Posts Tagged ‘wood’

Woodworking Projects For Home Items

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

More and more individuals are turning to making household goods in their free time as a hobby. Some people make rugs or throws, others make pots and others are turning to woodwork. Wood working is a very satisfying hobby or craft. It is also therapeutic after having done your day job and when you have finished, you have something useful that you can be proud of. You could even sell it. Both men and women are turning to wood working projects for recreation.

The majority of these new weekend carpenters are not professional trades people and so they need help with a wood working project like a bench or a cabinet. This help comes most often in the guise of wood working plans. A good set of wood working plans will give a description of what to do first, an exploded diagram of the item to be made and all the necessary dimensions. These details will really help the wood working project to go smoothly.

The first thing to do, obviously, is decide what you want to make. If this is your first wood working project, do not be over bold. Do not leap right in there and pick an ornate display cabinet. The best objects to start with are a bench, a dog kennel or even a bird table. Once you have completed this job, you can progress to something more difficult with increased confidence.

So, having made up your mind on a wood working project, you should look for a set of plans for that item. You will find woodworking plans in DIY shops, hobbyists, craft shops and on the Internet. If you look online, look for a specialist in woodworking plans so that you know that they will be comprehensive in every detail

The next task is to totally familiarize yourself with the plan and the project. You will need to come to a decision which timber you want to use and how many lengths of the different sizes you will need. This information could be provided on the plan. You should order or buy in everything you need (except glass) right from the beginning. You will also require glues, nails, screws and tools. Check which tools you will need for the job and buy or borrow them. This information may be provided on the wood working project’s plans too.

When you have assembled your materials and your tools, you should ensure that the tools are in good condition. The saws and chisels should be sharp. Put a new blade in your craft knife and make sure your tape runs smoothly and that the end is not broken off. It is very irritating, once you get started, to have to stop and sort your tools out, just when you would like to use one of them.

Finally you can start. It is a fantastic feeling. Try to plan your time too. Neighbours are not going to want to listen to your power saw cutting after dark, so try to get that kind of thing done in daylight hours, you can assemble the parts quite quietly later on in the evening.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, bench woodworking plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Simple Woodworking Projects – Decking

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

Timber, or wood, is still the first preference for furniture and other home and garden projects like decking. However, there is a large assortment of types of timber to select from. The first alternative is whether you will use hardwood or softwood. Hardwood is a lot more expensive, but it will not rot so quickly as softwood.

Both hardwood and softwood are attractive or can be made to look beautiful with a suitable finish. Softwood normally takes more looking after, but can last just as long as hardwood, if it is sealed properly. If you want to paint the wood, then softwood is the better choice, because hardwood does not permit paint to soak in very well, but it will take staining, oiling and thin varnishing.

Once you have decided which type of timber you are going to use, you can think about which variety you want to use. If you are going to use hardwood, you have many alternatives, such as teak, mahogany or oak et cetera. If you choose softwood the most common timber used is pine. Whichever you eventually use, select each length of timber with care. You do not want warped, curved lengths of timber or lengths with an unwarranted number of knots in it. A good carpenter will inspect each length individually.

Then you will need something to hold the decking down. Nails or screws? Screws are almost certainly best because they will not come loose if the timber dries out. If you are using softwood, it will be alright to use stainless steel screws, but if you are using costly hardwood, then I would use brass screws.

You will almost certainly need three inch screws and they should be neatly countersunk, so that the screw’s head is just below the surface of the wood. You can then plug it or not. Yes with steel screws, not with brass screws, but it is really up to your personal inclination.

Prepare the area before you start. It is almost certainly best to use a concrete or slabbed base. This should be level and above the normal flow of rain water in your garden. If it does get wet, as when you wash it down, the water should fall through the boards and then flow away. You do not want it to stay under the decking so that mosquitoes can reproduce in it.

It is not difficult to lay a wooden deck, but it a good idea to obtain a set of decking plans to work by. They will ensure that you do not miss a stage. They will also give you good advice and tips about which materials to use and how to finish your deck so that it does not rot quickly.

Once you have laid your own decking according to the plans, you could put an advert in the local paper and hire your services out to neighbours and locals. Everybody loves the thought of lounging out on their deck or porch in the evening and once you become a regular customer at the builders’ merchant or lumber yard, you may meet the criteria for substantial discounts on materials, which will make your pricing more economical.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, wood furniture plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where you will find 14,000 wood working plans.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Schools For Woodworking

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

Wood is by far the most popular material in the world for home items such as chairs, benches, doors, windows, cabinets, tables, wardrobes and jewellery boxes. Wood is still widely used to make houses in many countries and not even only poor countries either. So it follows that woodworking is one of the most sought after skills in the world as well.

Even though there is always a high demand for items made from wood, there is always a shortage of good wood workers, carpenters and cabinet makers. This makes woodworking in any of its various guises a good trade to enter. Previously, there were shuttering carpenters, joiners, carpenters, ships’ carpenters, furniture makers, cabinet makers and wood workshop workers. These different varieties have merged to a certain degree.

So, what do you do if you want to enter the profession? Well, the traditional course was to become an apprentice to a tradesman, but that practice largely died out in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The path now is more likely to be through school and technical college, together with short term placements in industry until the ‘apprentice’ has passed his or, more and more frequently these days, her, final exams.

There is a lot of competition for jobs in the construction industry in the West at the moment, so credentials are pretty indispensable, although any foreman carpenter knows within fifteen minutes of watching someone working how skilled that person is. They can usually tell just by glancing in their tool bag in fact.

At woodworking school, besides being taught how to handle, cut and shape wood, the student will also be taught other subjects such as relevant mathematics, how to identify different timbers, woodworking tools and equipment, how to read woodworking plans and architectural drawings, how to finish wood, such as polishing and varnishing and health and safety.

At woodworking school the student is introduced to the many facets and niche trades of woodworking and it is hoped that the student will show a preference or even an aptitude for one niche over another. This permits the teacher to steer the student down the specific route relevant to that niche and find the student placements within industry relevant to the student’s particular interests.

From this point on, the woodworking class may start to be segmented so that each segment can specialize in its own particular niche. This may not happen until the second or third year of a three or four year course. At this juncture it is worth mentioning that the student should go as far as possible down the path to his or her niche as he/she can.

This is because, on a building site, it is generally recognized that the carpenter is in the most highly educated tradesman on site. It is for this reason that most general foremen are carpenters. Under the general foreman, there may be a foreman bricklayer, a foreman painter et cetera, but the foreman of these foremen is normally a carpenter.

Therefore, other skills will have to be learned too. Once the student has left school and found a job, it is worth still going to night classes or asking the boss if there is a day release scheme to continue education. If being foreman is an aim, then you will require a good command of language in order to liaise with customers, fellow workers and management.

You will need people skills too and an ability to read plans and drawings and understand the financial aspects of a job. You will also have to be able to handle rude clients and grumpy bosses and learn what you can and what you cannot do to correct late or lazy workers.

They may teach some of the theory of these subjects in woodworking school, but not as much as you will learn on site. Once you have learned the essentials of how a real site works, then you can go back to night school to learn the finer points. In woodworking, as in all professions, you never know enough so you must always keep learning.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, wine rack plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Wood Working Projects For Kids

Monday, December 19th, 2011

It is tremendously therapeutic to be occupied with a wood working project. If you are not a carpenter by trade, it is very soothing to come home from whatever you do, but particularly if you are an office worker, and create something with your hands. Woodworking projects are pleasurable and rewarding and after the project is complete, you have something that is useful or and decorative, which you can even sell if you want to. So why should we not encourage our children to take on wood working projects from an early age too?

Having said that many wood working tools are razor-sharp and dangerous, so the children would have to be supervised at least until they showed the right level of ability and regard for the tools. Furthermore, the projects would have to be carefully chosen to match their increasing level of skill.

The best idea would probably be if a grown up were to be occupied with his or her wood working project and the child or children were busy with theirs at the same time in the same room. In this way, the child could be helped with and taught about potentially hazardous machinery and tools. They could be helped and taught at the same time.

What is an appropriate age to begin? Well, many schools start teaching woodwork at about 12 years of age, but you know how grown-up your child is more than anyone. You could hold your ‘wood working classes’ on the weekend or throughout the school’s annual holidays. Children often get bored and restless in the long summer break, so a couple of simple wood working projects would keep them busy.

Wood working projects for kids should be relatively simple but also be useful, say, a bird table with a little house on it. Or a dog kennel or a stool. They could make a set of draughts (checkers), a board and a box to put the pieces in. A pencil box with a sliding top, a letter box or a herbs and spices rack.

There are loads of wood working projects that are suitable for children. Ask them what they would like to make, but it might be better to ask them to select from a list that you have prepared, otherwise they may settle on a woodworking project that is out of their range and become downhearted when you veto it.

If you yourself are not skillful at wood working, you may find it useful to look up a collection of wood working projects and select from this catalogue. You can get books of projects and I am sure that your library has some also, but there are specialist web sites that have thousands and thousands of woodworking plans for download. This is probably the best way to go about selecting suitable wood working projects for kids.

A good set of wood working plans will include an exploded diagram of the article to be made, a sequence of events explaining the flow of the work and all the measurements you will need. These wood working project plans could also give you a complexity rating and suggest which tools you will require to complete the wood working project too.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with a favourite subject, bench woodworking plans. If you are interested in Desk Woodworking Plans, please click through to our site, where we have 14,000 wood working plans.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »