Building a desk - seeking advice

[Fergal]

As for learning resources, Youtube is probably the easiest and most accessible place for woodwork tutorials. Paul Sellars videos are good and teach basic hand tool skills. There's also lots of really good info on this forum.

Beware the majority of woodwork videos on Youtube which are from the USA and feature guys with huge workshops and every power tool under the Sun. This is not at all representative of a typical UK hobby woodworker, and may send you down the path of also wanting every power tool under the Sun, which you probably don't need or have space for. I fell into that trap. Don't let it happen to you!

 

[vivavilla86]

Don't expect to get perfectly square cuts straight off the saw, they'll usually need some tidying up with a plane which gives you much finer control over the squareness.

As for materials, there's plenty of free/cheap recycled wood available if you look on Gumtree/Facebook/ebay. This is good for more rustic projects or practising on. Pallets are a last resort as the wood in them is generally very poor and not worth the effort to recover.

B&Q is also the last place to buy wood from as it is generally poor quality, although they do offer a cutting service. Find a local timber merchant who should have a much wider range of better quality wood and should be able to deliver it for a small fee. Or get a roof rack!

Good advice, thanks. Would you recommend just a standard hand planer or is worth investing in anything more?

Also thanks for the wood tip, I will definitely be on the hunt.

 

[Fergal]

You'll find there's some snobbery when it comes to hand planes (don't mention the sharpening of them either!) I'm by no means an expert but my old Stanley planes that I've either inherited or got cheaply used off ebay are fine for the sort of work I do. Once sharpened properly, they cut nicely and are a pleasure to use. I've tried expensive planes (Lie Nielsen, Veritas etc) and they are very nice, but I can't justify spending £100's on planes. I've also tried some of the cheaper brand new planes, and they were not as good as the older Stanley ones. I've never paid more than £20 for an old plane. For that price they'll need a bit of a clean up and sharpening, but as long as the sole is flat and the blade has some life in it, you'll end up with a usable tool.

For most basic woodwork all you'll need are no. 4 smoothing plane, a no. 5 jack plane and a block plane. There are lots of specialised planes for particular tasks, but nowadays most of these tasks (grooves, rebates, housings etc) would probably best be achieved with a router, unless you particularly want to do everything by hand.

 

[Stanleymonkey]

You've done well the bench - especially if you were in a hurry as well.


For my bench, I ended up just grabbing 4x 610x1220 sheets from B&Q for about a tenner each. The biggest problem I have is I can't really get any bigger materials in my car! This is highly restrictive for future projects. Delivery of larger sheets is also very expensive. Short of renting a van I feel like I'm a bit stuck in that regard. Any ideas at all?[/quote]

The plywood problem sounds familiar. I hope (unlike me) you've spotted the high prices that they charge for the small sheets. It's a rip off. best to buy the full size sheet and use the free saw cutting to get it down to size. Delivery is pricey too and you have to wait around for it. Have you considered buying a roof rack and looks of tie down straps? You'll probably get your money back and the rack doesn't have to stay permanently on the car1