Tell Your Story: How Did You Get Hooked on Woodworking

[jim oakes]

It seems that most woodworkers are passionate about the craft. I think it would be interesting to record how we got started and a brief history of our woodworking experiences.

Here is my story.

I first "got hooked" on making things by reading Popular Mechanics as a kid. I bought my first table saw at the age of 8. I still remember the add in the paper for it, $25 and it was a great saw! Even as a kid I wanted to see how things were built and figure out a way to do it myself.

When I was 17 I moved out on my own and rented a small house. I studied design magazines and wanted really cool (expensive) furniture for my empty house. By then my table saw was long gone, but I thought why not buy some good tools and make my own furniture. My first piece was a redwood and leather chair. It looked good but failed to hold-up. I found out why hardwoods and good joinery are needed.

From age 17 to 20 I had a shop in a rented basement with a Montgomery Ward radial arm saw as the only stationary machine. I got a job full time in a big (30 person) millwork shop. At night I made furniture for family and friends. I bought my first pro machine. I drove to the factory and got a Safety Speed Cut panel saw. What a step up that was!

By age 21 I bid on a big job making office furniture and got it. I quit my day job, bought a new Powermatic 66 table saw and became a self employed woodworker. This was in 1972 and the Delta Unisaw was the standard. The salesman told me "the 66 is new to the market but cost the same and is built better". They gave me no interest financing and it cost $500 total delivered, set in place and free on site help from the Powermatic rep!

From 1972 to 1977 I started to earn a good income,but to much was going to taxes. My accountant said "buy a building,don't rent". The only place I could afford was a small brick and stone hotel built in 1884. It had a huge walk out basement and was zoned for manufacturing, great! The first floor was a vacant (Elks or Moose ) lodge complete with a stage, great for my bachelor pad/loft/ showroom. The downside was the top floors had apartments and tenants. I didn't want to be a Landlord,I was way to busy making furniture. My accountant pointed out I would pay little or no taxes for years and actually make money from the rents. The accountant was right, it was the best investment I ever made.

From 1977 to 1980 when I wasn't busy with jobs in the shop, I restored the hotel. The TV show "This Old House" didn't even start till 1979 so at first I was considered an oddball for restoring instead of remodeling. I went to great detail grinding knives to reproduce moldings and learned a lot. When it became popular to restore the old stuff I was very busy. After all my showroom was my restored hotel. I was lucky enough to do lot of work for the state historical society. Everything from 2 flights of handcarved stairs to building modern exhibits. I even put together and dismantled an entire room of wood paneling for an exhibit. It was the office of a famous politician that had been stored in a warehouse for 90 years. In my last years in business I designed and sold high end custom furniture. Around 1990 I sold all my portable tools,and leased out the shop and machinery to a fine woodworker.
I thought I was done with woodworking,and I wanted to travel. You could say I was "retired" because I lived on rental income and investments.

I truly thought I would never get into woodworking again, but in 2001 I got some tool catalogs and a woodworking magazine, and got hooked again! I told my wife " IT MIGHT BE FUN TO HAVE A SHOP". I designed built a new house (full of custom furniture and millwork of course) and a shop in 2004. Now I just do woodworking for fun.

Please post your stories. How and why did you get into woodworking?

[Peter Quadarella]

My story (and history) is a lot shorter! Last year I started reloading because ammunition was getting too expensive and I was shooting a lot more often.

I needed a bench to reload on and decided to make a real basic, but sturdy one. I never before made anything whatsoever, even out of 2x4s or anything. Anyway, I screwed this bench together, out of 2x4s, 4x4s, and 3/4" plywood and it was sturdy. And it was really nice being able to use this bench that I made myself - I was proud of the ugly thing.

After a month or so, I decided to take a shot at building a little cedar side table for the back yard. It came out decent . Then I got ambitious and made the Jake's chair version of the Adirondack chair. That did it for me, and the rest is history.

[Matt Meiser]

This will come up a lot, but I blame Norm. My first projects were built when I lived in an apartment--a couple tables. I bought precut lumber at Lowes, including a glued up panel for the top. I made all my crosscuts with a plastic miter box and a miter saw. The joints were just dowels and metal reinforcements inside. I had a 2BR apartment, so I could do finishing in the 2nd BR with a fan in the window and the door closed. My BIL still has them as far as I know. Things really kicked into gear about 5 years later when I sold my drag car (which I enjoyed building but not racing, and breaking) and put the money towards the WW hobby.

[Eric Fuller]

I never had any thought about woodworking until about 5 years ago. I bought a Japanes puzzle box on Ebay and thought it was the coolest thing ever! Started collecting puzzles and quickly found that the only interesting ones are handcrafted in very small numbers and many designs are almost impossible to find.

I started thinking about making them myself and remember being confused how they got the middle part out of a notched stick...I could figure out the two end cuts, but I couldnt figure out how to get the middle part out. That's how I learned what I chisel does.

Anyway, ended up buying a nobex miter saw, set of chisels and square poplar sticks from home depot. Later I *really* moved up and bought a belt sander! Within 6 months I moved to a place with a small garage and set up my first real shop with power tools and such...used the insurance money when some lady pulled out in front of my motorcycle. Almost 5 years later and I do it for a living. Life's funny.

My first shop:

[Terry Teadtke]

Years and years ago I took woodshop in high school because it sounded like fun. I knew nothing about woodworking because no one in my family did woodworking. My only experience working with wood up to that point was building forts and stuff out of whatever lumber we could scrounge up in the neighborhood. Our work was primitive at best. Anyway the first day of woodshop the shop teacher was introducing us to equipment I had never seen before like a planer, cabinet saw, jointer, and so on. The shop teacher had the class stand on each side of the cabinet saw and calmly explained that although all shop equipment was dangerous, the cabinet saw was the most dangerous. He then proceeded to turn the saw on, and then tossed a piece of scrap wood into the blade. That piece of wood shot like a rocket across the shop and his point was made. But what really struck me as the most amazing thing I had ever seen and instantly turned me into a lover of woodworking was the demonstration of the jointer. He demonstrated the jointer by jointing two 1 x 6’s and then putting the edges together and showing the class a perfect joint between two boards ready for glue up. No gaps at all. I had no idea that two boards could be glued together without a gap! So he went ahead and glued up the two boards, clamped them, and said he would show us more the following day. It sounds really naïve but again, I knew absolutely nothing about woodworking. The following day the shop teacher picked up the 2 boards he had jointed and glued up the day before and explained that even though the boards were only held together with yellow glue, the glue joint was stronger than the wood itself. I found that really hard to believe but his next demonstration took care of that. He calmly took the two glued up boards and hit then on the table breaking them in two. I’m thinking the boards broke at the glue joint but they broke about an inch away from the joint and the glue held. It took all of two days for me to become a woodworker for life.

Terry

[Larry Nall]

Photography is my first hobby, but frames are so darn expensive, I thought I'd built my own. I quickly realized my crapsman tools weren't up to the challenge. I wondered how to score a fortune in tools just to build frames. Well, the LOML wanted her kitchen remodeled.

After one kitchen, a couple of room remodels, various pieces of furniture, I have a decent set of tools and a nice-sized shop is nearing completion.

I haven't taken many photos lately and I've still only managed to build a couple of frames. But, just just wait till the shop is finished...

[Greg Hines, MD]

I took woodshop in the 7th grade, not really learning much from the bus driver who was the teacher. He did teach us a lot about safety, and always made us wear safety glasses, which was handy the time that my brother almost caught an offcut coming off a miter saw.

We built all kinds of things when I was younger, including a 30' deck, a 12' tall entertainment center, and numerous other projects at the parents house.

When I got out of school, I wanted to make sure that I could do some woodworking, so I built a bench and got some cheap-o Ryobi tools, but the drill I still use. The rest I rarely touch, though the light is handy, and pretty bright.

Now I use the Shopsmith for a lot of small projects. I particularly like to turn mallets for the Scout Troop to use for hammering stakes in. I also love working on the router table.

I would second Norms influence on my interest. It really does not matter what he is building, I will watch it.

Doc

[Karl Brogger]

I think it would be interesting to record how we got started and a brief history of our woodworking experiences.

HA HA HA HA!!! I needed a job. It's pretty easy to do. The only real traits that are required is that you be anal retentive, and pay attention to detail. Both of which I well. Just shy of ten years later I'm still doing it. I started when I was 17, and dropped out of school earlier that year.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I got out of the Navy and was working for a company servicing a single CT scanner. My neighbor was a building contractor. I stopped by his construction site one day. I jumped in to help him and his siding crew. The next day I was there again as I was bored working 4 hours per week. The next day he hired me part time with the understanding if my pager went off I was gone. Between jobs, he layed off his crew but kept me on. We built a couple of houses and gutted and remodeled one. The next year I got promoted to management and moved to the Chicago area. I bought a home with an unfinished basement and finished it. I got tired of city life, stepped down and eventually transferred to Idaho. I watched a lot of TOH and NYW. I remodeled a lot of my house, retrussed the carport in place, and replaced the header on the carpot. 7 years ago I broke my back. While recovering I needed something for physical therapy so I designed and built an octagon gazebo for my wife. No drawings...all in my head. Then I bought a set of NYW plans and built an oak sideboard for my wife. She could have retired but came to me and had me hire a contractor to build the empty shell of my shop. I finished it eventually after recovering from an attack by the turners here. I'm finally at the stage of building cabinets in for the shop. I may start turning again this weekend.

[Mike Heidrick]

When I was a kid (7-10ysld) my neighbor had a shop with a craftsman TS, RAS, and this rack full of power hand tools - drills, belt sanders, circular saws. No jointer or planer or router - just the stuff needed to do building construction and home remodeling. He let us kids come in the shop when he was there and we built go-karts and skateboard ramps and bike ramps and tons of stuff - no RAS or TS or circular saws though. He salvaged a lot of wood and gave use the scraps to use. As I got older I got trained on the larger tools in his shop. By 7th and 8th grade Woodshop I had used quite a few tools. I was hooked.

Only in the last 6 years have I had a shop. Before that it was powertools and hand tools working on a picnic bench or on the front step of my apartment. Once I got the shop I started recreating the shop I used back as a kid - only now with the power of researching all WW tools, wood forums, and a good job to pay for the tools! Came in from the shop at 12:15am tonight. Man I love spring evenings in the shop.

Sad part is after I moved out to go to college, the neighbor that got me started in WW lost interest in remodeling and never pursued WW any more as a hobby. Now he gardens as a passion. Glad I was there when I was - Otherwise I would be on a gardening forum! Tractor forums do not count!

[Dave MacArthur]

My Dad always had a basement woodshop while I grew up, I started out being the B-man, helping with sheets on the TS and cleaning up. When in 6th grad, the General Contractor who was building our new house took the $$ from 40 projects, left his wife, and moved to the Caymans without paying the subs. My Dad had to finish it from sticks only, after his day office job...my younger brother and I had responsiblity thrust on us young! We helped every day after school doing our task list, then with Dad when he got home. I "apprenticed" with a neighbor who was my biology teacher and also an electrician--I ran all the emt conduit (Delaware, required in residential) in the walls, put in the boxes, lights, burglar alarm, stereo and TV to rooms, intercom etc., pulled the wires, and hooked it all up. He checked it all.

We did the drywall (not ceilings), paint, cedar siding, and helped two hired carpenters with shimming etc., so learned a lot.

We finished it in about a year, and then I helped my Dad build cabinets for it as we lived there, all the bathroom vanities, kitchen, etc.

Early on I saw that being able to do your own work gave you an incredible sense of independence and self-worth; and it all was based on my Dad's woodshop. Until I joined the AF and moved away at college, I continued to help Dad in the shop and make furniture etc.; woodworking for me means time spent with my Dad when I was a boy, learning to be a man and how to be self-sufficient.

[Denny Rice]

I'm 41 yrs old and was turned onto woodworking as a hobby in the 7th grade. It was an elective you could take in Jr High,. I continued to take it in the 8th, 9th, 10, 11, and 12th grade. I loved my shop class, my shop teacher was a mentor to me (he also taught me drivers ed..LOL) and as a junior in High school for a summer job the school system let me be an assistant to my shop teacher to teach woodworking to disabled kids, it was a really cool time and a lot of fun. After high school, I didn't have the "money" for my own shop, so I enrolled in night school classes at the High school to continue woodworking until the school decided woodworking was not important any longer and sold everything in an auction. Then not knowing how I was going to continue with a lifelong hobby, my wife and I took out a small personal loan and I purchased an old tablesaw, jointer, planner. I have since replaced these items with newer tools since, but if it was not for my wife, I probably would not have my shop today.

[Judy Kingery]

Jim, mine's pretty short as well, started as a kid, oh doing various projects, but mostly turnings. My Dad taught me and we enjoyed the shop growing up. Then sorta took about 30 years off for a career, and went back to it, now enjoy it about full time. Or any time the mood strikes. It is nice to have a fully equipped shop for what you most like to do and in my case, I do, it's turning. Best to you and interesting thread! Jude

[Johnny Kleso]

Some dude on PBS in a flannel shirt, I would have to say its all his fault.....

Hand tools I dont remember where but I had just bought what I thought was my last sander I needed and read an artical on hand planes how there is no dust and a nicer finish and its been down hill since them.......

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,

I took the blue pill
(apologies to The Matrix)

WW'ing always facinated me. I consider it the next logical step in the grand scheme to drain the Engelhardt bank account to zero. Guns, knives, fishing (& the boat) and computer stuff, all became too manageble - from a $$ perspective.
I dabbled at video slots for a few years as a means to drain the vault.

It came down to rehabbing old British Motorcycles or buying WW'ing tools.

I searched for a BSA 441 Victor Special - and ran the idea past SWMBO.
She said "You can have a MC, when I can have a live in boyfriend".
Pftt, says I, "long as the guy mows the lawn every week and takes out the garbage"..."she gets this half annoyed look on her face at this point so i figure I better dig myself out and follow up with "Well, in baseball they bring in the relief pitcher in the 7th inning right?".
Conversation went downhill real fast after that.

Ok -seriously.
WW'ing always facinated me since i was a kid. When we picked up some rental property, I needed some tools to do the rehab work. It's blossomed from there.