My own shop


amateur eric

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Wanting to have my own shop. Plan is to slowly buy the necessities that every shop should have. What items must I have for any projects and what should I invest in for future use?

 

Well there's a loaded question!

 

Might be better to start with what you do have..  Also, how much space you intend to have as well as available power.

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I think we'd need to know what kind of woodworking and what kind of projects you plan on doing.

 

I could say you need a jointer, table saw, planer, hollow chisel mortiser, router table, bandsaw, scrollsaw. You also need a number 4 smoothing plane, a block plane and a low angle jack plane as well as a set of bench chisels and a good workbench. However if you plan on doing mostly turning I'd say get a lathe and a bandsaw to start with. 

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Right now I'm at bare minimum. Basically none really. My father gave me his old miter saw when he got a new one. I will make due for now but that's gonna get replaced eventually. No space. Planning on moving soon so when that's made up I will be building my own small shop and fill it with the essentials. Other than the miter, I've got a drill and a few small hand tools i.e. hammer screwdrivers etc.

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Right now I'm at bare minimum. Basically none really. My father gave me his old miter saw when he got a new one. I will make due for now but that's gonna get replaced eventually. No space. Planning on moving soon so when that's made up I will be building my own small shop and fill it with the essentials. Other than the miter, I've got a drill and a few small hand tools i.e. hammer screwdrivers etc.

 

What's the first thing you want to build?

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At the extreme end of basics, you need to be able to cut wood into the size and shape of the pieces and you need to be able to join those pieces. 

 

You have the miter saw, so you can at least cut pieces to length and with a lot of care do some angled cuts.   You have a drill so you can glue pieces together with screws as reinforcement (or just screw without glue).  Depending on how basic your projects are, you may already be ready to go.  To progress from there, you probably want ways to smooth the surfaces for finishing, so sanding tools (either for hand sanding or power tools) like a basic palm sander or random orbit one).

 

After that, it really depends on what you want to build and how you want to build it...

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First things first – There are no ‘must have tools’ that ‘every shop must have’… The story goes that Brian Boggs built his first chairs with a sharpened screwdriver… It may be apocryphal, but it’s a good story nonetheless…

 

Prior to spending $$, I'd review a couple of basic sources to see what others are using for a particular workflow... I’d start with two sources – Chris Schwarz, “The Anarchist Tool Chest” – Lost Art Press – get the book and DVD… You can save a few bucks by getting the PDF” http://lostartpress.com/collections/books/products/the-anarchists-tool-chest…The second source is Start Woodworking by Fine Woodworking - http://www.startwoodworking.com/getting-started/season-one...

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==>feedback on good brands

Schwarz, The Anarchist Tool Chest (book) is brand agnostic. Chris discusses the minimum ‘must have’ tool set needed to build full-sized furniture. The companion DVD presents which brands to own and why.

 

For power tools, you'll have to give us a budget... If it's $30K, then we can help... Same for $3K... If it's $300, then we'll suggest you take-on a new hobby...

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You say you're in a shop class...... What tools do you see and use there?  That's a good start to answering your question. No matter where you start, research on the web and forums like this one will give you some ideas as to what you might need next... You see, it's always the next tool, always!  But if you haven't used one or seen how it's done, you need to ask here and your shop teacher for how it's used how to set it up and what you can expect from it's use.   One thing I can tell you for certain, is that you'll need clamps, then you'll need more clamps, and as you learn and build more, you'll need more clamps.  There is only one woodworker on this site that doesn't need more clamps, and that's the artist formally known as kiki!  The FBI, the CIA the NSA and every government alphabet gets him what he needs, when he needs it!

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Well we have industrial level tools, like the planer we have is as big as I am. The jointer we have is about 6 ft long and about 5 inched wide on the blade and at waist height. Then we have other larger than life tools haha.

With those as  your shop tools, you do know that we hobby woodworkers use the same tools, in a slightly smaller configureation, right?  So which tools in class do you use the most?  That should give you a starting point for research!

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