When I started woodworking, I was running around in circles. I made a lot of mistakes that cost me time and money. I will explain to you how to learn woodworking and what worked for me and what didn’t. Additionally, I will explain to you what to practice and how to practice it.
“The best way for a beginner to learn woodworking is by familiarizing themself through the use of visual content.”
Directory
- Best way to learn woodworking for beginners
- Best way to learn woodworking for intermediate/advanced
- What should you learn first in woodworking
- How can I practice woodworking
- How hard is it to learn woodworking
- What skills do you need for woodworking
Best way to learn woodworking for beginners
- Beginner YouTube videos
- Beginner online classes
The best way for a beginner to learn woodworking is by familiarizing themself through the use of visual content. This can be videos on YouTube or online classes.
I would recommend a free option for beginners so that they could get a better idea if it is something that they would want to learn and to know which type of woodworking that you are interested in.
You will need to determine if you want to use hand tools, power tools, or a combination of both. Additionally, you will need to determine if you want to do general woodworking, wood carving, wood burning, or other wood making options.
Once you know how you want to woodwork, then you can find an online course or YouTube channel tailored to your needs.
Best way to learn woodworking for intermediate/advanced
- Online courses
- Books
YouTube videos are still a very good resource to learn how to woodwork. However, YouTube tends to lack a little in the amount of advanced woodworking content available.
As a result, intermediate/advanced online courses and books are the best way to learn more advanced woodworking skills.
I personally enjoy Collins Complete Woodworkers Manual that teaches you everything to know about wood, building lasting structures, and using tools.
What should you learn first in woodworking
Woodworking can be a very expensive and you can waste money if you purchase things that you do not need. Moreover, woodworking can be dangerous and safety precautions much be understood and followed.
First, you should decide what type of woodworking that you want to do. There are many types of woodworking that range from carpentry and furniture making, carving, turning
- What types of tools to use
- Machine and workshop safety
- How to use basic tools
- How to make a box
- Learn how wood works
- Perfect essential skills
- Work on larger projects
- Practice advanced joinery and routing
7 steps to learning woodworking
- If you want to use hand tools, power tools, or a combination of both
- For aspiring woodworkers, the first thing you should identify is which type of woodworker you want to be and if you want to use power tools or hand tools
- In this article, I explain the pros and cons of power tools vs hand tools so that you can determine which one will be best for your needs.
- Machine and workshop safety
- I you plan on using hand tools, your biggest concern is general workshop safety. Keeping chemicals stored correctly, tools and chemicals out of reach of children and pets, operating equipment correctly, and wearing the right PPE is important to prevent accidents.
- If you plan on using power tools then you will need to learn general workshop safety and power equipment safety.
- Do not take this step lightly as this is the most important step. It can cause injury to your or someone else.
- Check out my article “Woodworking injuries: Injuries, Causes, and More!” to learn everything that you need to know about workshop safety and accident prevention.
- How to use basic tools
- You will now learn about the basic tools for cutting, sanding, drilling, planing, and clamping.
- The most important tools for woodworking are saws, drills, clamps, combination squares, and sanders.
- To learn more about these tools and other essential tools, you should check out my article “Guide to 23 most common woodworking tools”.
- Make a box
- Now since you know safety protocols you can now start woodworking.
- Making a box is essential because you learn the majority of basic woodworking skills.
- You will learn how to glue, fasten, align, and cut wood.
- Many woodworking projects are just variation of boxes. For example, cabinets, desks, tables, and bird houses.
- For a step-by-step guide on how to create a box, you should check out my article “How to create a box: woodworking”.
- Learn how wood works
- Now since you have gotten some basic woodworking experience, you can learn how wood works.
- You will need to learn how strength and other factors are affected by wood grain and how different types of wood is affected by elements that may cause discoloration, warping, and splitting.
- Learning how wood works will allow you to create durable project that will last for decades.
- To learn more on how wood works, you should check out my article “Wood movement 101”.
- Perfect essential skills
- Now since you know how wood works you can perfect your skills
- You need to perfect your:
- Cuts
- Drilling
- Gluing and clamping
- Sanding and staining
- Joinery
- This is where I messed up. I tried to create my first project as soon as possible and had to go back to the basics.
- Work on larger projects
- Now since you have perfected many of the essential skills needed, you can work on larger, more complex, projects like a dresser, bookshelf, bird house etc..
- For these projects, I like to get inspiration from online sources and ideas from woodworking books, videos, and classes.
- To learn how to create a blueprint and build your first large scale project, check out my article “Woodworking Project Planning: Inspiration, Design, Sketch-Up”.
- Practice advanced joinery and routing
- Now since you have the basics, you can make your projects look pretty
- You can try to make designs by routing and adding strength and design to your project by learning more advanced joinery.
- Check out my article “Joinery” to learn about more advanced joinery methods and how to create them.
How can I practice woodworking
- You need some where to practice
- Using power tools
- The first thing you need to practice woodworking is to have a workshop or space to practice your craft. You will need a more secluded space to use power tools, as you will likely get complaints if you start up a table saw in a townhome garage.
- To use heavy machinery, will need at least a disconnected or single family home garage. You can also use a yard if you are not too close to your neighbors.
- Using hand tools
- To practice woodworking with hand tools, you have many more options.
- Since hand tools are not excessively noisy, you can chisel and drill in a spare bedroom or on a balcony.
- However, you will not want to sand or paint indoors since you because it can be toxic to inhale fine wood chips and paint.
- Using power tools
- Buy 2-3 8 ft 2x2s and some plywood/mdf board
- You need 2-3 8ft 2x2s to perfect your essential skills. You will not get it perfect on the 1st time. Even if you do good, try 1 or 2 more times to master the skill and become better.
- Make several boxes out of the 2x2s or 2x4s and try to find different methods of those essential skills
- You will use the plywood or mdf board to do the same thing. However, the method will likely be different and there are limitations to using this. It is however important if you plan on making lower budget projects.
- Try your first real project
- Now you can take the skills you learned to build your first project.
- This can be a floating shelf, bookshelf, or organizer for example. To make your first real project, you will need to learn how to create a blueprint.
- Check out my article, “Woodworking Project Planning: Inspiration, Design, Sketch-Up” to learn how to create your first woodworking project.
- Master the advanced skills
- As you are building projects, you can now try advanced joinery and routing.
How hard is it to learn woodworking
- Learning the basics
- Learning the basics of woodworking is not difficult, but it does have a steep learning curve. The difficult part of woodworking is becoming a good woodworker and mastering the advanced skills.
- When learning the basics, you will need to learn a lot of background knowledge just to get yourself started. Once you learn about safety, tools, and how wood works, you’ve got the hardest beginner part out the way. Now you will just need to learn how to cut wood, drill, glue, clamp, and sand to make a box. Master those skills like how I explained above and that is basic woodworking.
- Learning advanced
- The difficult part is learning advanced woodworking. Routing by using a router is not too difficult but takes trial and error with practice. Joinery methods can become very difficult to learn, depending on how complex of joinery you want to learn.
- Really advanced, or what I like to call expert woodworkers, master the warping and manipulation of wood to create incredible projects.
- This takes a lot more trial and error than beginner woodworking. However, anything is possible with dedication and practice.
What skills do you need for woodworking
As you may know, woodworking involves a lot of hands on work, but there are also many other aspects of woodworking that you may not know about or thought of.
- Safety
- Tool usage
- Understand project requirements
- Drawing and math
- Wood knowledge and handling
- Cutting wood and sanding
- Staining and finishing wood
The skills that you need for woodworking are:
- Safety
- You will need know how to safely operate machinery and run your workshop
- Tool usage
- You will need to learn how to master the tools that you use, may that be hand tools or power tools
- Understand project requirements
- Woodworkers need to understand what their clients want
- This may sound easy but sometime the client may not exactly know what they want, or they may think that they know.
- You will need to know how to communicate project requirements to ensure that they are getting what they really want and don’t be afraid to offer suggestions
- Drawing and math
- With woodworking you will need to create a plan or blueprint. I always make sure that I spend adequate time in this stage because it will save me time down the road.
- In the blueprint, you will need to be very specific in how you plan to create your project. Additionally, you should do the calculations at this phase
- This phase brought me the biggest learning curve as a beginner, because I messed up on the blueprint or with my calculations, got to the end of the project, and then found out it didn’t go together
- Wood knowledge and handling
- You will need to know how wood works. Learn wood grain, wood types, hardness, and warping. You will need to know how to store wood to keep it in optimal condition and to prevent damage
- Cutting wood and sanding
- You will need to know how to cut and sand wood. This phase is not too difficult. However, I made many measurement mistakes when I first started.
- You will need take into account the blade thickness when cutting because a fraction of an inch does make a difference
- Also, learn proper sanding techniques and which sanding paper is used and when to use it.
- Staining and finishing wood
- Learn the techniques for staining wood and painting wood, because it is different.
- Learn how stain may look and react to different wood types
- Learn about oil-based and water-based paints with the use of topcoats for indoor and outdoor furniture.
- Learn how to dispose of waste
- NOTE: Unproperly disposed stained rags can cause spontaneous combustion
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed the best ways to learn woodworking for beginner and intermediate woodworks. We then discussed which steps beginner woodworkers should take, the difficulty in learning woodworking, and the skills needed in woodworking
Thank you so much for checking out my article! I hope this information has been helpful.
EverythingDiyProjects is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. We also participate in other affiliate programs which compensate us for referring traffic.