5 Must-Have Woodworking Tools For Beginners DIY | Woodworking Quick Tips

let's go on everybody I'm Johnny Brook welcome back to the crafting workshop video today we have another kind of tips and tricks video this video is really gonna serve to answer a question I get a ton and that is what tools I should get when I'm getting started with woodworking so I'm gonna cover just power tools in this video I'm gonna do a separate video on hand tools and and other tools like that probably do another video on stationary tools and kind of where you should go from this basic set but this one's just gonna stick to some basic power tools so first let's go ahead and kick it right off first I've got a circular saw and this is a cordless circular saw I'm a big fan of cordless tools you might notice I have all the branding kind of taped off here this video is meant to be kind of brand agnostic so you can pick your own brand do your own research I think most of the time that's just going to end up being what your budget is and what brand fits into your budget so just do your research there and pick a brand that works for you but anyway this is a cordless circular saw which I'm a huge fan of cordless tools battery technology it has come a long long way in the past five to ten years and honestly they are incredible if I were just starting out I would highly recommend just picking up a combo set with something like a circular saw jigsaw drill impact driver that kind of thing and those usually come with a couple batteries and a charger so that way while you're working with one tool you can have another battery charging so when this one drains out you just swap them out and keep working cordless tools are just super convenient not having to drag around a power cord and the power is really pretty comparable with corded tools these days so I would definitely recommend a cordless circular saw it's one of the more versatile tools in the shop it's great for ripping sheet goods ripping just you know standard lumber as well also cross cutting you can even cut circles with circular saws if you have the right jig for it so a very very versatile tool and is very mobile and you can kind of bring the tool to the workpiece rather than having to drag it up onto something like a table saw or something like that so a couple features you're going to want to look for in a circular saw and most of them are gonna have these is being able to set the depth for your blade that way you can do things like half lap joint and dedos you're also going to want to be able to set a bevel angle so that way you can cut angled edges maybe you're making a tabletop and want to lighten up the look at the top you can kind of on the underside those are some really basic features some accessories you might consider with a circular saw are gonna be a straight line cutting jig whether you buy that or make it they're pretty simple to make I have a video on making one that I'll link in the cards and in the video description very simple to make but you could also just buy one if you don't feel like making one and that's gonna allow you to cut things like sheet goods a very accurately very straight nice and square and and that's gonna make your life a lot easier when it comes to assembly also I would recommend picking up a blade that is specifically meant for the type of material you're gonna be cutting so you'll see here I have kind of a higher tooth count kind of general purpose blade this works really well for everything from sheet goods to solid lumber if you're gonna be working with a ton of sheet goods or laminate and stuff like that you're gonna want to look for a specific blade for that that's gonna help reduce tear out and things like that especially versus the stock blade that's gonna come on a lot of circular saws that's gonna be like a construction oriented blade and it's gonna just tear out the veneer on your plywood or your laminate that kind of thing very very easily and it's gonna look really bad so a good blade makes a huge difference in a circular saw so besides that I mean circular saws are pretty basic I definitely recommend checking out the use market in your area whether that's Craigslist or Ebay even goodwill sometimes has power tools and you can get these things for really really cheap let's go and move on to number two here and we have a drill which should come as no surprise a drill is one of the most useful tools in woodworking allows you to drill holes but it also allows you to do quite a bit of joinery whether that's just basic but joints that are connected with screws or pocket holes or dowel joinery there's really a lot of options there and drilling holes is just going to be one of the tasks that you're gonna do on every project and it's very good idea to get a good solid drill if you're gonna go cordless on your circular saw I definitely recommend getting a cordless drill it's on the same battery platform again that way you can swap the batteries back and forth a few things to consider with a drill if you have a shop with concrete walls like I do I would definitely recommend just go ahead and getting a hammer drill and that means it has a mode that is meant for drilling into masonry it actually kind of hammers it while it drills and allows you to drill in to concrete a lot more easily and so if you have a shop with concrete walls you're inevitably gonna want to hang something from those walls and being able to drill holes in the walls to put fasteners it's gonna make your life a lot easier if you don't have concrete walls you don't plan on working with concrete you can probably skip the hammer drill some other nice features are going to be a variable speed that way if you're drilling into different types of materials you can adjust the speed kind of to match you want a drill with a good clutch you can set the clutch when you're driving screws so that way you don't strip them out and a good battery you know you're gonna be using the drill in and out especially on a project where you're drilling a bunch of holes you're gonna burn through batteries pretty quick so nice big capacity battery is gonna be great on a drill a couple accessories for a drill that I'd recommend is something like the thing I have pictured here this is a countersink bit this is a pretty fancy one from Amana but there are certainly much cheaper options I like this one because you can set the depth so that way you get really clean consistent looking countersunk holes that really makes your piece look a lot nicer but it also helps to reduce splitting especially in hardwoods with that countersunk hole the screw can be flush with the surface without kind of cracking the wood when you're trying to drive it in so a countersink bit is one accessory I definitely recommend another one would be some sort of jig for joinery so that could be a dowel jig like I have here this is a Rockler doweling jig these things are only like 30 bucks they come with a drill bit with a depth stop so you can do all kinds of dowel joinery that way a in expensive pocket hole jig would be another great option just something that's gonna allow you to create stronger joints still with only a drill that's going to be a really good investment early on it's gonna allow you to build projects they're a lot cleaner looking with no exposed screws and they're gonna last a lot longer so in addition to a drill if you're buying a set like I was talking about earlier a cordless set a lot of times are going to come with an impact driver and I find the impact driver to be one of the most useful tools especially when it's used in tandem with a drill because you can drill the holes with the drill and then drive your fasteners with the impact driver and impact drivers are amazing if you've never used one I highly encourage you to check one out they're super super powerful a lot of them have variable speed settings so that you can kind of dial it in like say you're working with some fragile screws like brass screws or something like that really help keep it from stripping out and it's just really nice not to have to change out bits between drilling holes and driving screws so I think these two in tandem I would highly highly recommend and most of the time if you're gonna be buying a cordless set they're gonna come with both alright before we get to tool number three on the list let's take a quick second to talk about the sponsor of this week's video that's arrow faster you might notice arrow is not actually featured in this list and that's because they make a different category of tools that's fastening tool so they make air-powered Brad nailers and pin nailers that are great for kind of general woodworking use that make staplers both manual and electric stapler they make riveters which are great for all kinds of different tasks and they make awesome hot glue guns so if you need any fastening tools for your upcoming projects definitely check out Aero fastener thanks again to Aero fastener for supporting my content and supporting my videos and if you guys want to learn more about them check out the link in the video description below alright let's get back to the list so next on the list is the jigsaw so I think of the jigsaw almost like a handheld bandsaw it's gonna allow you to cut curves cut non straight lines very very easily and is just a very versatile tool you can get into some tighter spots than a circular saw can just because it's a lot less wide the footprint is a lot smaller and you can also change out the blades to cut a bunch of different material so on here now is just a standard wood cutting blade but I've got blades for all kinds of different materials this one is for a thin kind of sheet metal I am honestly not a huge fan of this particular jigsaw I have a hard time getting this base to stay square so I would definitely check out the base when you are buying the jigsaw and make sure it's nice and rock solid when you lock it in a couple of other features a lot of jigsaw will have different oscillating modes which will help you get through material a little bit faster but it's usually gonna result in a bit of a rougher cut so that's a mode I don't really use very much honestly there's another mode where it will actually actively blow the dust out of the way while you're cutting so when you're using a jigsaw a lot of times the dust is going to build up right where you're cutting and it's gonna make it hard to see the line so that's a really nice feature some jig saws have in the base an area where you can insert some sort of splinter guard so again if you're cutting something like plywood or laminate or melamine something with a thin veneer on the top that will help to reduce chip out and splintering and that kind of thing so that's another really great feature to have as well got the key accessories where the jigsaw really are just going to be the blade I don't think there's a ton of other jigsaw accessories that I'd recommend just get a good quality blade that works for the materials that you're planning on cutting number four on the list is the random orbit sander and this is a tool where you're going to be spending a lot of time with if you're a woodworker so I wouldn't recommend investing in a good one one that's probably at the top end of what you can afford honestly this is a really nice model it's got a six inch pad it's much lower vibration than the kind of bare-bones kind of budget Sanders that you're gonna get and it also has an auto on switch so if you're standing for a long time you can kind of set the trigger and you know keep sanding without having to hold a button down which is a really nice feature I personally really dig this kind of trigger grip really makes sanding big large panels a lot easier because you can kind of get a really good reach across the panel really the biggest thing with Sanders is going to be vibration so if you can try one out try a couple out and see which one's kind of vibrate your hands the least that would be the one I'd recommend going with because after sanding for hours on in your hands you're gonna be pretty beat up another really nice option is to have a variable speed control depending on how soft or hard the wood you're standing is you can vary the speed and that's gonna allow you not to kind of dig in as quickly especially things like pine it's very easy to sand away too much material if you're running it too high of a speed so that's another really nice feature a sander with a good either dust bag like this one or that will hook up to a shop vac or dust extractor is another big big plus because sanding is going to generate tons of fine dust that's going to be really bad for you to breathe and it's also going to get kind of embedded in the grain of your project and unless you blow it out and are really kind of thorough about wiping down your project after sanding that can make the grain look a little muddy or just leave you with not as nice of a finish as far as accessories for a sander I would just recommend getting a variety of sanding pads I would go ahead and buy a bunch you really don't want to use these things until they're absolutely dead because you're honestly just going to waste your time once once it's stopped feeling as rough and is looking kind of gummed up on the surface of the pad it's time to change it because otherwise it's gonna take you twice as long the sand and that's just gonna be a waste of your time and sandy pads are fairly cheap so there's really not a huge reason to use them to death so in my sanding routine I never go below 80 for the most part I kind of started 80 if the surface is really rough if it's you know plywood or something like that I'll usually start at 120 then I'll go up to 180 and usually stop there honestly I mean you can go up to 220 if you'd like but I stopped at 180 on almost all my builds and the projects end up really nice and smooth you also might want to get a higher grit like 320 or 400 grit for sanding in between coats of finish random orbit sander especially on a big tabletop or something like that will make sanding between coats a lot quicker so random orbit sander is a tool I would definitely recommend spending a little more money on because you're gonna be using it a ton and the final tool on my list of basic tools for woodworkers is going to be the router I think the router is one of the more versatile tools you can have you can do everything from adding edge profiles to routing dedos and rabbets to cutting mortises template routing I mean the list goes on and on I don't need to list all of them here but our good router is gonna be a tool that you're going to use a ton especially before you get a table saw a router is gonna be pretty much the only way that you can cut dados and rabbets effectively I definitely recommend a good router especially one with good dust collection routers are one of the worst generators of dust in the shop they're an absolute mess and so if you can find one with at least a dust port of some kind that's coming a lot better than one without one so these are two models here this is a full size plunge router I would definitely recommend starting with a plunge router they're a lot more versatile than a fixed base router especially for creating joinery like mortise and Tenon's and that kind of thing basically plunge router allows you to plunge the bit up and down and all of them are going to have some sort of depth stop options so that you can plunge to kind of a set depth over and over again repeatedly over here on the left is a trim router and a trim router is going to be a lot smaller it's going to be less powerful generally speaking but it's going to be a little easier to handle because it's smaller I use a trim router mostly for doing things like rounding over edges or adding chamfers but I certainly cut big pockets with this router I've cut rabbets and other types of joinery with this trim router and this trim router specifically has an optional plunge base that you can get that also has dust collection so for something like 120 bucks this is a pretty good starting option especially if you don't think you're gonna be routing a ton to start a ton of really heavy-duty thick hardwoods I think a trim router would be just fine again having that plunge feature is gonna allow you to cut joinery and things like that a lot easier and having good dust collection is going to save your lungs and save you a lot of cleanup so the main accessories you're gonna want to think about for a router is obviously gonna be bits and I would avoid buying bit sets I've never bought one and I really don't regret not buying one I've bought bits as I've needed them on a project a project basis and over the past two years have built up a pretty good collection of bits but it's also allowed me to invest in better quality bits than you're usually gonna get if you're buying a set again some of the starter bits I'd recommend would be something like a round over bit or a chamfer bit depending on your taste and kind of what you want your projects to look like also a flush trim bit is gonna be one of the most used bits I'd say on your router especially if you're doing template work or adding trim and that kind of thing and then maybe something like a straight bit maybe a half-inch wide straight bit so then you can cut dados and rabbets and things like that with jigs you can kind of cross cut that across your panels and allow you to kind of dial in the width especially if you're using plywood a lot you don't want to just buy a 3/4 inch bit because that's gonna be a little bit wider than standard plywood is gonna leave you with a loose dado so I'd recommend just getting a slightly smaller bit something like 1/2 inch and that way you can kind of do the dado or rabbit in two passes so another kind of accessory for the router that you could think about would be a router table and that's something you could definitely build yourself there are all kinds of really simple basic router table builds out there Jay Bates has a couple of really good options and I think a router table is a great addition to any shop it's going to allow you to do a little bit more with your router and it's a little bit more controllable than a handheld router would be so there's my picks for the five beginners woodworking tools that I would recommend for pretty much every woodworker to pick up with those five tools you should honestly be able to build almost anything definitely pretty much anything that I've built on this channel I'm Mike a little bit longer it might be a little less precise a little Messier but you should still be able to get it done so let me know if you guys enjoyed this video I had a lot of fun filming it I definitely like to do a couple more of these maybe five hand tools that I'd recommend for beginners maybe the next five power tools like kind of the stationary tools that I'd recommend and once budget allows some bigger tools you can invest in that kind of thing so let me know what you thought and let me know if you have different ideas of beginner woodworking tools that you'd recommend thanks again for watching everybody if you don't already go ahead and get subscribed I put out new videos like this pretty much every week also I'll have a list of all the tools I talked about in the video description below if you want to check those out those are affiliate links they really help to support me and last I'd like to thank my patreon supporters you guys are awesome so until next week guys thanks for watching and happy building

Channel: Crafted Workshop

Views: 1,611,130

Rating: 4.8557959 out of 5

Keywords: crafted, crafted workshop, workshop, woodworking, diy, howto, how-to, make, maker, woodworking tools, tools, tool, beginner, gift, woodworker, woodworking tools for beginners, beginners, circular saw, drill, impact driver, jigsaw, random orbit sander, sander, orbital sander, router, plunge router, festool, gift ideas, gifts for woodworkers, woodworking gift ideas, woodworking tools you must have, wood, tools for the beginner, basic woodworking tools, getting started in woodworking

Id: o4ijHIRaGXc

Length: 16min 23sec (983 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 28 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/jbrookeiv]

Thanks for sharing my video! Hope you guys enjoy.

[u/spinningmagnets]

These tools sound expensive, but...once you start looking for free wood, you start finding it. Also, it's not just about getting free wood. Suddenly you get an idea in your head...half the time there are scraps of wood in your stockpile that save you a trip to the store. Bim, Bam, Boom...done. I harvest pallet wood sometimes, its a great resource.

1) Makita cordless drill/driver 18V 3/8ths drive combo. If my house burned down , these are the first things I'd buy to replace immediately. I use a lot of T20/T25 torx deck screws of various lengths, love them. Drill a pilot hole to prevent splitting, drive the screw in.

2) corded 7-1/2 inch blade circular saw from a thrift store. Cordless is good for 2X4s, but for a 4X4, I'd want corded, and a used saw from a thrift store is half the price of new. Corded doesn't bog down in thick wet wood. I used free wood to make a small table saw with folding legs to hang on my wall, out of the way. The saw is easily removable to use as a portable.

I might get a cordless saw, because it makes harvesting free wood easier. You see something on trash day, whip out the cordless saw and chop off the part you need for the pile.

3) Corded jigsaw. Definitely get the quick-change blade holders. There is a huge price difference between the corded 6-amp jigsaws and the decent cordless. If you think you need cordless (which is more expensive), perhaps consider a cordless sawzall, those are really handy.

4) I like my corded belt sander much more than the orbital sanders, but what type you get depends on what you are more likely to do with it. My wife got me an orbital as a gift a while back...I still haven't used it for anything...maybe you might.

5) Router. I rarely use my router, but it is pretty sweet when I do have a job for it. The first two bits you should get is the 3/8ths radius bit, for rounding edges. Then a 3/8ths cylinder for cutting grooves. With a couple passes, you can make a groove of any common width, and you can adjust the depth of cut easily.

6) A nice 3-piece chisel set, square tips, different widths. Buy a used one to loan to people because they will use it as a pry bar and a screwdriver. Keep the real ones hidden. So cheap, yet so versatile.

7) 50 ft cord with three outlets at the end, I often do work in the driveway with the car in the garage.

8) Battery and corded radio, gotta have music when wood working.

9) Good safety glasses I use for nothing else. I have scars on my hands, and none on my eyes.

[u/Kassious88]

Cordless drill, circular saw, scroll/jig saw, router, orbital sander. I agree, just throw saw horses in there!

[u/[deleted]]

Without watching the video I'm going to say go corded on the jigsaw and skillsaw. Go wormdrive on the saw, to be specific. I love my Makita worm drive. Yeah $160 is a bit much for a "beginner", but you will be using it for life so...

[u/myS_Cross]

Amazing