this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 84 points 2 weeks ago (9 children)

Don't get into woodworking if you have a compulsion to achieve accurate, precise results because wood is fiddly as fuck.

OR

DO get into woodworking if you have a compulsion to achieve accurate, precise results because it will burn that shit right out of you If you don't die from an aneurysm first. It'll teach you to build all sorts of wiggle room into everything in life, not just furniture.

People will think what you made was amazing, that it took so much skill.

Nope.

Only you know how you put everything together loosely, then tightened screws incrementally while adjusting clamps and smacking it with a rubber mallet until it looked right. There are pilot holes they can't see that don't go anywhere. You definitely missed gluing something important. You might have weighted a piece with epoxy and cat litter because you forgot to buy weights, it was 3 am, and you were unintentionally high as balls on stain fumes, but you really wanted to finish in time to surprise your partner for their birthday.

They don't know, they'll never know, and they don't need to know.

[–] fiendishplan@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Don't forget the thousands of dollars in tools you'll be compelled to buy and never being able to throw out even the small piece of wood because "you might need it someday".

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Tell me about it, and there's always something better than what you have. How to be smart about buying tools deserves its own entire comment chain.

I didn't know about these until recently, but I now recommend folks check out local tool libraries to get started and see what they want or need for low to no cost.

We have a one car garage full of maintenance and fabrication tools I've acquired over my life. They've paid for themselves multiple times over in even just the last decade, but the cost and space requirements are prohibitive for a lot of folks. It's one of those "having money saves money" situations, but tool libraries can help a lot.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 2 weeks ago

quietly pushes entire bespoke server rack under bed

[–] PolarKraken@programming.dev 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

My foray into woodworking began and ended with figuring "sheesh, custom picture frames are so expensive, how hard could it be?!"...

By the end of that experience, nothing felt real anymore. Every foolishly pure mathematical concept, every platonic ideal - shameful indulgences of the young and weak. Our grand edifices of knowledge, little more than piles of tattered rags with which we clothe our nakedness, arrogant and hubristic in our vulgar conceits.

Don't do it y'all. That abyss gazes back.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

Underappreciated comment of the thread.

[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You need to conjure the ancient dark magics of woodworkers long past.

[–] PolarKraken@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago

I shudder to imagine such might. Utter your shriveled curses to the unwary, fiend, not to me!

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 10 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That's my dream, except I want to complicate it by building guitars. So it actually has to work, not just look like it might.

[–] WoodScientist@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

I can't build a guitar. I can build a guitar-shaped object. But I cannot build a guitar.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 10 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

My partner complimented my new shelf recently. Then she looked closer and realised it was a few boards stacked up on the cheapest engineering bricks I could find but rotated so the holes are not visible.

Only got a folding hand saw which I suspect isn't the best for making straight cuts, I had considered cutting up a railway sleeper for blocks instead of the bricks. Bricks worked out cheaper. Wooden blocks could look nice though.

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 7 points 2 weeks ago

Just cut pieces of wood big enough to cover the front of the bricks, and glue them on. Wood on the front, and brick on the side, will look like a cool design choice.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

After having worked with wood and son of a cabinet maker, I crave the strength and certainly of steel. I got into welding in a big way.some aluminium, but mostly steel. It's such a wonderful material. Cut it, weld it, grind it, bam, new and bigger steel. You can't make a piece of wood bigger.

[–] zakobjoa@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago

shia_labeouf_slowclap.gif

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 5 points 2 weeks ago

LOL I learned so much from this, thank you.

And also: Fume and dust extraction is no joke!!

[–] CookieOfFortune@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

I just tell everyone where all the mistakes were.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

... but you'll know