What's the first thing you ever built?

[Lee Bidwell]

After reading Johnny Means wax nostalgic about his workbench in a recent thread, I got to thinking about my first "project". Freshman year of college, my roomate and I decided we needed a coffee table. He had an old metal beer sign he "acquired" from some undisclosed location, and we decided it would make a great addition to our dorm room. I was working for my dad pouring house foundations, and one day I salvaged some scrap cutoffs (2x4s and 4x4s) from a house site. My only tools were a hammer, nails, and a circular saw. So, 4x4s for legs, and I made an attempt at a mitered top with the 2x4s using a 25' tape to measure and mark a 45* line, cutting with the cs. Only about a half inch gap in the miters. The table never actually got used, and sat in my dad's building until one day, right after I got married, my wife saw it and decided we could dress it up as a coffee table (we had NO money back then). So we added some cedar her dad had on hand to cover my sloppy top (better miters this time, but they were trial and error give how out of square the table was ), put gobs of caulk in my gaps, laid in some tile, and had a piece of glass cut. It served as our coffee table for 6 years in our first house, and I still have it in an upstairs media room. I'll probably never throw it out. Just looking at those miters brings back memories and makes me smile.
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I had no idea at the time the slope that coffee table would send me down. I never decided, "woodworking will be my hobby." It just sort of happened when I realized I could build things with better quality and more to my taste for less money than I could buy them. I'm still very new at woodworking, having really only gotten serious in the last year (since we moved to a house with a garage for a proper shop), and I still have a ton to learn, but it's nice to look at that first piece and see how far I've come.

So, enough about me. What was your first piece? What tools did you have to work with? Pics if you have them. Anyone have anything with more shoddy construction than my coffee table?

[Tom Hintz]

When my wife and I bought our first house one of the first things I did was build a workbench in the basement. I needed to buy a circular saw (a good one then cost $17.99!) but that, a bag of nails and a bunch of 2 X 4's got me started working with wood. Then I doscovered that one of my new neighbors across the alley was a very friendly master cabinetmaker and my interest in woodworking was set.

[Denny Rice]

In the 7th grade, the first year I ever had wood shop, I built a pretty standard 12" bookshelf with made out of walnut. My mom still has it almost 30 yrs later.

[Jeff Willard]

I had a spare copy of an old RCA Red Seal recording I wanted to display in a frame. Got some red oak "sticks" and attempted to rout a channel to house the LP, sandwiched between two pieces of glass with a Dremel. Burned up two Dremel tools doing it . Etched "Nipper" (RCA logo) into the front piece of glass. Canyon width miters. But the dog looks good. Then I lost my footing...

[Matt Meiser]

I think mine was a manger for the nativity set under our Christmas tree when I was maybe 6 or 7. Built from scrap wood, whatever size pieces I could find. One piece had a "Holley Carbs and Pumps" sticker that I partially peeled off but couldn't get the rest so you can still see it through the stain one of my parents help me put on. So for 30-some years my parent's have had corporate sponsorship of their nativity scene. Several years ago I told my mom I'd make her a new one and she refused.

[Bill Arnold]

I was messing around in garages of my father, grandfather and uncle but can't say I "built" anything until about age 11 when I helped my father on an addition to a utility room on our carport. I would add a few pieces of siding each day after school, then painted it when finished.

My first real woodworking was in 9th grade woodshop when I was 13. The three projects I built that year were a small table lamp I built from a plan, a "hi-fi" speaker box I designed to add to our system at home, and a turned nut bowl with a column in the middle to hold the nutcracker and picks. My parents made all the appropriate nice-nice comments about the items and I was pleased with what I accomplished.

I did some of the usual toy and other things for the kids along the way but didn't get into any "fine" projects until about 1999.

[Mike Heidrick]

I was seven. I had found some lawnmower wheels and two steel rods for axels. I went down to our basement. Dad had pieces of wood, a can of nails every size and shape, can of nuts and bolts, a huge hand saw (to a 7yrld), and his one portable unorganized tool box with hammers, pliers, screwdrivers. I made a coaster go-cart to go down a steep driveway across the street. It had pivoting rope steering that also doubled as a way to haul the cart around. Just uses whatever wood I could find. Shop rags stapled over foam for a steat.

Bicycle ramps out of offcut 2X4s and scrap plywood were also common builds. The neighbor had a shop he let me work in. I even got to use the jigsaw and palm sanders

[Howard Jahnke]

Early in our marriage, My mother-in-law took a job in Hot Springs, Ak. I shortly found out that the bedroom set we were using belonged to her. This left us with our clothes in piles on the floor. With my extensive woodworking knowledge gained in high school woodshop, I decided I could build the bedroom furniture myself. We were living in a small 2 bedroom townhome. I went to Sears and bought a contractor saw and a router. I proceeded to build a dresser, chest of drawers and headboard out of red oak, in the basement. Much sawdust and 2 months later I finished. 21 years later we are still using the same furniture, and it has held up perfectly. I now have a 24 x 36 detached shop, and woodwork on a daily basis. It was the best decision I ever made to build that furniture. On a side note, I learned the hard way one day while building that bedroom set regarding a table saw and a furnace being in the same room.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

My brothers and I built some pretty elaborate forts as kids. I started using a coping saw, then a jig saw to make M-16 type wood rifles. It was a lot of fun, and I had a waiting list of neighbor kids wanting one. High school wood shop for a year was a joke, then after I met my wife I really got into ww because we couldn't afford the ridiculous prices that the stores wanted for a crappy bedroom set. Bought a Delta contractor saw, a Jet jointer and a Craftsman dovetail jig, and built a bedroom set. It still works well, but it serves as a reminder every night of a couple important lessons that I picked up over the years.

[Tom Walz]

A border for a worm bed. My Grandpa and I built it out of 2x4’s. He showed me how to use a hand plane which I thought was just plain magic. Warm summer afternoon, pine 2x4, long clean shavings coming off and the wonderful smell.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Sixth grade wood shop, a small, two shelf corner wall shelf about 20"T x 10" D. She still has it on the wall in her kitchen. Scroll work and all, pretty cute actually.
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[John Gregory]

http://woodworksutah.com/Images/benchDone.jpg

We had just built our shop and our oldest son took a picture of a bench he liked and figured that mom and dad could build it. It was a frustrating first project. Turnings, lots of mortises, curves and angles.
It was a good "baptism by fire" into woodworking.

[Chris Tsutsui]

My first project was when I first moved into my house.

I finally had a garage with my new place so I was constantly on Craigslist and I had bought a used jointer, planer, hollow chisel mortiser, tenoning jig, and a few other things and decided to use them all on my first project because they were all collecting dust.

It's a M&T solid hard maple table inspired by David Marks.







You can tell that I glued up two halves of 5/4 maple for the legs and I didn't glue them on the diagnal. I meant to buy thicker stock but forgot.

The top is gorgeous but my wife put on a table runner that hides it, and I guess it protects the table top as well.

On a scale of 1 to 10, my M&T joinery turned out to be a 9.5.

I used a circular saw to cut off the ends of the table and a Bosch Jobsite saw to rip all of the stock.

Bandsaw tapered the legs and the jointer removed the bandsaw marks.

Tablesaw cut the apron reliefs, I made an MDF template and used my router table for the first time to make the curved aprons.

The router table did cause a big chip out because one of the boards had a hair-line split I didn't see. I used glue and clamps and fixed the chip out and now I don't know where it is.

This able took 3 times longer than I had expected... heh

[Vic Damone]

A four, 4" rubber wheeled I shaped coster when I was ten. Cut the plywood parts (with supervision, thanks Dad) on the bandsaw I still own. Since everybody else was using strap on skate wheels this was a hot rod. The heels of our sneakers were the break pads.

A gateway project for sure.

[Jim Beachler]

My first real project was a USA Map Puzzle. Saw a magazine at the hardware store (was building a 12 x 30 deck) and said (famous last words) "I can do this". Loved making puzzles so much that I was making them for family and friends till they were full.

Eventually, making puzzles has morphed into my full time job. Currently have 8 part time people working for me as well. We make personalized and educational wooden puzzles.