Woodworking

Last week I shopped-around for a hardwood bookcase with nice joinery. I couldn't find what I wanted at any price, and even screwed-together wood laminate bookshelves were ridiculously expensive. I thought to myself "I could make a nice hardwood bookcase fairly cheaply; how hard could it be?" Based on my experience with other hobbies (particularly audiophile stuff) I know that by the time I buy the tools and learn the skills to do it myself those $1000 bookshelves will start to look pretty reasonably priced. But I'm due for a new hobby....

The last time I did any woodworking, I was twelve years old. I'm going into this knowing little about woodworking. I don't even own a saw. I'll makes notes about what I learn below. Hopefully, someone else will find my notes useful (and they'll act as reminders for me).

Getting started

I'm discovering that there are a wide range of woodworking sub-hobbies like boat building and pen turning. The area that interest me most at this point is furniture making using hand tools. Specifically, I want to hand build a hardwood bookshelf using dovetail joints. (I'll build other stuff too.)

One piece of advise which struck me as particularly good is to only buy the tools you need when you're starting out. Here's the stuff I need to make a bookshelf with dovetail joints:

A workbench. I settled on the Black & Decker Workmate 225. It's small, portable, and folds-up, which is good for me because I live in an apartment without room for a dedicated full size, full time workbench. Once I have a house with a shed or basement I will certainly build a large, sturdy workbench.
A crosscut saw. I bought a Japanese ryoba which has a crosscut edge on one side and a rip edge on the other side. The Japanese saws are interesting in that they cut on the pull stroke, which seems to make them buckle less during cutting.
A dovetail saw. Dovetail saws have a narrower blade and more teeth for more precise cuts. I bought a Japanese one, which cuts on the pull stroke.
Bevel edge wood chisels. I bought a set of four Blue Chip chisels, which included a 1/4", 1/2", 3/4", and 1" chisels. Based on my thus far limited experience, the 1/4" and 1/2" seem to be the most useful for cutting dovetails.
Sharpening stuff. You must have a way to sharpen your chisels and planes; most of them just don't come very sharp from the manufacturer. I bought a sharpening system with silicon carbide sandpaper adhered to plate glass. Unlike a whetstone, the plate glass will stay perfectly flat. The sandpaper is replaceable.

Rasps, files, and scrapers

Rasps and files let you shape wood in ways that would be impossible or difficult with saws or chisels. They can be used to make organic curved shapes, for example.

Rasps are of various coursenesses; from most course to least: wood rasps, cabinent rasps (bastard, second, and smooth), and pattern maker's rasps. Files are less course than rasps. Files, from most to least coarse, are coarse, bastard, second, and smooth.

Resources

One surprisingly active and friendly woodworking forum is Lumberjocks.

Rockler is a woodworking specialty store, which happens to have a branch in my area. The staff has been pretty helpful to me.