Woodworking is a profession, as well as many beginners adapt it as their hobby. As a hobby, woodworkers design and create useful pieces of wooden art to release stress by exercising their creative abilities. While other people become professional craftsmen and are getting paid for their skills in building the furniture and other wood items. Whether you’re an expert woodworker or an amateur in this field, you need some must-have woodwork tools.
Wooden tools for beginners should start with the basics. There are five categories of basic woodworking tools. These are tools for cutting, finishing, assembling, measuring, and other necessities.
Remember that as an amateur woodworker, you do not need to buy a whole lot of unnecessary tools. In short, some must-have wooden tools for beginners include the following;
1) SAW
Every woodworking project starts with cutting the wood in different shapes. You need a saw for cutting the wood. They come in different sizes and shapes. A brief overview is below;
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Circular Saw:
All the saws are electrical power-operated. Circular saw must be in every beginner’s toolbox. There’re many brands available in the market and all work the same. This is a tool with a round circular steel blade full of sharp teeth to cut wood. They come in different power ratings and cut clean, straight lines.
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Jigsaw:
A jigsaw is entirely different than a circular saw. This saw cuts with a back and forth or up and down motion instead of circular motion. Jigsaw is also used to cut plastic materials and metal as well as wood. It can easily be operated with one hand which lets you hold the wood with the other hand. They are best for interior straight or curved cuts in the wood.
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Miter Saw:
Miter saw is somewhat an advanced type of saw, but is an excellent tool to build your basic woodwork projects. It is a very handy tool and you can find this saw in almost every woodworking workshop. This electric saw is a multipurpose tool. They’re set at angles like 45 or 90 degrees to cut wood. Beginners will find that miter saw makes more precision cuts than any other type of saw. Any series of angles can be cut with this saw.
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Table Saw:
Table saw create cuts that are not easily attained with any other type of saw. The saw is fitted under the table with a portion of its blade slightly exposed from the work surface. Its circular blade height and angles can be adjusted easily for accurate cutting.
Nowadays, portable table saws are also available in the market and are excellent for people who have space issue in their carpentry workshops.
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Handsaw:
A handsaw is an oldest and ancient tool for woodworkers. Even in this modern age, you can find this tool almost in every woodworker shop. A handsaw is lightweight, no cords, no batteries, inexpensive, and always ready to do work. They’ve steel teeth with a wooden handle to run back and forth to cut wood.
2) PLANES
A plane is used to compress, smoothen, or reduce the thickness of wood by rubbing its blade over the wood’s surface. Planes are also cutting tools and use a fixed steel blade to shave off the wooden fibers. As with other tools, you might be confused about the many types of planes.
But as a beginner woodworker, think about buying a jack plane, that’s not much expensive and
can act as a smoothing plane and a jointer. In case you have a big budget, then you can think of buying an electric wood plane.
3) SANDER
Sander is also known as Orbital Sander or Sanding Disc. This is a wood-finishing tool. Instead of using sandpaper sheets, this fast-action handy machine does your work a lot quicker. Orbital sander uses a circular sandpaper disk, and with circular or orbital motion leaving the wooden surface smooth and mark-free. By spinning in a circular motion, they remove material at a fast pace.
4) FILES
There’s no better tool for a beginner than a hand file, also known as a metal file, and is used to give desired shape and to smoothen the wood. They normally have very fine metal teeth. The hand files are not much expensive and a high-grade hand file lasts a long time. These files are also used to sharpen your other woodworking tools such as blades and bits.
5) HAMMER
After cutting and smoothing your wooden parts, now these components need to be assembled. An effective woodwork assembly depends on two things. The accurate joints that will fit with each other and the right kind of tool to assemble these joints. There’s no universal hammer and these days there’re dozens of different types of hammers in the hardware market. Hammers are usually steel-faced, but some have a wooden face, plastic face, brass, leather, or rubber-faced. They’re also known as Millets, which are softer than steel-faced hammers.
6) POWER DRILL
You’ll be drilling many holes during your woodwork project. As a beginner, ensure to buy a power drill machine with a set of drill bits having different sizes and shapes. It can be the best tool for a beginner woodworker. Electric powered drills are not only used for drilling holes in wood but also can be used for other tools by attaching a variety of adds-on.
For buying a power drill, ensure to buy a corded model rather than cordless drills, because corded drills considerably have more power and longevity.
7) MEASURING TAPE
Every beginner woodworker should have a tape measure always attached with their belt. There’re many types of measuring tapes but you need to make sure that it is accurate and marked comprehensively. The main four kinds are;
- Retractable steel tapes – the most common measuring tool used to measure up to 30 feet lengths.
- Flexible reel tapes – for measuring lengths above 100 feet.
- Folding rules – are measuring sticks with fine accuracy.
- Yardsticks – made of steel and handy for drawing quick straight lines.
Conclusion
The wooden tools listed here are must-have and essential for beginners, which will make your woodworking experience more enjoyable and hassle-free. There’re some other tools which may be added here for professional woodworking.