips and insughts you can give me! :3