The rest is digital history, but the major disruption to the CAD world was the democratization of CAD software. In 2006, a larger startup named Google purchased and released a free version of SketchUp. Around two decades ago, a small startup named Software released a 3D modeling program named SketchUp for the relatively cheap price of $495. Historically (and even now), CAD software has been synonymous with professional level usage in architecture, engineering, and construction sporting a price tag well into the thousands of dollars.
Since it was so far off as to be unusable, it lead to me discovering what I now consider to be the most important tool for any beginning woodworker – Computer-Aided Design or CAD software. Had it just been a little off, I would have proceeded along with the build and done what I could to make it work likely ending up with a mess on my patio when the first serious thunderstorm blew through. In hindsight, I am glad I made such an extreme blunder with my first design. With enough wood to piece together the first box I soon realized a foot is a good measurement for a sub sandwich, and not so good for a flower box meant to support a 4×4 with a string of lights attached to the top of it. After about an hour of scribbling and pulling measurements out of thin air, I confidently marched to the garage and began cutting up the 2 and 4x4s the previous homeowner had generously left behind.
I started drawing my first flower box with a pen, paper, and an old notebook I had left over from college that wasn’t entirely filled with notes about ancient Greece. A few hundred dollars lighter, I had my tools and set to working up my first project plan. Since I really wanted to get started, but I wasn’t fully committed to woodworking, I started with the list of 5 tools.
A quick search returned a seemingly endless list of videos with titles like 5 Woodworking Tools for Beginners, 6 Essential Woodworking Tools for Beginners, 26 Basic Woodworking Tools for Beginners and so on. Livin’ On a PrayerĬompletely lost as to what tools I really needed, I looked to YouTube for help. Before too long, you begin to feel like Bubba in Forest Gump rattling off shrimp recipes. Your options are a handsaw, bandsaw, circular saw, table saw, chainsaw, chop saw, miter saw… The cheapest option to start with is the handsaw, but then you get to decide if you need a back saw, fret saw, coping saw, jab saw, frame saw, hack saw, etc. Everywhere I look, I find a tool for this and a tool for that with multiple types of tools for this and that. Over the past year I have learned that the world of woodcraft is populated with more tools than there are trees in Georgia.
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