I’m (optimistically) starting to dabble in woodworking. My family has a decent history in woodworking including my father from whom I inherited a fair amount of tools, but my goals for the foreseeable future remain fairly modest and utilitarian.
My first planned project is to build some replacement handles for a Weber kettle grill where currently I have to use grill gloves at all times. This seems like a good starting project to mostly just work on my setup, as the amount there are minimal requirements aside from attaching wood to act as an insulator in a form that will fit reasonably well and not leave anyything exposed that could lead to burns. Over time I’d also want to make sure the handles can decently withstand weather, but for the first iteration I can just plan on replacing them if that becomes an issue.
I’ll also plan on alternating a bit between somewhat canned projects and those that are more self-directed, allowing each such canned project to hopefully refine some skills and my workshop setup prior to each project.
To start, I purchased and read Beginner’s Guide to Starting Woodworking by Lawrence Turner. It was nice in that it was short…and that’s about it. The pictures on the ebook didn’t display but more significantly there was virtually no insight in the book so it seemed less of an introduction to the craft and more of an invitation for experimentation to those who have never made anything from wood before. The content seemed worth a blog post but did not quite seem worth even the $0.99 USD that was paid.
Creating the grill handle seemed to go fairly well at the beginning - I used a hand saw to cut two scrap pieces to the desired length (for the top and bottom), used a chisel to make indententions to accommodate some tabs on the top, and decided to first make holes from the bottom up to make sure to align with the holes in handle, and then put the screws through those holes from the top down through to the bottom piece. Unfortunately both pieces of wood ended up getting horribly split, so at the moment the handle works but it is likely to fall apart before too long and I’ll replace the pieces either when that happens or when I free up more time. This was plausibly the result of driving in the screws without first drilling pilot holes so I’ll adapt my practice accordingly.