Beginners woodworking

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Lee, London
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Hi,

I'm slowly getting into a little bit of woodworking and have completed a couple of projects at home (some ladder shelves and some floating shelves). I've mainly taken guidance from Youtube and here. I have built up a small array of tools and now I'd quite like to start using them regularly.

Are there other resources I can use at all? Perhaps magazines or even a beginner's course someone could recommend?

Cheers
David
 
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You can find courses around the country and that would be sensible. It is a great shame they don't have it in schools these days, I attended woodworking and metalworking classes and still have most of what I ended up making, solid oak coffee table contempory design with mortice and tennon joints, seagrass stool, planished copped dish monted on solid bar legs set into an oak base, to name a few. I think these days it must be computer classes!

Seriously, making a few items of furniture is a great way to learn but starting off with simple jointing exercises to get used to the precision required. Many modern tools make it very easy if you know how to use them so power saws, routers are great, however when hanging a door I still end up using my smoothing plane to get it just right (It must be close on 60 yrs old as my Dads before me!) . Electric ones are OK for bulk removal and not much more.
 
Thank you both. I may take out a yearly subscription on Fine Woodworking as there seems to be a slight lack of magazines available here in the UK which is disappointing. Thanks again.
 
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FWW is just a little beyond the level of a beginner, IMHO, but may well inspire you. Fine Homebuilding may be more useful. With American magazines watch out, though. The terminology is different, the materials they have available over there and use are often radically different to what we have available over here, same goes for the tools, and the range of tools available, whilst generally greater (and cheaper) over there is also somewhat different in places. The disparity isn't always in the favour of the Yanks, though, for example we often get cordless Makitas here in Europe before they appear in the USA (under different model numbers) and some manufacturers such as Mafell and Festol, for exam[ple, offer a far smaller range there than here

There certainly is a lack of British magazines once we take away Furniture & Cabinetmaking, British Woodworking, Good Woodworking, The Woodworker, Practical Woodworking, etc, etc ;)
 
Point taken re the UK magazines. I read an article the other day and perhaps formed judgment before reading any more. I'll check out the ones above.
 
Point taken re the UK magazines. I read an article the other day and perhaps formed judgment before reading any more. I'll check out the ones above.

I'm a bit late to the party here but depending on what you'd like to focus on, your local college would be a good bet. Many offer cheap or free courses to adults as a night school. Some private tutors run cheap courses for beginners also. All such courses tend to be over subscribed from what I've heard, but getting your name down would be a step forward perhaps?

You might also want to check out any local makerspaces. Not all are suitable for woodworking, but it's worth a try, especially since you're in London (theres a higher density of them around there). Google would help you with that route.
 
Thanks for the reply. I really do want to get into this a little bit more. Especially as we're only really just getting started on the house and there will be plenty of opportunities for projects etc.

My main problem I have is that I tend to rush things. This leads to mistakes and errors. I just need to slow things down a bit that's all.
 
Thanks for the reply. I really do want to get into this a little bit more. Especially as we're only really just getting started on the house and there will be plenty of opportunities for projects etc.

My main problem I have is that I tend to rush things. This leads to mistakes and errors. I just need to slow things down a bit that's all.

It's not about making errors, its about how you overcome them!

Getting a high quality set of basic tools appropriate to the intended application would be where I'd advise anyone to begin the journey.
 
A few links you may find helpful

Paul Sellers (https://paulsellers.com/) has books and he enjoys being a teacher. He has written a course course book which I think would suit. (Working Wood 1 & 2: The Artisan Course with Paul Sellers)
I'm impressed by https://www.amazon.co.uk/Woodwork-S...F8&qid=1512033642&sr=1-6&keywords=woodworking when I scanned through the book in 'The Works'.

UK Woodworking Mag's website (http://www.getwoodworking.com/) - buy a digital subscription and you can download several magazines.
 

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