Wishing2play

Thanks for the input. The wife always says I try to bite off more than I can chew most times.

Good morning all. I am new to the serious aspect of wood working. I have put furniture together, made temporary plywood walls, and put up shelves but nothing made completely by hand. Since I am not home to be able to actually work on anything, I have been watching a lot of YouTube videos and reading everything I can find. I have noticed all the great advice on this page and thought I would throw a question out there for the more experienced. In a group of these videos, they show how to make your own major tools. They used a regular circular saw with a Formica counter top and created his own saw table, which he claims cuts just as good as any $400-$500 saw table. Another tools I saw were a band saw, two different types of lathes, a router table, a jointer (made from an old planer), and even one called a pantorouter (I had never even heard of this one before). I know everyone here advices to keep a sharp eye out for the decent used tools to start, but I was wondering if it was necessary. If by following the building designs of these DIY homemade tools, couldn't you just as easily learn the finer points of woodworking while simultaneously practicing and getting the tools you will need in the future? If the tools are made by me, I would know how they operate better and the knowledge that I could fix them if need be. As a beginner and not looking into this as a full time profession and more along the lines of around the house to start with, wouldn't this be a good way to start? Would tools like this get the job done just as well as the store bought tools? Or is the quality and precision in the work that important to skip the homemade tools? Thanks for any input.

Hello everyone. I hope BDY33 doesn't mind me hijacking his thread for a newbie question of my own. I have read through this post and seen everyone's advice about buying the different tables slowly as you go and not to be afraid of the hand tools. That is an awesome idea. My question is about those bigger tables. In my search around the internet and mainly youtube, I have seen a couple places that show you how to build your own tables from scratch. You just have to buy their plans which are no more expensive than a good book. These include making your own table saw, a lathe, a jointer, a band saw, and a router table. All made from wood (in some demos nothing but scrap wood) and just as good as the mid range store bought stuff if not better because you will know how to repair it and have more pride in it. Most that I have seen seem like a major score for a beginner. You can learn the basics and increase your own tool box. My question to the more experienced is what do you think of these DIY tables and the quality of the work for a beginning hobbyist?