Novice in at the deep end! Advice please!

[dazhm]

Morning folks, I've joined the forum because I'm about to embark on a project which is a whole new world to me so hoping I can benefit from your experience and skill and perhaps give you a few laughs along the way!

Basically I've decided I'm going to build a Welsh Dresser for my dining room, because the only ones my wife and I have seen that we've liked are way out of our price range. I have very little experience of woodworking other than making frames for some of my paintings and I once built a shed from salvaged wood and 2 front doors! However I am very practical and hands on and believe that I can do it if I plan well and take my time.

I'm fortunate to have a lot of hand tools that have come down our family and being a perfectionist by nature, I understand the need for precision and will dedicate as much time as it takes to getting joins perfect etc.

So! My planned piece is a 3 drawer over 3 door sideboard with an open fronted display unit on top with 2 shelves. It will be mostly painted white or pastel but have natural waxed wood top and shelves possibly in Oak or Ash.

I have a number of questions but 1st off does anyone have any general advice or tips, such as what wood to use, where I can find online tutorials etc?

Hope you can help!
Cheers,
Dazhm

 

[dzj]

Perhaps you might try building a simpler project first. A bedside table with a drawer and door is a good practice piece.
Once you're happy with the results, the dresser won't be hard to build.

 

[morfa]

If you don't mind spending a bit of money and building something different first, then I can recommend the course to build a spoon rack here:

http://www.theenglishwoodworker.com/premium-videos/

Richard is a very knowledgeable woodworker and I like his instruction style. There's a big list of free videos on his site, so check them out first to make sure you like what he says.

Another couple of good sources of videos and instructions are:

Our very own GS Heydon - https://www.youtube.com/user/TheJoinersWorkbench

Paul Sellers - https://www.youtube.com/user/PaulSellersWoodwork

Roy Underhill - http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/home/

You'll need a good workbench, which makes a great first project. Paul Sellers has a great video series, follow that and you won't go wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 332C7FB168

I would also strongly recommend building a mock up of your Welsh Dresser out of pine and plywood. You'll make a load of mistakes and the final product will end up better.

I have a fairly 'standard' beginners post here you might want to read - post736527.html#p736527

 

[mseries]

Please keep us updated with your progress on your dresser. Plenty of people here will offer advice. I am particularly interested because I have a similar sounding dresser on my todo list.

 

[custard]

Morning folks, I've joined the forum because I'm about to embark on a project which is a whole new world to me so hoping I can benefit from your experience and skill and perhaps give you a few laughs along the way!

Basically I've decided I'm going to build a Welsh Dresser for my dining room, because the only ones my wife and I have seen that we've liked are way out of our price range. I have very little experience of woodworking other than making frames for some of my paintings and I once built a shed from salvaged wood and 2 front doors! However I am very practical and hands on and believe that I can do it if I plan well and take my time.

I'm fortunate to have a lot of hand tools that have come down our family and being a perfectionist by nature, I understand the need for precision and will dedicate as much time as it takes to getting joins perfect etc.

So! My planned piece is a 3 drawer over 3 door sideboard with an open fronted display unit on top with 2 shelves. It will be mostly painted white or pastel but have natural waxed wood top and shelves possibly in Oak or Ash.

I have a number of questions but 1st off does anyone have any general advice or tips, such as what wood to use, where I can find online tutorials etc?

Hope you can help!
Cheers,
Dazhm

If it's true that you're a patient perfectionist then you're off to a good start, as these are probably the two most important personal characteristics of the successful craftsman. However, you're taking on a very large project and to complete it successfully, starting from zero, will take you not weeks, not months, but at least one year and more likely two depending how much time you can devote to this hobby. Starting from scratch it will take a few months to just prepare and sharpen the tools you need! There's a guy on this forum, he's retired so he has a fair amount of free time at his disposal, and after ten months he still couldn't get his hand plane to work reasonably well!

Furthermore, you won't save any money. Not a single penny. I guarantee that by the time you've finished you will have spent more, maybe far more, than the shop bought equivalent.

If you still want to move forward I strongly support the previous advice to start with something much smaller and simpler, like a side table or bedside table, with a painted frame (use Tulipwood otherwise known as Poplar Wood) and a solid wood top. Then if you discover you don't quite have the degree of patience and perfectionism you think you have, at least you won't have sunk too much into the project.

Good luck!

 

[dazhm]

Thanks very much for your useful advice and links, I get the general consensus of it being quite a big project to begin with. My design is quite simple, all straight lines and no decoration but in terms of getting used to my tools and learning basic joinery skills there's no harm in trying out some experimental pieces first. With that in mind I think I might start with some bedside tables with a drawer and a door with a shelf in and see how they go. To match the wardobes they will have to be modern pine which begs the question; where does one buy pine furniturdmaking, will wickes or somewhere sell it?

 

[paulrockliffe]

Buy it from the same place you get any other wood. Any of the big stores will sell you bottom of the barrel rubbish pine

 

[custard]

There are some great timber yards in Sussex. English Woodlands Timber are one of my favourites,

http://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk

It's a fairly big yard but don't let that intimidate you, they're a friendly bunch and they'll be happy to sell you a board or two.

Choosing your wood in person, getting your face known at a couple of local timber yards, and avoiding the sheds and Ebay, are all good steps to take.

 

[custard]

There are some great timber yards in Sussex. English Woodlands Timber are one of my favourites,

http://www.englishwoodlandstimber.co.uk

It's a fairly big yard but don't let that intimidate you, they're a friendly bunch and they'll be happy to sell you a board or two.

Choosing your wood in person, getting your face known at a couple of local timber yards, and avoiding the sheds and Ebay, are all good steps to take.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

As per Paul - the sheds will sell you garbage - it often isn't pine anyway, it's spruce.

 

[MusicMan]

No need to be too down on spruce. Virtually all violin fronts are spruce. It worked for Stradivarius! (Admittedly that was cold-grown quarter-sawn).

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Slightly different.

 

[RossJarvis]

If a lot of it is to be painted, why not use MDF. You can generally screw and glue this together and fill the screw heads. Aesthetically it may not thrill you, but it's stable, unlike "real" wood. Then you just need real wood for the "wooden" bits. You could use cheap wood shelves from B&Q or recycled stuff.

You could do the whole job with a circular saw, drill and paint-brush, plus a straight edge to run the saw along. There are many ways to do this job, but essentially keeping things as simple as possible produces the best results.

 

[dazhm]

Cool. I'm near Eastbourne so the Yard at Cocking is a bit of a distance from me but I'll see if there are any places nearer me and pop in.

As for MDF, I understand it would make things quick an easy but I'd know myself it wasn't wood. However I could make a mock up out of MDF, maybe even use it until the 'proper' one is finished?

 

[Eric The Viking]

Cool. I'm near Eastbourne so the Yard at Cocking is a bit of a distance from me but I'll see if there are any places nearer me and pop in.

As for MDF, I understand it would make things quick an easy but I'd know myself it wasn't wood. However I could make a mock up out of MDF, maybe even use it until the 'proper' one is finished?

I know what you mean, but don't be too down on MDF:

I have a couple of modern veneering handbooks (I aspire...). Some of the work shown to illustrate techniques is just amazing, and in one of them there's a pedestal table that's simply wonderful.

The experts all choose MDF as a substrate because it's dimensionally stable and beautifully flat, yet can be made up into so many different shapes and forms.

I'm doing some big built-in wardrobes at home at the moment (or I will be, when the bloomin' room decorating is done - it's like a life sentence. But I digress...). I'm really struggling to decide if Moisture Resistant MDF (for painting) or veneered board plus real wood (for a 'natural' finish) is better. MDF will be *much* cheaper, and can be made to look really good.

Browse through past posts in the "Projects..." section. There are a lot of people doing brilliant things using MRMDF, with results that look like normal frame+panel construction, Shaker and modern/minimalist. The veneered work I mentioned looked like very good C19th and early C20th stuff. Once a board carries paint, or veneer and lipping or edge-banding, nobody can really tell, except that it stays flat and true, whereas natural boards don't (and they move too). They also kerf-cut it, to curve it, and so on. It's one of those materials where the limit is your imagination, not the material itself.

I've got large (and reasonably thick) pieces of a 1920s wardrobe I'm saving, as the ground beneath the (damaged) quartered, walnut burr veneer is mahogany. It was used because it was the most dimensionally stable wood easily available, but I have no doubt that if the original makers had MDF available, they would have used it in preference, as it's even better for the job, and much more cost-effective.

E.

PS: Caveats do apply: the dust from working it with machines is hazardous (from routers especially), but that's also troue of many real wood species (e.g. Iroko, which is both popular and quite nasty!). From a design/build perspective, avoid the el-cheapo, non-MR, bare sheet stuff (from places like B+Q) because it's 'fluffy,' meaning the finish will be hard to achieve, and it's not as dense nor consistent. And obviously, it's affected by moisture.

PPS: This is one of those Amazon "look inside" books, and it's on veneering. I don't think you'll tell me the pieces there aren't beautiful and amazing, with shapes and styles almost impossible to make in traditional ways. Fair play that they're probably not the style in which you want to work, but it shows what's possible.