Woodworking: for Love or Money?

[AndyF]

I do it because I enjoy it. I've built about a third of the furniture we have, and have gotten almost everything else, except for upholstered pieces, used from second hand/antique shops and auctions.

I bought a few kits when I first started out and they really helped me get an understanding of joinery and how furniture should be built. They also enabled me to complete some good looking pieces in a reasonable amount of time without making a lot of firewood.

I have to second what a lot of others have said, unless your time has no value to you, you won't save any money especially compared to buying good quality pieces used. But it can be alot of fun, especially when the weather is cold

[jtd]

It's certainly a hobby for me. I've only built a few pieces since house remodeling (and now new construction) plus property maintainance has always taken preference. Probably in 2 to 3 years when the major house/shop/garage/barn projects are completed I can return to furniture building. Wouldn't bet on that timing right now since additional run-in sheds, fenced pastures, upland pond w/ food plots keep being added to the honey-do list. One curse of a tractor is that you can do lots more, then lots more projects are thought of and added to the list. More tractor time. [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Hank]

<font color="blue"> picture of vanity I just finished </font color>

Very nice, Mike. Making raised panel doors follow curves will definitely add hours to a project [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img] , but with a nice result when you are done.

[hazmat]

Beatiful work Mike.

You guys a creating stuff that is way beyond what I am contemplating.

Our taste is much more casual / simple. Probably very little if any raised paneling and other "extra touch" details etc.

I brought the idea up with the wife last night. It made her cry [img]/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] Bad timing on my part. Appartently she had a bad day at work and didn't want to think about / discuss life ambitions. She apologized this morning and said it was great that I was so motivated. She said I should go ahead and make the end table. I told her it was an economy of scale kind of thing. By the time I equipped the shop (even with used tools) the end table will cost in the thousands of dollars, not $200.

Off to the library for more research material.

[wingnut]

I haven't built a doggone thing yet, but my workshop has already cost me over $10 k, with the building, equipment and materials. Someday, I'll have the time to actually finsihing installing and setting up the cyclone dust collector. My first plans are all the cabinets and carts I need just for the equipment, (I've designed a whole work station plan) but I'll probably be too old to safely use the equipment by the time I finsih that.
So, by the time I build anything worth bringing into the house and using (or displaying) ... we'll be talking a piece costing (not worth) $20 or $25 grand.
In the meantime, since my wife doesn't get upset when I buy more toys for my shop ... I don't get upset when she wants to go furniture shopping.
There's no way, no matter how good I get, that I will ever compete with the factories. Just like you can't build a car cheaper than Ford, you can't build a good dining room table cheaper than Broyhill. It's called economies of scale.
So .... it's love - not money!
In the meantime, I attend (almost) every meeting of the local woodworkers club and ooh and aah over their projects. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Hank]

<font color="blue">Probably very little if any raised paneling </font color>

Regular (flat, not curved) raised panelling is easy, once you've acquired the means to raise the panels (router or shaper, or even with a table saw), and is one of the simplest ways to dress up any millwork project, such as doors, cabinets, wainscote panelling, mantels, etc.

[Hank]

<font color="blue"> Well I picked up a copy of American Woodworker at the Depot last night </font color>

The "bible" is Feirer's "Cabinetmaking and Millwork". It is a trade-school coursebook. I believe it is out of print, but you could find copies at your library or on eBay, or perhaps at Amazon.com's out-of-print books search. Written in the 50's (I think, or perhaps the 40's or 60's), most of the project pictures will appear quaint and quite out-of-date, but the techniques and methods are all there.

[idaho04]

Well, you got plenty answers already. I am also a vivid woodworker, like somebody said it is a fine hobby for rainy days when the tractor is too wet. I had a job on a side which was fun and paid a little, so I bought more WW tools than I needed. I found out that making a nice furniture is harder than it looks. You need good tools, not necessarily many of them, and good wood to make nice stuff.

Anyways, I like it and I am sticking with it.

[knucklehead]

Haz-

Another possibility would be repair/refinishing of used pieces- there's often a lot of hidden value in pieces that can be picked up reasonably. I am sitting at a 36" X 60" eight-leg oak veneer desk that was used in a local water utility plumbing shop and had formica glued to it's top. A friend got the top off with chisels, and sold it to me for $60 when he lost interest. I used a $40 porter cable random orbital sander and a good supply of discs to clean up this stinky, dingy behemoth, and gave it 3 coats of Minwax satin poly - water based for quick cleanup. The top of this thing glows with a beautiful tiger stripe flame when the light hits it. The dings and dents only add character, and I've got a couple days and the cost of the sanding discs in it, besides $60.00.

Our real pride and joy was a painted curved-front bureau that we used as kids for socks n' undies - we grew up with it, with color-coded yellow, light green, and orange paint on alternating drawers (3 kids), then it was stored for years. My Dad (a cabinetmaker) suggested my wife and I strip and refinish it together. He knew it was mahogany veneer underneath - what a happy discovery for us, when the stripper revealed the figure and color of the wood.

Another thing we have recently finished (Last Sept 9-11, while listening to the attack on the radio) is a new table and six chairs from one of those unfinished furniture places (40" x 66" plus two 15" leaves). Guess what we put on for finish? We like the natural color of wood.

Someday, when I have the space to leave tools and work laid out in a shop, I'm going to start with fresh stock and do some pieces like some of these guys have shown you here. For now, though, it is quicker, cheaper, and just as satisfying to add pieces to the house we have refinished or rebuilt. We even found a stripper to do the dirty work for us (Uh, furniture stripper [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/blush.gif[/img] ), so we start with clean pieces that only need to be touched up at the joints and lightly sanded (dip stripping raises some grain and you need to knock the "hairs" off). Refinishing and repairing furniture has been very satisfactory. It has taught me things, and allowed me to test myself to see if I really like doing this work before I invested big bucks in tools. Once you familiarize yourself with construction methods, and can spot good wood, you will have a lot of fun at yard sales, and maybe even the town dump!

As I said, Dad's a cabinetmaker, and we have access to his expertise and shop - but he does the same thing for his house! You should see the cherry drop leaf table he has, that spent a long time painted black and covered with junk in the electrical shop of a local college. It's everywhere, and the hunt is part of the fun. As I said above, you can get stuff for your house quicker and cheaper, and it's far superior to the work I could do initially. Plus you learn construction, and start to have a greater sense of what you might need for your shop. I'm sold on looking for used stuff, where we can find it.

[Hank]

<font color="blue"> Plus you learn construction, and start to have a greater sense of what you might need for your shop. </font color>

This is a very good suggestion.

Our shop also did furniture repair, and you can learn an awful lot by fooling with a well-made piece.

I learned almost entirely how to build chairs from scratch, by fixing broken ones.

A good example is finding an old rocking chair, with worn out or broken rockers (runners). Just saw out some new rockers and install, and you have a good working chair.