How did you get your start?

[Bobby Thistle]

My dad was NOT a woodworker. He attempted to make a couple of things in his day but I won't go into detail.

When I was 14 he hired a guy to finish our basement. I spent a lot of time down there watching him and how he did things. When he was finished I decided that I could do the same and so I talked my folks into letting me build a shed in the back yard. I had a ball doing it even though it didn't come out perfect... I didn't know how to make things square back then. However, almost 40 years later, that shed is still standing. In fact, I just shingled the roof last year.

I didn't get into ww as a full time hobby until about 15 years ago. I gave up one of my vices and started spending the money I saved on tools. I have an extremely well equipped shop today and just love spending time in it. My wife keeps me busy building things around the house, (which I completely redid when we bought it) She keeps 2 or 3 jobs for me to do ahead of the one I'm working on.

--Bobby

[Kevin Gregoire]

i had a class back in middle school and then again in high school and really enjoyed it. i still have my little stool i made more then 30 years ago now (holy sh*t i feel old)
and in my early twenties when i was living away from home my father built a wood shop out behind our garage but he only got to enjoy it for about six months before having a series of strokes that left him paralyzed and no longer able to do any work.
a few years later after he passed, we had to sell most of his tools to pay various bills.

i later moved back home to help pay bills and buy my mothers home from her, and after i was forced to retire because of medical problems i went out and cleaned up the shop and started slowly buying some tools and after almost a year i have most all of the tools i need except a nice router setup.
i have been slowly building jigs mostly and a few easy things such as the typical cribbage boards, bread boards, bird houses, etc...

one day i hope to have enough skill to build a dresser or something more complex.

[Ken Peluso]

Wow, I give my dad credit for a lot of things in my life - but my love for woodworking/tools isn't one. He wouldn't know a tablesaw from a tablespoon.

I picked up my first tool after I bought my 1st house 10 years ago. I started doing 'handyman' type stuff for myself because I was (and am) cheap. That evolved into trimwork and light construction, plumbing, tiling. Once all the rooms were done in the house, I got bored and started doing small furniture projects.

I learned everything I know (which fits into a tablespoon) from the Internet.

I just love where this craft takes me.

Wow I think Shawn and I are living parallel lives. That's my story to the t.

[jack duren]

I took 4 yrs of wood shop in high school from 79-83 and been drawing a paycheck as a cabinet maker ever since. Currently running a commercial shop in Kansas City...

[Jim Becker]

Started with some home improvement projects while at the same time getting very interested in furniture building from watching NYW. This was about 1997. Bought my share of "mistake" tools and then bought decent ones. Upgraded to better stuff when I moved to this property and then upgraded again to Italian and German stuff when I had a few very good years financially...figuring that I would never be able to do that when retirement rolled around...if it's ever possible to retire. LOL

My furniture work is generally Shaker or Nakashima inspired, but I'm not adverse to do things that are more eclectic. I've also discovered a niche with high-end tack trunks for the equestrian crowd in the last six months.

[Adam Moore]

I'm just getting started right now. I'm in what I call "The tool collection/breaking my wife in" stage. So it's been a slow start for me.

Over the past 5 or 6 years I'd been wanting to get into woodworking but just never did. I'd never taken any classes or really even worked with wood (other than building my 12x16 shed in '05) since my middle school industrial arts class back in . . . . '90 or so.

So about 16 months ago with my wife pregnant with our first, I decided to re-finish this toybox that my dad had made for me when I was 1 or 2. Even though I still haven't finished that thing, I got the WW bug.

I subscribed to Wood Magazine, Woodworkers Journal, and Popular Woodworking. Bought numerous books and read quite a bit on the internet just learning what tool does what and what I felt like I needed to get started.

But what's cool is, back about a year ago when I was trying to get started, my dad retired and told me he wanted to get into woodworking also. So we're actually kinda going through this thing together. Although, without a mortgage, a 1 year old, and a job, my old man has been able to round up more tools and spit out more projects.

[Steve Peterson]

I can remember times when I was about 10 and my dad would drag me along while he showed me how he could fix things. I was always really impressed and wondered how he knew so much about so many things. Often he would drag me along a week or two later to show me how to fix it again.

I started realizing that he wasn't really very good at fixing things. The bug to build and fix things was still there. I always liked building things throughout my life.

The bug to get into woodworking really bit me about 2 years ago when a used PM66 was foe sale just down the street. Since then, I decided to upgrade all of my cheapo Craftsman tools with real tools.

Steve

[Ramsey Ramco]

When I was about 4 my dad started building houses for a living, small operation but usually did about 5-8 houses per year in the upper middle market about 5000 sq ft minimum. He lost his father to a stroke at a very early age, so dad felt it absolutely necessary to be very close to me, ( Not complaining.) Well a new builder with a lot of work meant our quality time together would be me tagging along with him while he was at work, so I blame that for sparking interest. When I was in high school I took an advanced residential building course, where we built a house every year from start to finish, I excelled. My instructor hooked me up with a very upscale builder and I started working full time in summers and part time throughout school. Dad felt that I would have an unfair advantage being his son and refused to hire me, tough love i guess. I worked for this builder for about 3 years and then started my own remodeling company. I ran that for about 2 years and merged with Dad dropping the remodel from my company and changing it to enterprises, doing both now custom homes and remodeling, I would have to say I was born into it, Stealing all of dads tools as a kid. I probably would still deny it 20+ years later.