7 Skills You Should Have Learned in High School Wood Shop

Woodworking is the transformation of wood into wood products as a box, a cabinet or even a house. Woodworking is the creation of project made from wood with the help of tools, tackles and your skill. There is no limit and whatever you like you can build with wood may be a box, a chair and a table for the beginners.

In ancient time wood products were of poor quality since technology and tools were not so advanced. But as time passes skill and tools for wood working are advanced and quality projects small or large are being are made.

Building a career in wood working:

If you work hard with aptitude you can gain skill and satisfaction in the wood working profession. There are many areas of woodworking where you can build valuable projects and thus you can choose your career.

To make your future bright with this woodworking you can select some challenging and rewarding projects of house framing. You can follow some wordworking books too. Of course home building is a vast project out of which we can get small projects like house framing. You can be a specialized in following sectors.

• Interior decoration needs installation of interior trim, interior doors, shelves, and fire place mantels. More interesting and challenging works are wood floors, stairs, and balcony railings.
• Cabinetry is another section of home building which is more exciting and pleasing. When you are a professional and expert in cabinetry you can make any design you like as such no two cabinet will match each other. Custom cabinet building is most gratifying. You are admired with your creation after so hard work.
• Other works like sofa set or kitchen decorations is an challenging job for you. But you may be successful after so much hard work.

We are now discussing the 7 skills that are more important while we are going to be an expert in woodworking.

1. Understand the behaviors of wood:

While you are putting a tool on the board you must know the orientation of its fiber. As trees grow beautiful grain are produced on boards with the ring layers spread with one another wood fiber.

You must think about the grain before planning the board as because when you plane the board from tail to head the hair will be standing but when you plane the board from head to tail the hairs lay down very nicely and smoothly.

It is also very important to know how much a wood expand or contracts throughout the year as humidity changes. You must take into consideration this property of wood while constructing a wooden project and ignorance of it may cause dangerous situation.

2. Use of hand plane:

There are lots of tools in woodworking but the hand plane is one of the most important tools. Proper use of hand plane requires some practice in order to adjust the plane for fine to coarse cutting. Moreover the edge of plane can be askew or the iron cap may be displaced.

Although all these need a bit research proper use of hand plane is extremely important skill. You can see a lot of projects covering hand tool use in u-tube to gather experience.

3. Sharpen saw, chisel, and planes

Most of the wood working people consider the work as hard as because they are working with dull tools. It is an axiom among the wood working people that the work should be done perfectly with the tool itself. It is not always desired that work should be done by applying push or force of the working people.

So sharpening of your tools is the basic and foundation of skill in wood working projects. It is not only an inefficiency to work with a dull tool but a dangerous. If you need to push your chisel with full body weight to cut a wood you may lose the control and the tool will stab.

4. Cutting Tenon and Mortise joints:

These are the most fundamental joints in woodworking. When we need to join a horizontal member (a chair rail) with a vertical member (a leg) we require interlocking both pieces at right angle. When you fit a tenon to a corresponding mortise (hole) you can create a 90 degree joint.

There are many ways to make these joints but the chisel design and dimension are very important. Cutting for tenon is mostly needed four straight cuts. When you learn how to lay these joints the whole wood working will be very simple to you.

5. Pre lumber with hand tools:

Most of the time hand tools are easier and comfortable to handle than an expensive auto machine. The preparation of lumber or a timber with hand tool is always preferable. You will find wood working in furniture industries by hand tools is more efficient and viable.

Ther e are many true techniques to which can give you machine perfect or by hand. The use of right tool that is fine tool for fine work and coarse tool for coarse work is very important.

6. Cut Dovetail joints

When you need to make a box dovetail joints are required to join corners of boards. The dovetail joints are creative as it is composed of one side is cut into wedge-shape tails for corresponding pins. When all sides are fitted together the wedge shape prevent to sliding down in other side. This joint was considered as standard construction till 17 th century.

It was made intentionally hidden not to show as ugly joints. In the field of arts and crafts the visible joinery is considered as aesthetic asset. Today dovetail joint is a litmus test for a serious wood worker and so you can never avoid its learning and practicing. You can learn more about dovetail joints through u-tube video.

7. Finishing your furniture

Now we are going to discuss how to give finishing to a table or a chest. For beautification and protection you need to rub it with oil as finishing. In order to achieve the finishing better use shellac 99%. So it becomes easily repairable, very forgiving, aand never have to clean with a brush. There are other quality varnishes providing good protection for both outdoor and indoor use.