Easy project suggestions for Beginner?

[Eoin Ryans]

Hi All,

I am new to woodworking and would like to know if anybody has any suggestions on items to build that would be relatively easy or a good learning for a beginner?

It would be great if these items were useful pieces such as small pieces of furniture or other useful household items. One item I have thought of is a tile surrounded by a wooden frame used in the kitchen to protect surfaces from hot pans ( I cannot think of the correct name of this at the moment!)

Any other ideas?

Thanks

[Kevin Guarnotta]

a trivet.

That is a good item to start with. I'm not sure the best thing to start with-the way I got into woodworking is through necessity. What do you need around the house? Bookcase, small table? Then again, what could your shop use? I use my shop as a sort of practice zone to practice building things, where I don't care as much about the finish quality as much as I care about learning new techniques. (By finish quality, I mean I don't care about the grade of wood or if the wood is scratched). One other suggestion - don't obsess about gettingit perfect, at least until you have been working for a while.

[Chris Kennedy]

What you are thinking of is a trivet, and they make for a good intro project. One of my first projects was to make a tile-top table.

Depending on what equipment you have:

Cutting boards
Candle holders
Bed-side tables
Adirondack chairs (these can be quite fancy or quite rudimentary -- I made rudimentary ones first and plan to make nicer ones in the future).

Cheers,

Chris

[scott spencer]

Clocks can be as simple as you want them to be. A simple shelf is always a good starter project, as are shop storage shelves. Simple boxes are good practice projects, as long as you don't go too small... I've always found doing really small projects to be difficult to handle....small and simple are two different things.

[Mark Ashmeade]

Shop projects.

A bench. An assembly table. Toolboards for the walls. Cutoff bins/carts. Tool caddies.

[Val Kosmider]

Simple foot/step stools....like Adirondack chairs, can be as simple or as ornate as you wish.

Simple coat racks.....dowel pegs, or fancier metal hooks. Something to hang your shop duds on, or maybe in the garage for that winter coat, or the mudroom, the laundry room, or even the entry hall if you dress it up a little bit.

Book ends. Spice rack. Simple bench...FWW has a nice one with a hard board and plywood sandwich top, hardwood legs and stringers--very usable (good weight) and joints can be as fancy as you wish (or rabbited and bolted if you wish to keep it simpler).

Get some rough lumber and build a stand for a grinder or a small jointer.

Simple wall shelves with brackets? Tool racks for shovels, rakes, brooms, etc. for the garage. Small boxes to hold odds and ends in the back/trunk of your car.

Drying rack for laundry room.

That should keep you going until spring.

[Jim Tabor]

A good place to start is with small table clocks. They take very little material and clock fit-ups are cheap and available about anywhere. You can build clocks with a minimum of toos and equipment, and when finished they make nice gifts. As you gain in experience you can move up to larger mantel clocks, shaker style wall clocks, and before you know it you will be working on a tall clock. It happened to me.

[Bill Bukovec]

Google "I can do that popular woodworking". They have some plans that can keep you busy.

[Paul Symchych]

I still have a simple birch stepstool from when I began practicing hand cut dovetails. About a foot high x 18" x 10" with step and sides joined by dovetails and two stretchers with through mortise and tenon joints. Cut a hand hold into the center of the top for carrying. I have since made a dozen or more for friends who wanted one.
Lots of techniques to practice on and this thing has been used and abused for 30 years by kids and people who can't quite reach something.

[Mike Heidrick]

Kreg has some pretty easy furniture ideas like a coffee table. Have a kreg jig yet?

[Bill Huber]

One of the things I first made when I started working in wood was just some pull outs for our kitchen. The lower cabinets had a shelf in them about half way back and the only way you could really use the lower cabinets was to get down on your hands and knees.

The pull outs are just a box made of plywood, some edge banding and some cheap rails from HD. It is really a life saver and my wife would not be without them now.

[Rick Potter]

A bookcase is always usefull, and it can be as basic as you want it. My first one was painted concrete blocks with nice wooden shelves. Can't get more basic than that.

Rick Potter

[Rich Engelhardt]

Shop projects.

A bench. An assembly table. Toolboards for the walls. Cutoff bins/carts. Tool caddies.
+1
Shop fixtures and jigs, as well as shop cabinets and benches are the best place to learn.

[Jim Rimmer]

In addition to the previous suggestions, which are all great, try boxes. You can try different joints on each one -butt, dovetail, mitered, mortise and tenon. You can practice mortising the hinges, different finishes, different types of wood. And if it all goes to h***, you don't have much money in it.

[Rick McQuay]

Footstools are fun, can be built with a minimum of tools and are very instructive. They can be very simple or complex as your skills increase.

[Prashun Patel]

Cutting board. First make a face grain one, then try an end grain one. They're straightforward, relatively quick, cheap to build, teach you about cutting things square and straight, and usually get oohs and ahhhs from recipients.

[Stew Hagerty]

+1
Shop fixtures and jigs, as well as shop cabinets and benches are the best place to learn.

I thought about shop projects too. The thing is that, as a newbie, you don't really know what you might need. Some basic shop cabinets are always helpful. A pegboard wall is a great thing to have. A crosscut sled is pretty standard. A bench is pretty much a necessity, but at first it doesn't have to be elaborate. In fact, I'd say wait to build a big classic style bench until you have some experience under your belt.

Not to promote one magazine over another, but something like this would make a great first workbench.
http://www.tauntonstore.com/plywood-workbench-project-plan-011208.html

Just keep it simple and let your skills be your guide. If you think you would feel confident that you could do it, then give it a try. Don't be afraid to push yourself but, on the otherhand, don't try and build a Greene & Greene sideboard right away. Subscribe to some of the woodworking magazines: Popular Woodworking, Fine Woodworking, Wood, Woodcraft, Woodsmith, Woodworkers Journal, American Woodworker. They have projects for every skill level and a lot of other good articles.

[Eoin Ryans]

Kreg has some pretty easy furniture ideas like a coffee table. Have a kreg jig yet?

Thanks to all for ideas and responses. Mike, I do not have a Kreg jig yet - are there different models of kreg jig, and what do you recommend?

[Mark Ashmeade]

Based on his other thread about tools, the OP is in the UK.

Woodworking as a hobby there is nothing like it is in the US, and his choice of magazines is basically nil. The tools & materials just aren't readily available.

[Joe A Faulkner]

+1 on a simple bookshelf.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I thought about shop projects too. The thing is that, as a newbie, you don't really know what you might need.That problem solves itself real quick.
Most "projects" call for a jig or fixture of some kind - sacrifical fence, push stick, crosscut sled, feather boards - and so on and so on.

[kevin nee]

Saw Horses are very useful and there are a million variations. I like stackable. A trestle bench, an age old standard. (simple but very rewarding) if done correctly ,solid as a rock. Good luck! Don't be afraid to burn up the sandpaper you won't regret it.

[Alan Lightstone]

Shop projects.

A bench. An assembly table. Toolboards for the walls. Cutoff bins/carts. Tool caddies.

That's what I did. And as each project got to be higher and higher quality, I moved up to full blown furniture.

One thing I did was to make sure that I used different techniques for each project, so that I could learn more and more ways to do things. I'm really glad I took that approach. Still doing it, actually, but my skill set keeps growing.

[Stew Hagerty]

That problem solves itself real quick.
Most "projects" call for a jig or fixture of some kind - sacrifical fence, push stick, crosscut sled, feather boards - and so on and so on.

Exactly. Build em as you need em