5 Tips to Becoming a Better ‘New’ Woodworker

written by Ben Marshall

The posture of temporary mid-build defeat. Jason proves that everyone is still prone to error - even if after years of woodworking.

rushing to failure

One thing that I have never forgotten in my years of woodworking, or even adulting for that matter, is that failure is often just around the corner on Distraction Street. The vast majority of my mistakes happen not by lack of skill, but because I was either rushing through some steps or wasn’t completely focused on the task at hand. This happens pretty much everyone in all professions - especially in the beginning of learning a new craft. In this article, I wanted to lay out some guidelines that have helped me prevent common errors before they happen.

I feel that it is my responsibility as an experienced woodworker to share my own experiences with eveyrone - especially when it comes to making mistakes, with the hopes that you can avoid some of the growing pains along your own journey. Jason also feels the same way, and continuously exhibits his errors and hang ups through his Instagram and YouTube accounts as they happen; hoping to save others from the same growing pains.

In Jason’s recent home project video, he showcased a critical error in his build - something I applauded him for as it’s not something content creator’s tend to do. I have a lot of respect for Jason, as he is constantly trying new techniques in his shop - something that we all should continue to do. I saw this mistake as a catalyst for this article. Although I know Jason makes plenty of mistakes in his builds, as we all do, showing them in videos is not always beneficial and can take away from the original intent and purpose of the video. I have no idea what caused Jason to mess up the initial castle joints and it doesn't really matter. What matters is that we’ve all been there before - slumped over our workbench, fingers pinching the bridge of our nose and burying our face in palm as we sit in disbelief over our catastrophic mishaps.

That’s not to say that these mistakes never happen to other creators, as they certainly do - however there is usually a greater goal to making a video than highlighting the woes of woodworking and it’s never seen or mentioned. Point being is that often we, the viewer, think that other woodworkers are all but impervious to mistakes and errors. This simply untrue.

Mistakes are a part of the learning (and making) process and serve as the impetus to improve new skills and develop better processes for the craft. No one is excused from making mistakes, big or small, and Jason has certainly embraced failure along his journey as a craftsman. As a hobbyist, I’m certainly not excused from it either.

school of hard knocks

I remember sitting in my workshop years ago, helplessly staring at what should have been a finished step stool for a paying customer, yet I could do nothing more to transform the lopsided and poorly constructed block of wood in front of me. I had to scrap the entire piece and start anew at cost - I was now paying the customer to make them something. This made absolutely no sense; I had made tens if not hundreds of these stools by this point and there was nothing different about my process to making them. I was shipping these custom stools within 36-48 hours of receiving an order, while still holding a full time job. I would come home from work, visit with the family for a bit, then rush downstairs to fulfill orders I received throughout the day.

My customers enjoyed a rather quick delivery time because I refined my production process; I spent months perfecting how I broke down materials, and made the final product - apart from getting industrial machinery (or outsourcing the builds) to handle more materials at once, there was very little room left for improvement. Yet despite this perfected process, I would still find myself making simple mistakes. The problem was not a question in lack of skill or processes; it was a lack of appropriate attention at the right time. In that moment, all of the right tools and materials made little difference in the error of my actions. I simply wasn’t paying attention.

The biggest point here is that no one is excused from goofing up a build, and hopefully you can use the fundamentals I’m about to discuss in your shop to prevent them from happening in the first place.

1. Practice makes perfect

Think for a moment of the first time you used a chisel, hand plane or any tool that didn’t share a link to another skill set you already possessed. There’s a period of awkwardness and a lack of fidelity as those new skills are learned and honed. Before you decide to slap together untested skills and unfamiliar tools - make sure you give yourself some practice runs first. Dimension some scrap wood to match your project, and practice over and over until the technique is second nature.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve botched a build because I got a wild hair up my ass and attempted something new or unplanned in the middle of a build. I’ve had to toss out perfectly good build components because I got carried away. Stick to what you know in the moment.

I now have a few pieces of lumber (I’m not a scrap hoarder) in my shop that are dedicated purely to testing out new ideas, techniques and tools. You might discover that perhaps that new technique might take more time to refine and you shelf it for the next build project - or it might not even turn out the way you had hoped and you just scrap it all together.

2. Batch out your work

Before you jump into that next project, try to reflect on your previous one and think of some of the tasks that took up too much time - not because of the task itself, but perhaps you were just inefficient how you used your time and not necessarily what you were doing. If you’re just jumping into woodworking, gain an understanding for the steps one usually takes on most projects and take your time going through them. I usually follow this framework when I make projects:

Designing, Material Acquisition, Dimensioning (plane, thicknessing, rip, then crosscut), Joinery, Dry Fit Assembly, Gluing, Sanding, Finishing.

Your process may look a little different than mine - and my steps aren’t a revelation, just something that works for me. Point is that you figure out what your overall project system is and just follow it through. Systems also enable you to plan your project through complete, determine tool requirements and figure out the time needs to complete the project.

For some this might seem like a no brainer - but for me I would get so excited about starting a new project that I would take one component of a build and take it through all the steps (dimensioning, ripping, cross cutting, finishing, etc), only to do the same tasks all over again with the next component. I was constantly going back and forth between the build steps - moving things around in my shop, in and out of drawers and containers. I spent a lot of time setting up and tearing down jigs that should have been left out for all components to be completed at once - not one at a time.

3. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

When I was in the military, we often trained on how to clear out a house of enemy combatants. Fighting and winning in urban combat was challenging - we had to be lethal, quick, adaptive and agile. When practicing how to clear a room in a house, we would move slowly at first - quite literally walking through, taking our time with our movements until the whole team could do it with surgical precision. Over time and through repetition, our skills increased as we ramped up our speed.

As we got faster, new obstacles were put in our simulations to test our resolve and quick thinking. This training approach was coined as ‘slow is smooth, smooth is fast’. The point was that you took your time when learning the fundamentals, as the brain and body needed time to develop new neural pathways to become more efficient; the more those neural pathways were used, the faster the more priority that region of the brain was given for processing input (and the more that region of the brain grew in size).

So, when you are first starting out with a new skill, tool or technique - take your time! Don’t do it under the stresses of a build - give your mind and hands the ability to learn in a relaxed state, and over time you will gain the confidence and ability to use that technique when it really counts. You’ll make fewer mistakes on your actual build as your experience increases.

4. Gain skills before buying tools

A few years ago I was scouring the festool owners group and found a very old post from a doctor who was quitting the woodworking scene after only a few months into it. He spent nearly $30K on mainly festool, other big machinery too - and quit because he just didn’t have the skillset to use them. In all walks of craft, people feel that tools is what makes the works of art - however it is the craftsman that pulls the art out of the material. A tool is useless without a skilled craftsman behind it.

I follow one simple rule when it comes to buying or upgrading tools - I only buy a new/better tool when my ability, knowledge and build aspiration exceeds the limitations of the current tool in my hand. I debated for months on whether I should buy a track saw. After talking with Jason for weeks on end, I bit the financial bullet and bought a TS-75 (my first festool purchase) back in 2017. Although I could achieve a nice edge on my cuts with a circular saw and jig - I had hit a limit on the amount of time it took me to break down a full sheet of plywood and the cut quality wasn’t meeting my needs. I need to get the same quality cut over and over, but in less time. I had finally hit a limitation that I wanted to exceed with my tools - it wasn’t completely about ease of use.

To this day, my track saw is one of my most favorite and widely used tools in my shop - I could not achieve the build quality I desire without it should I resort back to my older tools and methods. I don’t think I would have this same appreciation for what it gives me had I not hit a ‘wall’ with my older tools.

5. Become a master of the basics

I am enamored by the elaborate and intricate complexities of our craft - dovetails, inlays, wood bending, laminating, veneers, and more. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in what it means to be a ‘woodworker’ - as if there is some gateway or threshold we must all walk through to earn the moniker. It’s easy to believe that after our first successful butt joint that we can tackle an inlay dovetail half miter. Like all advanced skills, they are built upon the mastering of the basics.

In the video above, Jason makes such a critical error on a simple castle joint - a great demonstration that the basics of things can cause the biggest headaches in a project. Never forget the basics, and always come back to them - at least in the beginning. Master the basic skill sets required to build and you’re ability to tackle those newer techniques with greater speed and precision.

Even after taking a near two year hiatus, getting back into woodworking for me started back at the basics of building and it didn’t take me long to pick back up to where I left off.

Closing thoughts

So there you have it, some simple building blocks of being a new woodworker that will hopefully help you out along your journey. Follow these guidelines and you’ll undoubtedly avoid some of the common mistakes I had to learn along the way. If you know of someone that is hitting some walls in the workshop, share this article with them!

I appreciate the time you’ve taken to read this article! If you want to see more of my content, go check out my YouTube channel here