How did you get started?

[ChrisD]

That great time of year is just around the corner, my friends. That's right: the anniversary of my getting into woodworking!

A very good friend of mine was visiting in the fall of 2001 when he heard my then 2-year old Rachel ask for a doll house. For Christmas that year, he gave me a portable TS and along with it a challenge to build a dollhouse.

As soon as he left, I opened the box, read the manual, and tried out some freshly learned really cool verbs: cross-cut, miter, and rip. It's been all downhill from there.

I haven't built the dollhouse yet, but Rachel and I have built a few birdhouses.

So how did you get started in this great hobby?

[New Guy]

Somewhere around a year ago, we were searching for a well built wine tower. Everything was either to expensive or poorly built. Since my dad has been building furniture since I was young I thought I'd give it a shot. So we gambled, instead of buying a wine tower, we bought a bunch of power tools. (We still dont have a wine tower.) But in all reality we didnt have the room for one until now. So now its somewhere in between a sofa table, bedroom set, or loft furniture. I have a long list. Maybe I'll have time for BT3central.

[Tom Slick]

although my dad built a few WW projects when I was a kid it really started with HS woodshop class. I can't help but build stuff myself. I do woodworking, welding, machine work, carpentry, etc.
Usually I don't like what I find or I don't want to pay for what I want so I build it myself the right way.

[JTimmons]

Grandpa got me started, years ago. I dropped the habit when we moved into an apartment and picked it up again after the last house, but yep Grandpa is to blame for it.
The love for it skips generations in my family from what I am told. Guns and WWing seem to be the hobbies that our family follows. My dad collects and restores antique rifles and handguns, grandpa and I do WWing.

[leehljp]

I got started when my uncle asked me if I wanted to help him build a house or chop cotton for my dad. My dad let me choose so I decided to build a house. When I started, it was work, hard work. But still fun.

[niki]

Yokohama, 1995, Sunday, we were walking at the shopping street and were given many small packs of tissue paper as an advertisement.

My wife ask me, can you make me a wooden or plywood box to put all those packs without the plastic covers? of course I can...

At that time, my only woodworking tool I had was, I think, pencil...

I made a plan with the dimensions, went to local carpenter and asked him to cut 1/4" plywood according to the dimensions... he even gave me a piece of sanding paper.

At home, I took the CA (super glue), glued all the pieces carefully, sanded and finished with "Nisu" (Japanese for Varnish).

I got the virus and there is no cure, the only medicine that I know, to relieve the pain is...to buy more tools.

Since then, I made many boxes, small, big, with doors or with drawers, but I will never forget that it all started by my wife asking me, can you.....God bless her for that...

[Pappy]

The summer I was 12 my Mother signed me up at the YMCA. I would go to work with her and walk over there to hang out during the day. after about a week of ping pong between the open swim times, I wandered into the woodshop. Her birthday present that year was my first wood working project.



Worked as a driver in a lumber yard that had an onsite cabinet shop for the company's home building operation when I was about 19. Spent most of my down time helping Al in the shop. We took on some custom work so I guess that is where I got my first taste of furniture making.

[gjat]

My dad was very handy for a Chicago City Boy, and I grew up in the South Suburbs where my next door neighbor's grandfather was an amazing, 'can-do' Alabama Country Boy. I always believed you only had to be smart enough to ask questions and brave enough to try.
All my woodworking is borne out of necessity. If I couldn't buy it, but needed it, I would try to build it. My very first real funiture was beds for my kids when they out grew their cribs, built with a pencil, paper, cheap pine, a circular saw, a handsaw, a drill, and a sanding block. It's not 'fine furniture', but it looks good and has seen daily use from my 21 & 18 year olds.
Building stuff we need only costs the materials and the pleasure in doing it. Since I was limited in my tools, I couldn't use pre-drawn plans with dimensioned wood or fancy joinery, I've had to dream it up, draw it out, and figure it out as I build it, using what wood I had scrounged or could afford.
Now that I can afford better tools and materials, it's become a new learning experience. I'm building a sewing machine station for my LOML, and actually bought a Kreg $20 pocket hole jig. To me, that's stellar.

[lrogers]

Started as kid building go-karts. You know, a 2x12 with wheels at the corners and a peach create for a body. Progressed to balsa wood model airplanes and other projects. Before starting my apprenticeship (marine pipefitter), I worked as a carpenters helper for the school system in Va. Beach. Worked with some very good carpenters/cabinetmakers and made a few projects during lunch using scraps. Piddled abit thereafter until my first grandchild was born. I saw a rocking horse in a store and the price tag on. I thought, "hey, I could do that" and it's been down hill ever since!

[cabinetman]

The impetus for any creativity I think I have came from my father who was a master woodcarver. As for my skills, I'm still not sure. My actual start came with making lamps. This thread back in July tells the story:
http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=22733
So from that kind of start it developed to making whatever it took to earn a living.



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[jziegler]

As a kid, I helped out my dad on various projects. Then what really got me started was a fun project one summer. I had finished my first year of college, and my dad said that he would pay for a summer project if I could come up with something good. I built an electric bass guitar with his help. Still don't know how to play it, but I did it. Then, I took a number of years off. About 2 and a half years ago, I bought a house. Since then, it's been woodworking projects all over the house, kitchen cabinets, a built in desk, installing molding, refinishing floors... And there is still a nice long list of things to do.

I'd like to get away from the home improvement woodworking sometime. I think I want to try my hand at jewelry boxes (or other small boxes) and toys. Well, maybe in 35 or so years when I'm ready to retire.

Jim

[jspelbring]

This ^$&*% old house

I've been a computer geek for close to 30 years, and that's pretty much all that I cared about. Post dot.com crash, and I found myself the owner of an 85 year old fixer-upper. I knew that I would need to recreate quite a bit of 8" wide baseboard, so I bought a 12" CMS. That got me started, then my BIL offered to come down and "help" us create concrete countertops for our new kitchen cabinets (no, I didn't build them - Lowes). He told me that I would need a table saw (for building molds, supports, etc.), so I went to my local Cummins and bought a BT3100. It was down hill from there - moved to the dark side with a Craftsman hybrid, foolishly attended my first woodworking show, where I bought one of the Incra packs. A couple of trips to HF, and I've got a usable set of tools. I'm still in the process of setting up the basement shop - once the house is "done", maybe I'll finally get to build some furniture.

P.S. My BIL mentioned that his table saw was an aging and almost dead Craftsman contractor saw, so as a "thank you" for helping us with the counters, I bought him a BT3100 (during the project, he was very impressed with the BT)

[Popeye]

Hmmmm, 1975, Newport News, Va., Newlywed, 2nd Class, no furniture to speak of, no money to speak of either........
Bought a book on "2X furniture YOU can build", Bought a circular saw, a sander, a hammer and a drill. Then went to it. Parts of that stuff still exist in one form or another (work bench I think)
Got to know the shop supervisors/instructors at the Ft. Eustis Army base Woodworking hobby shop and away I went. Pat

[jseklund]

That's a funny question for me. I really don't know the answer to be honest. My girlfriend's family and my family ask this all the time now, and I just don't have an answer.

About 5 months ago, my girlfriend and I started talking about maybe making something for christmas presents. Something along the lines of furniture. I thought it was her idea. She thought it was mine. It just took a life of its own and next thing I knew I was trying to learn how to woodwork.

Looking back, I am a power tool guy. I love buying tools that make things easier to accomplish. For some reason, I associate a lot of pleasure with having just the tool to accomplish something. When someone is trying to do something, struggling away, and I can say, "wait one second" and grab a tool and they're done 5 minutes later with something they were struggling to do, it just makes me feel good I think. I also like to learn new things, participate in new projects, do things that make people wonder how someone did them, etc. Not that what I do is always that great, but as an example, I started working on my own car about a year and a half ago. Everyone in my family is afraid to take apart a car and I have no formal training, so when something goes wrong they pay a ton to get it fixed by a "trained professional" and it usually is done sub-par. I am very particular and thorough when it comes to quality products and quality work. I started fixing my car and my mothers audi, and people always say, "How'd you learn to do that." I just say, "I just did it."

So, I guess it's just another project for me. Something to learn and better myself. I've already grown from it. And hopefully it's another way for me to show people around me that you can do anything that anyone else can do. I mean, if I can do it- then you MUST be able to! haha.

Of course there are times when you need something done and don't have the ability/knowledge at the moment to get it done in time. That's reality. But I'm always willing to learn unless there are other factors. I.e.- if my car won't start and I have no clue how to fix it, I will pay to get it fixed because I need it done asap.

[Anna]

About this time last year, I decided I wanted a Murphy bed for the guest room. I started looking them up on the internet and found most of the ones that can be shipped are made of particle board, and the ones in town cost several thousand dollars at least to build.

I thought about it, then decided, "I can do that." It didn't really bother me that I've never used a power tool before, and that cutting tools that rotate at several thousand rpm scared the heck out of me. I just thought I'd enrol in a woodworking class and learn how to do it safely.

Started accumulating tools during Amazon's tool sale in February/March. Finally got my small shed set up in the middle of this year. Started building the usual stuff: workbench, mobile bases, and now I'm in the middle of putting up my cleat system to get most of the other stuff off the floor.

Still haven't gotten around to building my Murphy bed, although I already have the mechanism, but I thought that should be a project for next spring anyway.

Meanwhile, I'm having a ball. And I'm not scared of my table saw anymore.