What was your first woodworking experience?

[peter halle]

We are a community for all levels of experience working with tools and the materials that the tools help us manipulate.  Sure we are mainly focused on using Festool products but almost everyone of us used some other tool the first time that wasn’t a Festool.

We have newcomers  [welcome] , we have more experienced  [thanks] [thanks], but what we have in common is that there was once what I will term “The First Woodworking Experience”.  Everybody had to have one.  I would love for others to share their stories.  There are no rights or wrongs.

We have the ability to inspire, comfort, and just share a story or two.  Singles, parents, and grand parents all are in encouraged.

Please don’t make this another of my well intended threads that die on the vine.

Peter

 

[rst]

Ninth grade shop,...shows how old I am, not much mandatory shop anywhere in the US.

 

[peter halle]

My first experience was once we moved to Virginia.  My parents were from Germany and South Africa and imigrated legally to the US in the middle 1950’s.  Dad was intelligentt but mechanically worthless. Mom was Martha Stewart, a painter, and a pretty good carpenter with really crappy tools.

We didn’t have excess money with five kids and one income, but once we moved to Virginia (from Arizona) there were TREES.  Mom loved to scavenge the woods and she loved finding roots and stumps because the shapes were organic in today’s  terms.

One day she brought me an Eastern Red Cedar stumplet and a rasp and told me that she wanted me to make something.  That rasp and I spent tim together and the result was probably the worst rendition of a shark or a dolphin,  but it wasn’t,t a root anymore.

Twelve years later I lost a bet and got into construction and I have made much of my  living doing that.

I bet that others will have better stories to tell!

Peter

 

[Max Fracas]

High school circa 1968 or 1969.  A local pastor taught shop class.  I remember him saying the radial arm saw was dangerous for ripping.  Luckily never had any issues with it.  We had the RAS and a lathe.  Don’t remember any other power tools.  My first project was a small bat (more like a club) for my older brother who was a cab driver in Portland.  There had been some instances of cabbies being robbed, so I thought the club might be useful.  Happy to report he never had to try it out.  I think I turned it out of a block of mahogany.  Haven’t turned since, but hope someday to try more of it.

 

[chrisrosenb]

1969, 7th grade shop class. I have been woodworking ever since.
For our first project, we were given a hand plane & a 1 x 12 x 4ft piece of white pine.
We had to plane the end of the board square in both directions.
After the teacher verified that the end was square, you could make a project out of what was left of the board. 

 

[jjowen]

High school in the 1970s. I bought a few hand tools and made several things out of cheap pine up until I moved out of home and went to university to study IT. About four years ago I was making a small shed and borrowed a couple of tools from a mate. I got a real satisfaction from making something again. My mate was into Festool. I blame him...

 

[travisj]

I don’t recall what my first project was.  My maternal grandfather was a renaissance man of sorts he was a vocational school shop teacher in the 40’s, car salesman in the 60’s, builder/developer in the 60’s and 70’s, and a real estate agent in the 80’s.  He was adept at many things and seemed to be able to build anything and everything.  My father is the same way as far as being able to seemingly build anything.  I have seen pictures of myself holding a hammer while in a diaper with either or both of them working on one house or another.

The earliest projects I do remember are my grandfather setting me loose with an old keyhole saw and a yankee drill on a scrap he clamped in a vice.  I also remember a simple toolbox my grandfather helped me build (simple box with a dowel handle that I still have).  I remember several Pinewood Derby cars and a large trunk style chest that my dad helped me with when I was in Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts.  My dad still has the cars on a bookcase.

The first project I completed start to finish by myself was a clock in 7th grade Industrial Arts.  Would’ve been about 1988.  I remember going through all of the stages: concept drawing, full size drawing, choosing the board, transferring the pattern to the piece, rough dimensioning on the bandsaw and sanding to the lines with a spindle sander and hand sanding.  It was supposed to be a Corvette.  My dad hung it in their rec room.  It’s been over the door for the past 30 years.  That house is now mine.  Twelve year old me was proud of that piece.  42 year old me is still proud.  It’s not perfect, but in my biased opinion it’s pretty darn good for a first piece. 

I look at that clock every day.  And everyday I think I should probably put a battery in it.  Maybe someday.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Alanbach]

My parents had no mechanical aptitudes whatsoever and no desire to acquire any. To them tools were only for professionals. I watched them be so dependent on tradespeople for everything and as a little boy I watched those tradespeople like a hawk and I discovered a love for understanding how things worked and how to fix things and ultimately how to make things. Ironically I was not allowed (by my parents) to take shop classes but they did buy me woodworking books (I still have them all)! Ok, then later I turn 25, get married and we buy our first house. My wife wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the right house but she was seven months pregnant with our first child and so she said as long as I made sure that she got new countertops and backsplash in the kitchen right away that it would be fine. We bought the house and I immediately got a quote for the countertops. I’ll never forget that quote was $2,200 which was about $2,000 more than we had. I took out one of my TIME life how to books and convinced her that I could do it but I needed to buy a router, a circular saw, some plywood, Plastic laminate, contact cement, etc.

Well that was about 35 years ago and we are still buying tools and doing projects together!

 

[Peter_C]

At 7-8 years old my grandmother gave me a tool kit. With some plywood, other wood scraps, and some nails I set about work in her basement, where I managed to make myself a table and seat. For the next few years I proudly brought them out every Christmas and used them. Thankfully they are long gone...as they looked like a child made them.

Later on she proudly displayed a few painted wood carvings of mine, with the prized one being a penguin.

By the age of 13 I was a wood butcher. I mean that literally, as we used a chainsaw often in building miles of fences, by skimming the bark off the side of a tree to nail a board to it.

Fortunately I have had some excellent mentors to help me along.

 

[mrboult]

My father passed away when i was two years old, he was a highly competent hobbiest woodworker, and at 5-6 years old i discovered his small work bench and rusting hand tools in the cellar of our house. Im not exactly sure if i was making anything back then, but i would spend a lot of time down there clamping wood in the vice, sawing it and then nailing it to other bits of wood.

3-4 years later i was lucky enough to be in a school where art lessons included drawing, painting, ceramics and woodworking. I was introduced to acurate hand sawing, chiseling/drilling mortise and tennons, predrilling and planing, sanding, finishing.... Very lucky indeed. I can still hear my teacher telling me that the fastest way to remove material is drilling..

Of all the trades, i consistently find that those who identify as carpenters seem to have the most wide-ranging skill sets. I would much rather have a carpenter fix my tiled roof, sort my leaky plumbing, or re-lay my drive than i would a metal worker or a... (Insert trade not directly related to task).. I have re-wired my own flat, after an hour or two of research but met many electricians who can't even use wall plugs properly.. There seems to be something about the minds of the people who gravitate to carpentry that just enjoy making, fixing and solving all sorts of practical problems.  I'm not suggesting this is a hard rule obviously, just my observations..

 

[ctvader]

I grew up watching TOH with Tommy and Norm, playing with legos (still do - what can I say).  I always liked to put things together.  The first experience I remember 'building' something was a lamp I built sometime around 6th or 7th grade.  The bug didn't bite then because I had no confidence.  I went to a catholic school so we had no shop class where kids could learn.
I then remember building a desk when I was in college - epic fail.  But I didn't let that deter me.  Fast forward to today where i've built two sheds, a desk and bookcase for my son, two bathroom vanities, cutting boards for gifts and i'm working on a rustic console table for the wife.  I have enough work, all self induced, to last me the next 12 months.  I want my kids to remember me as a dad who could build or fix anything (I don't touch electric or plumbing). 

 

[RKA]

Mine was somewhere around the 6th grade.  After having spent years being dad's apprentice around the house doing DIY fixits, they had a rotation in industrial arts for one period.  I got to trace out a shape onto a 3/4" piece of pine, carve it up on a bandsaw, sand it out on a disc sander and viola, my first "project" was born and I was hooked!  It was a 12" tall pear.  That one has survived the years and lives on the wall in my parent's breakfast area.  I suspect not because they love it so much, but that it would create a void that would have to be filled with something else if it were removed, so it remains. 

Fast forward a few years to high school and I had a chance to squeeze a wood shop class into my schedule.  I wasn't allowed to drop my other classes to take it so I had to meet with the counselor an my parents and come to an arrangement to replace my lunch period with shop time (can't imagine any school agreeing to this these days).  My project for the year was a coffee table made of white ash with 4 small 12"x12" raised panel doors.  My shop teacher had a template for larger raised panel doors which didn't fit the proportions of smaller raised panels.  We cut them on a table saw, so he told me to practice on scrap until I got the cuts right.  I thought that would take the better part of a few classes to get it right, so I went home and used trigonometry to figure out my angles and depths.  I came back to class and showed him my calculations, he agreed it was a good starting point to make test cuts.  Off to the table saw where he showed me how to make the cuts safely.  As we made the last cut and the waste fell away we had a perfect raised panel door.  He in disbelief and asked "How did you do that again??".  I started to explain the math, he lost interest before I got 10 seconds into the explanation and grabbed my test piece.  He now had TWO templates for raised panels doors to offer his students!  That coffee table still lives in my parent's family room.  It's not a work of art, but at the time I was so proud of it as it was the largest piece of work I had ever tackled.  That love of working with wood never left me.  It remained dormant for many years until space and budget allowed me to consider making it a hobby again.

 

[Stephen B]

I am around 10 or 11 and in my father's workshed with my father and his father in law - my grandfather. My father is a carpenter, my grandfather a retired wooden boat builder. He had retired long ago following injuries suffered on the Soome, WW1.

Together, the three of us are each hand sanding three kitchen tables. After 3 or so hours I look to my grandfather hoping I am finished. He eyes it and then rubs his long weathered fingers across my table top. "Keep Going Laddy".

At eighteen I follow my mothers profession and enter teacher training. With the purchase of successive homes, my skill base increases. Upon retiring from teaching, I embark on building a whole house and then restore another for sale.

Every time I pick up a Festool Sander, particularly my ETS150, I remember that tabletop.

 

[peter halle]

These are GREAT! Keep them coming.

Peter

 

[Grev]

My dad was a Master Craftsman, who was employed as a Millwork Supervisor and Project Manager for a Commercial Construction Company in the Napa Valley.  Although I use to watch and help him with woodworking projects since I was a very young boy, the first experience I remember was in the late 60"s, helping my Dad build a Pinewood Derby Track for our Cub Scout Pack.  As a teenager, in the early 70's, I worked a few summers in my Dad's shop, primarily sanding and assembling wine racks and other items for many of the Wineries in the Napa Valley.  I never went into the trades, but have been an avid hobbyist woodworker ever since.

 

[Cochese]

I'm sure I hammered or sawed some crap project when I was a kid, but woodworking came for me when we bought our first house. The closet where the furnace had been still had a louvered door, and I bought a six panel slab and had to install it. Got a starter 18v kit for Christmas, but realized I needed a router to do the hinge mortises.

That was nine(?) years ago. I since have built my own shop from scratch, spent thousands on tools, and am now basically in charge of set design and construction for a local theatre troupe.

 

[WillAdams]

Using my father's borrowed pocket knife to try to make a pinewood derby car --- razor sharp of course, so each time I cut myself, I went to the bathroom, washed it off, and put on another Band-Aid. Finally my mother discovered me in there when I was washing off the latest cut, and trying to figure out what to do now that the box was empty.

I then passed out, and got my first trip to the emergency room.

Placed third. The Denmaster said that I did a really good job competing against everyone else's dad.

 

[ChuckM]

My dad was an auto mechanic, and so woodworking wasn't talked about or done in the family I was raised. My first woodworking experience came around the age of 13 when I designed and built a wooden push car -- out of boredom as we got nothing much to do in the summer, other than biking. Made of scrap board (some kind of soft wood), the car was composed of:

- a base (1/2" by 1-1/2' by 2-1/2' roughly)
- two cross bars on the bottom, the rear bar nailed fixed to the base, and the front steerable (one sigle center nail)
- steel bearing jammed fit into each end of the cross bars (the ends of the cross bars were sized down to fit the diameter of the bearings)
- a handle nailed to the one end of the front bar.

The only tools used were a handsaw and a hammer.

I sat on the base and steered the car as one of my brothers pushed me on the back...we took turns for the fun, of course. No electronic games (not invented) or even B&W TV (too poor) to distract us in those days.

No other woodworking projects were undertaken between that car-making experience and my taking up hobby woodworking almost 30 years later.

 

[nclemmons]

Worked on a number of small projects with my Dad growing up.  But I recall buying our first home and shopping for kitchen cabinets.  We could not afford what we liked.  I went to a lumber yard and met a retired cabinet maker.  He drew the basics of cabinet construction on a piece of scrap cardboard, loaded my car with lumber and I went home.  Found a used Sears tablesaw in the classified ads and called my Dad to mail me his router.

My wife and I built the cabinets (oak veneer ply with a sprayed lacquer finish), installed them, painted and wallpapered the kitchen in 9 weeks.  We still laugh about the long days of working and then coming home and building cabinets in our basement till after midnight.

But that project got me hooked!

neil

 

[dltflt]

My dad was a big do it yourself guy. We lived in a 200+ year old house and he was always remodeling something. I started making wooden plaques for decoupage when I 11 or 12.  I would go to the lumber yard and dig scraps out of the cutoff bin. Then cut those scraps in different shapes and route the edge then sold them to the neighbor who took them to her class and sold them. I’ve been a hobby woodworker ever since.