Is woodworking in the UK too expensive for a hobby?

[paulrockliffe]

Desire to create is a good way of putting it, that's why I said pottering in the shed was my hobby rather than wood working. It's about the journey rather than the destination, though sometimes I have to make useful stuff to keep the boss happy.

 

[TFrench]

I've found this to be a really interesting thread from the practicalities, the economics, whether a hobby is simply to pass the time (pastime) etc.
Nobody yet has seemed to mention interest, passion, desire to create etc.
I'm not a professional maker (I occasionally sell a few pieces) but I absolutely love making things out of wood. I can positively look forward to a week without commitments so as I can muck about in my workshop. Whether that is making boxes (my thing), turning or even making jigs it doesn't matter, I just love being there - radio on, cup of coffee, apron on to try and get my head into the proper space etc.
I'm probably lucky in having such an interest so that I have something to balance the cost / finances against but as said very early on, if your interest is dependant on the cost then perhaps this isn't the thing for you.
I'm sure I'm not alone on this forum who, whilst loving a bargain and being able to use cheaper tools, also has some some expensive tools which aren't essential but are definitely desirable (sorry Jacob).
I would just try and make a few things with what tools and timber you have. They may not turn out as well as you would like (lots of mine don't) but you'll get a feel for woodworking, creating something unique and see how you go from there. If you think the hobby justifies the expense then fine, if not then at least you have tried and will know. But life is too short not to try and if it's not for you then move on.
Good luck
Glynne

Well put! To me it makes more sense than smoking - at least you're doing something productive!

 

[raywrightfive]

In my woodworking I have made
display cabinet / drinks cabinet underneath
Tables
TV cabinet
Shed
Greenhouse
DVD shelving cabinet
And at the moment tall bookcases with a coumputer desk in centre with a built in sliding tray for the better half to do her homemade jewellery in.
All have had a cost involved for supply's but the enjoyment I have had in creating all the things that I have made is priceless.
Getting a pile of wood does somtimes cost but in my shed the roof was free from pallets the frame came from some used cls that was going in a skip but I did spend on getting the tongue and grove cladding.
Cost for me does somtimes hurt the wallet but to look at it after I have made it and it is in use and I do think to myself

I made that ?

 

[Togalosh]

Well, I have spent/am spending an eye watering amount of money on renting & setting up a workshop that I hardly have time to go to.. but when I am there I bloody love it, I love looking at & using what I have made & I am constantly planning what to make next. I could have got my furniture made far cheaper by someone far more skilled than me & but then it wouldn't be "my furniture" (..an expensive ego then ?)... Hopefully my tools will hold their value.

The last lot of FREE timber I collected was 3 x big Beech desk tops (now part of my new work bench) and 6 of 4m x 500mm x 25mm Iroko bench tops (2 without any tap holes or sink cut-outs) then I can fill my van with very big pieces of scrap oak until it can bearly drive & all for £80 from a saw mill... but it takes too much work to dimension.

The amount of enjoyment I get from woodwork is priceless... if only I could build a workshop in my garden..ho hum.

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

It is very very expensive if you go to the large sheds or don't have time to look around as most of the ''timber yards'' around just sell low quality fencing stuff. If you want it in custom sizes = game over buddy!

If you can travel a bit further and search for good places than it isn't that expensive. Or.. If you can spend minimum of 500 at one time and have a place where to store loads of timber there are few online companies where you can order the timber for very very very good prices delivered to your doorstep.

 

[wills-mill]

Those 8 sections (if they were 2x2 at 2ft long) work out to 0.44 of a cubic ft. Most small mills would have a UK hardwood for you at between £20 to £40 per cubic ft, so between £8.80 and £13.20 for rough materials would be a baseline to work from. Unsurprisingly, any machining done for you has a skilled labour and equipment cost similar to any job of work in any walk of life.

Freebies locally and skip diving are always great, but we all fall into the trap of burning £20 in fuel and 4 hours of our life carrying out a mission, just to save spending a few quid. It's all part of life 8)

 

[Ttrees]

The OP is in London
Shouldn't be too hard to find hotels being renovated or bars ...
Or places where housing is being renovated.
The only piece of wood I've bought was African blackwood which was a crude ornament in a charity shop.
I've got loads of hardwood timber now, iroko, meranti, afrormosia and small amounts of some ash, beech,oak
Maybe mahogany in there too
Once you have a nice jack plane everything transforms into lovely lumber in a few swipes
here is a basic kit of prepping tools
Have fun !

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

The OP is in London
Shouldn't be too hard to find hotels being renovated or bars ...
Or places where housing is being renovated.
The only piece of wood I've bought was African blackwood which was a crude ornament in a charity shop.
I've got loads of hardwood timber now, iroko, meranti, afrormosia and small amounts of some ash, beech,oak
Maybe mahogany in there too
Once you have a nice jack plane everything transforms into lovely lumber in a few swipes
here is a basic kit of prepping tools
Have fun !

yeah but is there any real thing you can make from all that stuff you got?
Some nick-nacks sure,but a real useful thing? Like a window, a bed, table, wardrobe for example?

sometimes its far cheaper just to spend some money and buy the stuff you actually need instead of trying to size up/plan/sand some piece of timber which just isn't fit for the job.
In hobby level and if you don't want to spend anything and value your time at less than 1pound/hour than sure I guess.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

Work (in my case) was characterised by thoughts such as efficiency, fit for purpose, cash flow, investment choices, profitability etc etc.

It took some while for me to realise that a hobby involves almost none of these. It is about deriving satisfaction from an activity through developing knowledge, hand skills, design, ingenuity etc. For most on this forum it is mostly woodwork - for others painting, music, photography, voluntary work etc ticks other boxes in pursuit of fulfilment. Money is not an issue save for the ability to buy necessary tools and materials.

Depending on what you want to make woodwork can be an expensive hobby - several £000 pa for high quality large capacity machines, workshop space and materials. A fairly modest set up making smaller items with limited power equipment and more hand tools work may cost £500-1500 to set up and perhaps £100-500 pa for consumables and wood (more if you are in the shed every day).

If your passion is golf , a fairly unremarkable golf club subscription may cost (close to where I live in the South West) about £900 pa membership, premier league season ticket typically between £600 - 1200. At this level woodwork is fairly affordable.

Comparing the cost of your own efforts even with a low hourly rate will almost never be competitive with shop bought who buy in massive volumes and have machiney and jigs designed to optimise production efficiency.

 

[Ttrees]

I can make anything I want
I don't make nic-nacks though.
Most people think I'm collecting firewood :roll:
I will be making a Cosman/Klausz/Scandinavian style workbench with my own twist, from select quartersawn material I have.
Then I will be making a nice cabinet for all my hand tools ...not sure on the design yet.
And after that ....I don't know
I have good machines that can process this stuff
Things should start moving a bit faster in the next few months...unless I find another rusty machine to work on
I seem to be allergic to most of my timbers though ...iroko and the rest of the woods from the Ivory coast and Gambia seem to give me an allergy.
After I have all the machines I need ...and running out of wood I will move on to acoustic guitars
I will be processing all this timber in the coming weeks into square stock
Its nearly all surfaced on 2 sides for running through machines
Have to get suited up to work on it properly.
Tom

 

[twodoctors]

My 2p.

I'm fairly new to the hobby as well (3 months), and as some of you have said already, it can be as cheap or as expensive as you want. I have gone down the "cheap" route and bought secondhand machinery. £40 80mm bandsaw, £60 305mm disc sander, £30 Pillar drill, £100 planer/thicknesser, £90 1/2" router and table, £40 scroll saw. The 10L ShopVac was new, as is my B&D Workmate. I already have a cheap table saw, and with all that I can (in theory) make anything I want. Buying everything new, same specs would have cost me around £1k. Selling everything I have bought so far I probably get (most of) my money back. There's an of adage, "buy cheap buy twice" and it's true. I can use a bigger (not necessary better) bandsaw now that I've inadvertently got into bandsaw box making!

Wood-wise I have mostly been buying off cuts, which were fine for small bandsaw boxes, door signs for the kids, scroll saw projects like puzzles etc. I have "invested" in some walnut, beech and sycamore boards recently, and now that I have a planer/thicknesser, the world is my oyster (so to speak). The latest box I have made (will post later tonight) are some round box about 100mm diameter, made from partially spalted ash. The wood blocks cost about £3 each, plus other minor cost (but minus the joy of making them and satisfaction of people appreciating them), so definitely cheaper than what it would have cost in a shop. Not sure how it would cost the OP so much for the pine. Sounds like you've been ripped off. A railroad sleeper would have cost £10 at Morrisons (last week), and you can probably get 8 (or more) pieces of what you need from that (if you have the right tools).

Incidentally B&Q sells beech round blocks for about a tenner. They are targeting wood turner with those (wish them luck!) but you could have just apply a finish on that and call it a chopping block! Or get some off-cuts from various places, and glue them up and make a chessboard-like chopping board. Will probably look better than a pine one, and (cost wise) cheaper too!

Good woodworking!

Adrian

 

[transatlantic]

Incidentally B&Q sells beech round blocks for about a tenner. They are targeting wood turner with those (wish them luck!)Adrian

I very much doubt that

 

[JWD]

Personal experiences:

I'm currently a 20 yo student living on very much a student budget. I've never had any help with buying tools, only the good grace of my parents to let me take over the garage as a workshop.
I've always seen woodworking as a 'save up then buy and repeat' hobby, very rarely have i seen people who have every single tool you need, probably because half the fun is in finding new and used machines and hand tools to further build up your inventory!

Patience is a huge factor in woodworking for so many reasons - in a buying sense it's waiting for the right thing on eBay or the for sale forum, possibly for years, but if you love your hobby you'll find a way to make anything with nothing.

 

[DennisCA]

This might seem a silly question to some of you, but i'm just looking at getting into it and the cost of timber is shocking to me. I used to be a multi-trader and got a liking for the small scale carpentry that it threw up. Between that and watching some of the Americans on Youtube creating some impressive things out of cheap materials i decided to give it a go and picked up the "Wood Work" book by DK. Looking at the very simplest project of building a chopping board it asks for 8 pine boards of 600 x 35 x 45. A look on Homebase only shows generic softwood - which is apparently not suitable - and further digging gave me some prices from specialist sites at about £48. For a chopping block home project that's expensive, and it makes me very dubious about the cost of some of the bigger projects.

It's one of the main expenses. I do what I can do keep costs down, I salvage other peoples junk, I reuse old furniture and material. I use cheap softwood where I can.

BTW pine actually makes for a fine end grain cutting board, here's one I inherited from my grandmother, I sanded and refinished it:

 

[Tetsuaiga]

No of course not, you just have to approach it differently. Buy second hand tools, work with handtools rather than machinery, don't get timber from homebase or b&q the prices are crazy there.

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

My 2p.

I'm fairly new to the hobby as well (3 months), and as some of you have said already, it can be as cheap or as expensive as you want. I have gone down the "cheap" route and bought secondhand machinery. £40 80mm bandsaw, £60 305mm disc sander, £30 Pillar drill, £100 planer/thicknesser, £90 1/2" router and table, £40 scroll saw. The 10L ShopVac was new, as is my B&D Workmate. I already have a cheap table saw, and with all that I can (in theory) make anything I want. Buying everything new, same specs would have cost me around £1k. Selling everything I have bought so far I probably get (most of) my money back. There's an of adage, "buy cheap buy twice" and it's true. I can use a bigger (not necessary better) bandsaw now that I've inadvertently got into bandsaw box making!

Wood-wise I have mostly been buying off cuts, which were fine for small bandsaw boxes, door signs for the kids, scroll saw projects like puzzles etc. I have "invested" in some walnut, beech and sycamore boards recently, and now that I have a planer/thicknesser, the world is my oyster (so to speak). The latest box I have made (will post later tonight) are some round box about 100mm diameter, made from partially spalted ash. The wood blocks cost about £3 each, plus other minor cost (but minus the joy of making them and satisfaction of people appreciating them), so definitely cheaper than what it would have cost in a shop. Not sure how it would cost the OP so much for the pine. Sounds like you've been ripped off. A railroad sleeper would have cost £10 at Morrisons (last week), and you can probably get 8 (or more) pieces of what you need from that (if you have the right tools).

Incidentally B&Q sells beech round blocks for about a tenner. They are targeting wood turner with those (wish them luck!) but you could have just apply a finish on that and call it a chopping block! Or get some off-cuts from various places, and glue them up and make a chessboard-like chopping board. Will probably look better than a pine one, and (cost wise) cheaper too!

Good woodworking!

Adrian

100% this, When I started I did a good research on all the tools, and bought good quality 2nd hand tools , a year later when I got a bit better at woodworking and had made some money from it I sold all my used powertools and now bought all brand new and every tool was a considerable upgrade in quality and I knew what stuff exactly I want to buy now , It's amazing what people will pay for good brand 2nd hand tools on ebay if you make good pictures But than again you can score very good deals if you do your research and wait around for a bit and hunt for listings with bad pictures/descriptions..
I sold my used powertools and bought all brand new upgraded models and paid only about 17-18% extra to do it

that would be my best advice- do your research and buy quality 2nd hand stuff, than when you get more experience and know what you want from your tools,make good pictures and sell them for good price and just buy the stuff you actually need brand new with years of warranty as well.
Good tools hold their value for years and are enjoyable to use, however if you buy cheap low quality tools- you will be always miserable and frustrated when using them and won't really be able to sell them for anything.

 

[Togalosh]

The OP is in London
Shouldn't be too hard to find hotels being renovated or bars ...
Or places where housing is being renovated.
The only piece of wood I've bought was African blackwood which was a crude ornament in a charity shop.
I've got loads of hardwood timber now, iroko, meranti, afrormosia and small amounts of some ash, beech,oak
Maybe mahogany in there too
Once you have a nice jack plane everything transforms into lovely lumber in a few swipes
here is a basic kit of prepping tools
Have fun !

yeah but is there any real thing you can make from all that stuff you got?
Some nick-nacks sure,but a real useful thing? Like a window, a bed, table, wardrobe for example?

I helped clear out an entire restaurant in Soho a few months ago - literally every last item had to go (I was there to strip out the kitchen appliances). The dining tables were 10 very well made benches made up of thick oak floor boards with lovely 50mm bullnose oak lipping, all about 10m x 600mm, nicely jointed & easy to part into +- 3m lengths with a nice patina & not at all grubby with chuncky steel pillar bases..anyway it ALL went oop north & burnt !.. With little effort they would have made nice tables, shelves, wardrobes/cupboards/cabinets (not the doors though).

There is a massive amount of good, usefull stuff going to waste during catering/hospitality & school/college refurbs..

 

[twodoctors]

The OP is in London
Shouldn't be too hard to find hotels being renovated or bars ...
Or places where housing is being renovated.
The only piece of wood I've bought was African blackwood which was a crude ornament in a charity shop.
I've got loads of hardwood timber now, iroko, meranti, afrormosia and small amounts of some ash, beech,oak
Maybe mahogany in there too
Once you have a nice jack plane everything transforms into lovely lumber in a few swipes
here is a basic kit of prepping tools
Have fun !

yeah but is there any real thing you can make from all that stuff you got?
Some nick-nacks sure,but a real useful thing? Like a window, a bed, table, wardrobe for example?

I helped clear out an entire restaurant in Soho a few months ago - literally every last item had to go (I was there to strip out the kitchen appliances). The dining tables were 10 very well made benches made up of thick oak floor boards with lovely 50mm bullnose oak lipping, all about 10m x 600mm, nicely jointed & easy to part into +- 3m lengths with a nice patina & not at all grubby with chuncky steel pillar bases..anyway it ALL went oop north & burnt !.. With little effort they would have made nice tables, shelves, wardrobes/cupboards/cabinets (not the doors though).

There is a massive amount of good, usefull stuff going to waste during catering/hospitality & school/college refurbs..

In which case I think most of us would have to add "white van" to our "arsenal"! And I only drive a VW Up! :-D

Adrian

 

[Ttrees]

I carried a lot of my timber back to the flat when I lived in town ...
Some of it you wouldn't fit into a van
Wouldn't do it now too handy though ...

 

[Keith 66]

Think outside the box, It is difficult to get timber from demolition contractors, they havent got the time to deal with members of public who havent done the required H&S training, Its worth asking joinery shops on industrial estates, Also house clearance places some of which are charity run, much prewar furniture is unsaleable as its out of fashion but it can be a good source of mahogany pine & oak.
In my case i was a boatbuilder & still do it as a hobby. I also build guitars & i never need to buy timber for them.