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Make Your Own Minimalist Furnishings with Woodwork

Woodwork is a hobby that can save you money; adorn you with beautiful, sustainable furniture and help you spend your time in a productive way throughout your life. If you’re new to woodwork, you will need some tools, some material and some ideas. This article will help you with tools and ideas, as finding wood is as simple as going online or popping to your local DIY store. 

Tools for Furniture

If you’re looking to make furniture, these basic tools will come in handy. Go home tools has some good guides on how to pick chisels, saws and other tools.

  • Circular saw – this is handy when you’re doing long rip cuts and dimensioning. A table saw is even better as it’s more versatile, but if you’re beginning, a circular saw should be able to meet all your dimensioning needs.
  • Power Jointer – power jointers are used to flatten a face and squaring an edge, essential when you’re connecting pieces of wood.
  • Hand saw – hand saws are great for cross-cutting and can help you straighten edges and cut boards down to the final measurements you need them to be. 
  • Jigsaw – a jigsaw is needed for cutting curves and doing more detailed work. They are not very good at cutting straight or cutting holes on wood. A wood router is something you might like to look into getting. There is a review on https://bestofmachinery.com/best-wood-router you can check out by Bob Robinson.
  • Combination square – a woodworking essential since 1878, essential for measurements and angles alongside a tape measure.
  • A power drill and bits – fairly self-explanatory, very useful for drilling in screws or making holes for nuts and bolts. 
  • Chisels and a mallet – good for final bits of detail as well as getting rid of any excess wood you don’t need but will take too long to sand. 
  • Rasps, files, sanders, smoothing and block plane – these pieces of kit are the minimum you need for smoothing all the surfaces of your final work at speed. You could use sandpaper and work by hand, but this can take a very long time with larger projects, so you’re advised to get a random-orbit sander
  • Hammer – the essential DIY tool.
  • Screwdrivers, nuts and bolts
  • A work bench – this doesn’t need to be too fancy and you can always upgrade if you need bigger benches for bigger projects.
  • A few clamps – you can rarely have too many clamps. They help you stay safe and cut in a straight line.

Ideas

If you’re new to woodwork, it’s a good idea for you to start simple and make some basic items first, maybe working yourself up in size when you’re confident.

  • A wooden spoon – you can do this the Viking way and fashion one from a whole log of wood. 
  • Simple storage box with hinge – very simple and you can use it to help you store bits of wood or other useful things for your future projects.
  • Workbench – a real woodworker’s workbench is a great way for you to practice your woodworking while also giving yourself an upgrade! You can include built-in clamps and room for your favourite tools.
  • Cutting board – you can turn scrap wood into a cutting board by glueing strips of your wood scraps together with a waterproof carpenter’s glue and a lot of sanding before applying a food grade finish.

Alec Neufeld’s extensive background in the construction trade fuels his passion for alternative energy and green building methods. A retired builder, he now enjoys a freelance writing career, alongside helping people as a general contractor.

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