Newbie starting the journey

[Luke Dupont]

I'd second the recommendation to check out Paul Seller's material in regards to hand tools.

A good place to start would be to acquire:
1. A Tenon Saw or Rip Pattern Douzuki ("Dozuki") for joinery and pretty much any short rip or cross cuts
2. A vintage (non-handyman) Stanley No. 4 (or No. 5, if you prefer something larger). Don't be afraid to clean off the rust, sharpen it, and set it up. Those are things you'll need to learn anyway.
3. A good set of starter chisels. Narex makes a quality, inexpensive set.
4. A drill. A power drill will probably be your most versatile option to start with.
5. A card scraper. This is a really useful tool which I wouldn't neglect buying for too long, even if it is a bit tricky to sharpen.

You might also find a coping saw, and a rip saw to be of use, but a bandsaw can cover those functions.

You will also want:
1. A Combination Square
2. A Marking Knife (A utility knife should work)
3. A Marking Gauge
4. Sharpening Equipment: Auto Sandpaper, Diamond Plates, Or a Combination India Stone are all great starter options. I'm an oil-stone guy, so I'd encourage you to try a Fine, or Fine/Coarse India, as they're easy to use and fast cutting. Waterstones are also a good option, but they need to be flattened every time you use them and pre-soaked before use.
You will want a strop as well. Some leather glued to a piece of wood, and some Green compound (Chromium Oxide) will do just fine. I recommend learning on a coarser stone (400-1000 grit) and relying on a strop to achieve a final level of sharpness. It's easier and more economical as a beginner. You can get finer finishing stones in the future to precede the strop if you want.

If you buy a quality western saw (Tenon or Rip), you'll need a good saw file (triangular file). Avoid Nicholson. But don't be afraid of saw sharpening - it's not difficult. You can get by with disposable big box saws, or Japanese change-able blade (kaeba) saws too, but of the two, you'll have a much more pleasant experience using the Japanese saws, as they're generally higher quality than low-end western saws.

Quick little technique tip for using hand tools: Learn to mark out stuff with knife walls and marking gauges early on. These will provide you with physical reference points to register your tools into, and will make accuracy so much easier than if you try to get by with pencil lines as I did :P

Also, one last thing:
Get a vise. A "light weight woodworking vise" from Irwin or some other company, or even the little "Portable Woodworking Vise" from harbor freight that can clamp on top of a 2" or thinner worktable. Even a small vise will handle most things perfectly well, will make your life much easier, and will only run you $20-$30.

The bandsaw would be an excellent investment in addition to this basic hand tool set. I do everything entirely by hand, including dimensioning wood, as I live in an apartment and I find hand-tools more enjoyable to use anyway, but I'd love to have a band-saw even if just for ripping large boards to width or even thickness. Ripping stock like that is the one area where power-tools really can make life easier. For everything else, hand-tools are actually more efficient than you might think, especially if you're just making a bunch of one-off items.

The above list will be your go-to tools for almost any/every project, and can do just about anything. You can buy additional, more specialized tools as you need them.

[Alex Gauthier]

Wow, thanks everyone for all the great info. You must all see a million people asking these questions so I'm doubly thankful for your patience. After reading all the above, here is what I'm now thinking:

Lower end table saw than first planned (grizzly or Jet?). I'd still like to get a 3HP saw as i think I'll really enjoy working with harder wood. I have no shortage of 240v plugs in my space so that's no worry.
Band Saw (need to start researching these now)
A selection of hand planes- spring for high quality new ones
Sharpening stuff
A couple of hand saws. (I've already used the Japanese ones a little so I know how nice they are but need to do additional research)
Small tools (marking gauges, etc- i already have various squares etc)
Adapters to fit my shop vac to the machines (upgrade to real dust collection later)
A set of good chisels and mallets
A drill Press (I already have a few different drills but nothing for precision drilling- probably wait on this a little)

I'll buy all this in the order that I need it, of course.

Projects in order I need to complete them:
1. Finish off a kayak (i can do this on saw horses with stuff I already own)

2. Build some mobile work benches (not wood working benches) for the shop. Maybe try to build them with small height adjustments so they could double as out-feed tables etc

3. Build a prototype of an art "door" that I have in mind. Basically a miniature door, distressed and "aged" with large vintage style peep hole, containing a scratched lens, some images and a flickering backlight to be mounted on a gallery wall.

4. A real woodworking bench- I like the look of the split top roubo ones I've seen but have no idea if I would benefit from something this elaborate

5. Fencing and wood cladding- i have various concrete walls and older fences on my property I want to either face with nice wood (rather than plain pressure treated stuff) or replace entirely. I hate chain link fencing and I have tons of it. I have the tools for this work already though.

6. dining room table

Anyone want to suggest a project or two that I can use to starting adding to my skill set but that won't be too costly or worry producing if I waste a bunch of wood?

[Luke Dupont]

Wow, thanks everyone for all the great info. You must all see a million people asking these questions so I'm doubly thankful for your patience. After reading all the above, here is what I'm now thinking:

Lower end table saw than first planned (grizzly or Jet?). I'd still like to get a 3HP saw as i think I'll really enjoy working with harder wood. I have no shortage of 240v plugs in my space so that's no worry.
Band Saw (need to start researching these now)
A selection of hand planes- spring for high quality new ones
Sharpening stuff
A couple of hand saws. (I've already used the Japanese ones a little so I know how nice they are but need to do additional research)
Small tools (marking gauges, etc- i already have various squares etc)
Adapters to fit my shop vac to the machines (upgrade to real dust collection later)
A set of good chisels and mallets
A drill Press (I already have a few different drills but nothing for precision drilling- probably wait on this a little)

I'll buy all this in the order that I need it, of course.

Projects in order I need to complete them:
1. Finish off a kayak (i can do this on saw horses with stuff I already own)

2. Build some mobile work benches (not wood working benches) for the shop. Maybe try to build them with small height adjustments so they could double as out-feed tables etc

3. Build a prototype of an art "door" that I have in mind. Basically a miniature door, distressed and "aged" with large vintage style peep hole, containing a scratched lens, some images and a flickering backlight to be mounted on a gallery wall.

4. A real woodworking bench- I like the look of the split top roubo ones I've seen but have no idea if I would benefit from something this elaborate

5. Fencing and wood cladding- i have various concrete walls and older fences on my property I want to either face with nice wood (rather than plain pressure treated stuff) or replace entirely. I hate chain link fencing and I have tons of it. I have the tools for this work already though.

6. dining room table

Anyone want to suggest a project or two that I can use to starting adding to my skill set but that won't be too costly or worry producing if I waste a bunch of wood?

Sounds like a good plan. Would still encourage you to give a vintage Stanley a try, but you can't go wrong with a high end plane.

Quick tip until you get a drill press:

A drill press would certainly be convenient, but for the time being, you can use a tried and true method of getting precisely squared holes at the right angle:
Mark the hole square and dead on from both faces, and drill half way from each face meeting in the middle. Any slight variance will meet in the middle and will not affect the overall angle of the hole. This will also prevent any blow-out of fibers.

You can also make a jig to register your drill against, but I haven't had as much success with this method.

I find that hand drills and bit and braces are much easier to hold perfectly square (and you can use a square registered up against them while drilling). The difficulty with electric drills is that they're usually bulky, obscure your vision, and have no square references to them that you can gauge from. Maybe there are some that are better in these regards that someone can recommend, though.

[Adam Herman]

steel city:
http://denver.craigslist.org/tls/5705955958.html

PM:
http://denver.craigslist.org/tls/5705083574.html

UNISAW:
http://denver.craigslist.org/tls/5705957786.html

lots of good table saws up in Denver for sale. 3hp would be nice, but are going to be harder to find, you can certainly make do with 2 hp. I have cut sections of hard maple bowling ally on my little ridgid ts3650 2hp saw with a sharp blade. I built an island from the bowling ally, would also be a fantastic table.

also, welcome. I am up in lafayette, seems to be a good number of us scattered around Denver/ Co Springs

[John Lankers]

Wow, thanks everyone for all the great info. You must all see a million people asking these questions so I'm doubly thankful for your patience. After reading all the above, here is what I'm now thinking:

Lower end table saw than first planned (grizzly or Jet?). I'd still like to get a 3HP saw as i think I'll really enjoy working with harder wood. I have no shortage of 240v plugs in my space so that's no worry.
Band Saw (need to start researching these now)
A selection of hand planes- spring for high quality new ones
Sharpening stuff
A couple of hand saws. (I've already used the Japanese ones a little so I know how nice they are but need to do additional research)
Small tools (marking gauges, etc- i already have various squares etc)
Adapters to fit my shop vac to the machines (upgrade to real dust collection later)
A set of good chisels and mallets
A drill Press (I already have a few different drills but nothing for precision drilling- probably wait on this a little)

I'll buy all this in the order that I need it, of course.

Projects in order I need to complete them:
1. Finish off a kayak (i can do this on saw horses with stuff I already own)

2. Build some mobile work benches (not wood working benches) for the shop. Maybe try to build them with small height adjustments so they could double as out-feed tables etc

3. Build a prototype of an art "door" that I have in mind. Basically a miniature door, distressed and "aged" with large vintage style peep hole, containing a scratched lens, some images and a flickering backlight to be mounted on a gallery wall.

4. A real woodworking bench- I like the look of the split top roubo ones I've seen but have no idea if I would benefit from something this elaborate

5. Fencing and wood cladding- i have various concrete walls and older fences on my property I want to either face with nice wood (rather than plain pressure treated stuff) or replace entirely. I hate chain link fencing and I have tons of it. I have the tools for this work already though.

6. dining room table

Anyone want to suggest a project or two that I can use to starting adding to my skill set but that won't be too costly or worry producing if I waste a bunch of wood?

You're going down the bunny hole fast
Maybe build some shop projects first like cabinets to house supplies and hand tools.

[Sean Shannon]

I'm in the same position as you are. Relatively new into the hobby and had the desire to burn some cash up on a big table saw purchase.

I bought the Laguna Fushion table saw and have been very happy with its performance and cut quality and its overall construction.

I hunted on Craigslist and found most of my equipment. I bought an older Powermatic bandsaw, delta jointer and a dust collector all for under $1200 bucks.

The deals are out there. The craigslist pro app is awesome for finding things outside of what craigslist lets you search for distance wise.

Best advice is take your time and be patient on finding tools. $3000 will buy you quite a lot if you wait.

[Alex Gauthier]

At this point I've decided to skip power tools entirely. I'll probably still pick up some items down the road but last night I picked up a Wood River smoothing plane, chisels, carcass saw and sharpening supplies for a small project I need to knock out right away. My decision partially stemmed from thinking about my kayak project that I worked on. I mostly enjoyed the process of building it and the actual use of the kayak was just a bonus. I enjoy the process of making things, be they art or something else. Here we go!

I'm in the same position as you are. Relatively new into the hobby and had the desire to burn some cash up on a big table saw purchase.

I bought the Laguna Fushion table saw and have been very happy with its performance and cut quality and its overall construction.

I hunted on Craigslist and found most of my equipment. I bought an older Powermatic bandsaw, delta jointer and a dust collector all for under $1200 bucks.

The deals are out there. The craigslist pro app is awesome for finding things outside of what craigslist lets you search for distance wise.

Best advice is take your time and be patient on finding tools. $3000 will buy you quite a lot if you wait.

[Mike Cherry]

FWIW, I started making furniture using entirely traditional methods with no power tools. I am now what many refer to as a hybrid woodworker. In the beginning budget was my main motivation for not having power tools. Now that I have a few, and the skills to do the work without power, I find that I am not as restricted in my woodworking as others might be if they had never used a hand plane or thicknessed a board with handplanes. I only have a 6" jointer, but because I know how to use a handplane thats not a limitation for me.

Your own journey in the craft will dictate what tools end up in your creative space.