BUILD FURNITURE

Without a Shop

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by CHRISTOPHER schwarz

V hen you get started in woodworking there are many paths to follow, forks in the road, dead-ends and shortcuts. It's a journey that our forebears would make with the help ofa living, breathing guide: a master, a grandfather, a shop teacher.

Sadly, the guides are fewer in number today. And so you are left with people like me to help. Like the making of meat byproducts, it's not a pretty sight. Getting your woodworking instruction from books, magazines, television and an occasional class is a slow way to learn a complex task. In fact, many woodworkers spend a long ti me (years!) simply accumulating machines and tools before they ever build a single stick of furniture. And when they do begin to build, they inevitably discover that they actually need different machines and tools to make what they really want to make.

So they buy more tools and machines.

I want you to know something important that doesn't get said much: There is another way to begin building furniture. You don't need a table saw, a workbench or even a shop. You don't need to spend $1,000 to build your first birdhouse. You can go to the home center in the morning and build something in the garage on the same day.

I'm not talking about buildingjunk, either. The difference between a nice-looking set of bookshelves and a rude assemblage of 2x4s isn't a table saw. The difference is cleverness, sound design and just a wee bit of patience.

To build nice furniture you need three things: A handful of decent tools that you won't

Our'I Can Do That' manual shows you how a few tools can go a long way.

outgrow, some help getting started and some realistic projects to build.

This story is an introduction to our "1 Can Do That" column, which we have featured on our web site and in the magazine since June 2006. The core of "I Can Do That" is a free 79-page manual you can download on our web site at popularwoodworking.com/ icandothat that will help you choose all your tools and introduce you to the skills you need to cut wood and put the pieces together. The other essential component - project plans - are something we feature in every issue of Popular Woodworking in our "1 Can Do That" column. It's on page 28 of this issue.

We call the column "I Can Do That" because we want readers to say that phrase (out loud or in their heads) when they open our magazine to that page.

Eventually, we think you'll outgrow this approach to construction as your skills improve. 1 bet you will want a table saw someday. And a drill press. And a smoothing plane. When that day comes, however, you'll also have a house full of well-proportioned, well-built projects under your belt. You will be ready for those awesome tools, and the learning curve will be mercifully shorter.

If all this sounds like something that a bunch of idealists cooked up at a corporate strategy meeting, you're wrong. Though I had some carpentry training from my father and grandfather, I started building furniture on my back porch in Lexington, Ky., with a similar set of tools. Probably the only major difference is that 1 had a circular saw instead ofa miter saw (at the time 1 didn't know those existed). 1 built a lot of stuff with my simple setup - some stuff we still have today and some stuff was long ago abandoned at the curb.

So this, dear readers, is a valid path.

My only regret in following it is that I wish that I'd had this manual (or a master woodworker) to make my journey easier.

Rules for Tools

I'm not an emotional guy. I don't get nostalgic about high school, my first car or my first dog. 1 don't much hug family members at holiday gatherings. But 1 do have the deepest respect

It doesn't take much. Inexpensive home-center tools and materials can be used to build pieces that are surprisingly sophisticated. All it takes is a little ingenuity and some decent designs.

12 ■ Popular Woodworking June 2008