Cabinet making and furniture design

[Gregor]

Recently i've had a lot of time on my hands. I've just had a shoulder operation and I'm on the mend. So as you can probably imagine i'm doing a lot of sitting about at home thinking of what to do with myself!!

Although i can't do it right now, i find myself looking at various pieces of furniture and wishing i could build it.

I'm a time-served joiner however i now do a completely different job, and its been a few years since i was a joiner full time.

During my joiner days i know theres a lot of work i didnt do, just because the work i did was more construction site orientated. I have a router sat there, but its never been used properly and explored. I don't know how to veneer, I can't remember the last time i made a woodworking joint which wasn't a butt joint or similar.

I built a bed 2/3 years ago, but i remember looking at designs and thinking "I can't do that" and its simply because I haven't explored the tools I have and learned the craft of woodworking.

Yes i can fit doors, windows, kitchens, stairs, flooring etc, but I'd like to broaden my horizon a bit.

This website looks great for information, so I'm sure ill pick up a lot of tips here, but i was looking to establish if anyone has purchases any great books on woodworking, veneering, finishing/polishing, even books on router use?

I'm from a place in Fife, Scotland too, so if there is anyone around this area who has time, patience, maybe even a workshop that i could work alongside, i'd love to hear from you.

Thanks,
Gregor

 

[custard]

Welcome to the forum Gregor.

You're right, this forum can be a very useful resource. Just bear in mind that, as a time served joiner, your woodworking skills are already far, far in advance of the vast majority of people who post here. So your first problem is to figure out who's worth listening to, and who are the clueless armchair warriors that you should ignore!

To answer your question, you can get second hand copies of Charles Hayward and Robert Wearing books for peanuts, and IMO they've never been beaten. Alternatively, google Paul Sellers and watch some of his YouTube videos. The great advantage of Paul Sellers is you get a comprehensive introduction to woodworking from one single source. Mixing advice from different sources can often cause problems, even if individually they make perfect sense. If you use him as your definitive mentor then you won't get confused and you won't go far wrong.

Good luck!

 

[Grawschbags]

I'll clarify first off that I'm a novice, and second what custard has said and look in to Paul Sellers video channel on YouTube. Never looked closely at the other resources just yet.

I'm currently building a workbench, following his videos.

Also a fellow Scotsman...

 

[Gregor]

Thanks very much for the responses, and what a great help that will be too. I'm about to google that and let the learning commence!!

Grawschbags - Superb, do you have any pictures of the bench?

 

[MattRoberts]

Interested to hear who the 'clueless armchair warriors' are...

 

[undergroundhunter]

I would also like to say that i'm a relative novice but am learning. Custard is defiantly one of the ones to listen to he, knows his stuff I have read a lot a good advice from him over the years.
I can also advise Paul Sellers as a teacher/source of information, I have been a member of his woodworking master classes since the beginning and have learnt a lot along the way.
I am also a book worm so here are a few that I have enjoyed/learnt from Charles Hayward (all of his books are great), Bernard E Jones the practical woodworker, Chris Schwartz The anarchists tool chest, Robert Wearings books are great and full of useful info, if your into hand tools then Aldren Watson Hand Tools: Their Ways and Workings if a great resource. There are many others but these are the ones that I have read more than once and frequently refer back to.

Matt

 

[Grawschbags]

Grawschbags - Superb, do you have any pictures of the bench?

All the work-in-progress pictures of mine I have so far are just glue-ups of the bench tops, aprons and leg laminations. Nothing exciting...

However, this is a picture of the bench I "hope" to have by the end of it all:

Still a good few weeks away from completion as I don't get to devote as much time as I'd like.

Paul Sellers has an 11-part video series of him constructing this bench on his YouTube channel.

 

[Benchwayze]

Welcome Gregor. I'm sure you'll fit right in here.
I don't do much woodwork these days, especially since my wife became dependent upon me, but if I can help you (or anyone else) any time, I will be at the front of the queue.

Regards

John

 

[Fitzroy]

Armchair warrior? Raises hand!

 

[Eric The Viking]

I'd raise a flag for Roy Underhill here, too.

He's been making "The Woodwright's Shop" for UNCTV (PBS network) for over 30 years. It's all about traditional American woodworking, from the early colonists onwards, but limited to hand power (including machines such as treadle lathes, but no motors). That includes English and Continental methods, since US practice was derived from them.

He does a new series every autumn, and you can find the more recent ones on the PBS web site, and buy DVDs of the older ones from Popular Woodworking, the big US publisher.

The show doesn't just cover cabinetmaking. There are a number of regular contributors, each with their own expertise, for example Mary May the carver, Steve Latta (veneering and inlay), Peter Follansbee (colonial techniques), and Peter Ross (blacksmith). So you find out how the tools were made, too. Chris Schwartz also contributes regularly.

http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/home/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodwright's_Shop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Woodwright's_Shop_episodes

It's pretty honest about what you can and can't do with specific tools, and usually recorded in one continuous take (around 28 mins. per episode). If he cuts himself, there's blood all over the workpiece!

E.

PS: "rabbet" is American for "rebate". I think it's a term derived from French (or perhaps Norman French in our case?).

Note: UNCTV used to host episodes on their own streaming server but no longer. It's a shame, as I could get HD from there - I can't seem to get the PBS one to do so to this side of the Atlantic :-( At least it does stream consistently though - it used to be a bit hit & miss.

 

[thetyreman]

the good news is, you have already had a decent background in joinery, that definitely gives you a headstart, I am sure once you build the workbench you will be creating projects for yourself, I am about to embark on the same paul sellers style workbench myself, I'd be interested to hear how you get along and what problems and challenges you have as it might help me as well as everyone else on here wanting to build the same bench.

 

[Grawschbags]

I am about to embark on the same paul sellers style workbench myself, I'd be interested to hear how you get along and what problems and challenges you have as it might help me as well as everyone else on here wanting to build the same bench.

My experience so far is to have plenty of clamps, and plenty of glue.

I bought 8 3ft Sash Clamps from Screfix, and I think 12 would have been better to avoid sleepless nights.

I've so far used 2 bottles of the 500ml Titebond II. That was on the bench tops and aprons.

I bought PSE timber as well to take out some of the grunt work.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

.......

PS: "rabbet" is American for "rebate". I think it's a term derived from French (or perhaps Norman French in our case?).

.....

I don't think it's a co-incidence that "Rabot" is French for plane either!

A surprising number of our words for tools and craft details/methods came to us from France (with the Normans or the Huguenots or others).

Back on topic, I guess one thing the OP has which many people starting from scratch wouldn't, is a very good feel for what can/cannot be done with wood (and tools for that matter) - the nature of the material itself.

Cheers, W2S

 

[Droogs]

Hi Gregor,
A very warm welcome to the forum. I know what it's like to have to sit around for a good while and be able to do nothing that you want, had 7 months of sitting on the couch only allowed to get off to go to the loo. I'm in leith and have my workshop in Granton, basically right directly opposite Kirkcaldy as the seagull flies. Most of my work is done only with handtools. You mention you don't have a lot of experience with such and I'm more than happy, if you find yourself over in "auld reeky", to come and have a play around with the tools I hav, so you can get a feel of what they are and what you may need to get for yourself. My tools aren't high end versions but they do the job well enough and should give you an idea of what you may need.


edit for typo

 

[lurker]

. So your first problem is to figure out who's worth listening to, and who are the clueless armchair warriors that you should ignore!

Not sure if you are being patronising or are on an ego trip.
I've been on this site a long while and its rare to see anyone "passing themselves off" as something they are not.
Most folks will often state they are not expert when offering an opinion.
I've seen, with my own eyes (and hands), some beautiful work made by forum members who if anything are far too modest about their ability.
regards
a slighly better than average DIYer

 

[Eric The Viking]

Time out, you two!

Both of you are amazingly helpful here.

Don't fall out

E. (an increasingly clueless DIYer)

 

[custard]

. So your first problem is to figure out who's worth listening to, and who are the clueless armchair warriors that you should ignore!

Not sure if you are being patronising or are on an ego trip.
I've been on this site a long while and its rare to see anyone "passing themselves off" as something they are not.
Most folks will often state they are not expert when offering an opinion.
I've seen, with my own eyes (and hands), some beautiful work made by forum members who if anything are far too modest about their ability.
regards
a slighly better than average DIYer

Don't take it personal, it's just the reality of the internet, and for someone like the OP it's an issue.

The OP was a site joiner. Likely he'd run rings around me and almost anyone else on this forum when it comes to using a hand saw. Not because he's Michelangelo, but because he's probably sawn thousands and thousands of feet of timber by hand. Yet if a discussion arose about hand saws would his be the voice that got listened to? I doubt it, and that's a shame.

I learn loads on this forum from all manner of people. But some of the advice I see posted, particularly in areas like tool choices, is increasingly just fan boy nonsense.

 

[Jelly]

. So your first problem is to figure out who's worth listening to, and who are the clueless armchair warriors that you should ignore!

Not sure if you are being patronising or are on an ego trip.
I've been on this site a long while and its rare to see anyone "passing themselves off" as something they are not.
Most folks will often state they are not expert when offering an opinion.
I've seen, with my own eyes (and hands), some beautiful work made by forum members who if anything are far too modest about their ability.
regards
a slighly better than average DIYer

The difference between an amateur and a professional is not necessarily skill though, but experience, judgement, repeatability and above all SPEED.

I'm probably about average or slightly below for the skill level of average posters on this forum, I'm working (glacially slowly) on a nice Edwardian table, lots of shaping and carving... Off the back of seeing it, a friend of a friend who is just starting a furniture firm asked me to go work for him, I was flattered and said so... But the answer had to be NO, as I'm not fast enough to make it pay, nor experienced enough to make the subtle, automatic judgement calls required to achieve the repeatability that commercial work demands.

If he'd wanted custom mouldings made or machine made standard parts for joinery, I could have said yes because I spent long enough doing that in my time in the industry to be adequate (and I do mean merely adequate, compared to the experienced men I was working with and under).

Professional woodworkers are more likely to be limited in their repertoire of techniques and their tools to what works, time after time with minimum fuss, amateurs have no need to restrict themselves in this way.

Edit: Custard beat me to the punch, and more concisely to boot.

 

[AJB Temple]

Actually few people have wide ranging skills. Even experts. Some people are pretty good at specific things, reasonably competent at others and hopeless outside their sphere of true expertise. Woodwork / furniture making / cabinet making / luthery / joinery / turning / timber framing etc etc: many of us can have a decent stab at a few projects but are only really expert in one area. I have come across very few good makers (of anything) who are also visionary designers. So none of us are really riding the high horse, we are stumbling along the rocky terrain doing the best we can.

Any internet resource like this is bound to contain opinionated people. That is largely why people write stuff. Some things are helpful, some things not. Sometimes people profess expertise that they don't have and this applies to all walks of life, but the forum here is still useful.

I thought Custard's armchair warrior remark was quite funny actually, as it has a ring of truth about it. I am quite often amazed at the tool debates on here, that quickly lose me. Quite often my idea of a good tool does not go far beyond does it do what I wanted, did it break when I used it and can I maintain the thing. I know my skills are limited so what I want is tools that non-experts can use reasonably well!

Maybe we should revamp the forum tags for members. Stuff like settled in is cosy but not that useful as an armchair warrior can easily notch up lots of posts. We could take Custard's lead and have:

armchair warrior
wind up merchant
obsessed with sharpening
keeps asking the same question
cack handed wood stabber
lots of tools but no wood
knows what he is talking about
only joined to sell stuff

All voted for by the members

AJ

 

[Eric The Viking]

cack handed wood stabber

So who told on me?