All of us have been beginners at one point in our life. If you’re good at something today, that likely means you’ve undergone a couple of mistakes and challenges before you became better at what you do. This is also true in woodworking, which requires a lot of patience, knowledge, and skills to learn.

In this blog, we will discuss the common mistakes that most new woodworkers make so you can know how to avoid them.

1. No Proper Planning – New woodworkers can become too excited at starting their first wood projects and don’t have a detailed plan. Having a proper plan can help avoid possible mistakes and know what are the next steps to take if it happens. By slowing down, writing things out, you can save yourself many headaches.

2. Neglect Safety – New woodworkers often think only about how to get the job done and what instructions to follow, but they forget to practice safety. They may purchase the tools to build the project, but no safety equipment like gloves, glasses, or respirators. Instead of inspecting reused wood for old nails, they may go straight to cutting or hammering nails to the wood. That can be a recipe for danger, and to learn the safety rules that every woodworker should know.

3. Inaccurate Measurement – This is one of the most common mistakes that every new woodworker makes. Most of the time, they will need to measure twice or even three times just to get it right. To help, lockout the tape measure, and really look closely at the markings counting them by hand if you need.

4. Rushing To Get The Job Done – With so much energy and excitement, new woodworkers often want to finish the project as quickly as possible. This leads to mismatched corners and thinking that sandpapers can correct their mistakes all the time. 

5. Not Enough Understanding of Their Tools – There are lots of tools that woodworkers can use and each tool requires a different understanding of how to use it properly. Oftentimes, new woodworkers buy the wrong type of hammer or saw that is needed for their project.

6. Starting With Difficult Projects – It’s important to know how to properly use a hammer before even thinking of building a new dining table. There are many easy woodworking projects that beginners can do and practice their skills and jumping into something advanced is not recommended. Not only will the result suffer, but also their wallets as bigger pockets often cost more, and beginners should just use cheap materials.

Trust The Process

It’s really okay to make mistakes especially if you’re a beginner. Just make sure to keep on practicing with your tools, learn from previous mistakes to improve efficiency, and trust the process that you’ll get better with these tips.