Like many hobbyist woodworkers I started playing with wood with no prior experience. My dad never did woodworking, I didn’t have woodshop available in school and my knowledge on the subject was next to none. I never really intended on even getting into the hobby and probably wouldn’t have if not for my wife asking if I could refinish a table from craigslist for her.
With a small budget I bought a couple of tools and began what I know consider my most hated project. After the table was finished I moved to building my first project; a toy chest for my kids. A rewarding task but I still had no idea what I was doing. This led to the beginning of my self-education through various resources such as Woodworking for Dummies and many woodworking blogs and websites.
Over the next couple of years I slowly turned my [wife’s] two car garage into a small functioning woodshop. Nothing fancy but I had all I needed for small projects; table saw, jointer, planer, band saw, chop saw and drill press. Then I got PCS orders to Jacksonville, NC. Let me first say that I really did not want to ship all that gear from FL to NC so I decided to sell it all. I made this decision for a couple of reasons. I didn’t know what space I would have since we were planning to move back in base housing and I didn’t want to have to bring it all to put in storage. I also decided this would be a good time to learn to use hand tools since those tools would be easier to house vs. all the machinery.
I spent the next two years learning all I could from my usual sources as well as joining The Hand Tool School for a couple semesters. I initially started this blog as a way to document my transition from power to hand tools but along the way it just turned into what it is now which I don’t even know what that is exactly. I hope someone can find what I put on here useful and if not maybe they’ll find it entertaining.
Thanks for stopping by.
The Fameless Woodworker 
I took to hand tools by chance – and really should sell off most of the power tools. After about ten years at about 80% hand work, I’m beginning to appreciate the look and texture of hand made furniture. If I wanted Art Van furniture, I’d buy some.
I used power tools for about the first year and a half of woodworking. To me it felt like the machinery was working wood, not me so I decided to change things. It helped me gain a real appreciation for this craft.
Hey Dan, unfortunately I found your site for all the wrong reasons… but I do like your site, great work on that roubo bench. Some day I plan to upgrade my own. Unfortunately, someone has stolen one of your photos and is using it on their site selling “free woodworking plans.” I noticed it while doing some inspiration image searching for a gun cabinet commission I’m working on.
I was searching google images, clicked to someone’s website that built a nice one, then the next photo I clicked on took me to this “free plans” site that had a picture of that same gun rack on it. It was obviously stolen, and it pisses me off. So, I have been looking at other photos on that site and trying to notify as many people as I can.
Here’s the website address if you want to take action (I’m replacing the dot in .com with (DOT). I don’t want to give this idiot a free link.
http://earleywt.wordpress(DOT)com/2013/08/22/free-free-gun-cabinet-design-plans-pdf-woodworking-plans-online-download/
Sorry to have to contact you in this way, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad I came to your site.
Zac
Hey,
I was just browsing through your site and there were some non-working references that I ran into. For instance if you go to https://thefamelesswoodworker.com/category/hand-tool-school-2/ and try to click on Smitty_Cabinetshop , you’ll notice the link doesn’t send you to where it should (or am I the only one experiencing this)? There are a few more cases like this and I’d be happy to point them out if you’d like me to. I’m just letting you know because I realize how difficult it can be to find these little issues when you are busy running a website, so thought I’d help out a little bit.
Thanks for your great content,
Mark
Would it be possible to download your roubo split top bench plan? I’am in the process of designing my 1st own workbench since just started to do woodworking with hand tools. Thank you and sorry for my bad english
The file is now available to download via the link in this post.