Woodworking vs Metalworking vs ...

[triple7stash]

Hi!

I live in a small apartment in a large city. I have a desk job and want to learn some DIY skills because I’m beginning to look at buying a house in the country with a workshop. However, before I actually move I would like to pick up some shop skills. Any suggestions on pros/cons for picking up woodworking vs metalworking? Or any other trade? Mainly looking for a fun hobby. If it turns into a side gig posy fire, I wouldn’t be mad, but that’s not the main goal.

[deborah]

You need a quiet hobby that you can pursue in an apartment. Gardening might be worthwhile.

[uniwelder]

Look into night classes at your community college or ymca, if you don’t have friends/family who can work with you. Metalworking will be more specialized and more expensive. My dad was a carpenter, and I learned to hate wood, so I gravitated to welding and machining.

[Weisass]

I don’t know where you are, but in my city there are at least three community wood shops where you can take classes and pay monthly for shop time. My brother metalworks and I’ve never seen anything similar for that.

[NorCal]

A great place to start in a small apartment is hand-tool woodworking.  It's quiet, and can be creatively done in small spaces.  I've heard of people that have converted something as small as a closet into a workspace.

Check out the courses at https://www.handtoolschool.net/.  I took Shannon's semester 1 course, and I highly recommend it if you want to go down the hand-tool route.

Don't fool yourself that hand-tools will save you money over power tools though.  It's a money-pit either way.

I tried a community workspace when I was in a similar situation.  While I liked the idea of it, I rarely ever used it.  Your mileage may vary.

[triple7stash]

You need a quiet hobby that you can pursue in an apartment. Gardening might be worthwhile.

I guess I should clarify haha, I’m not looking to start now in my apartment. I was thinking more along the lines of taking classes. I wouldn’t practice welding in my apartment :) And gardening is actually something I’ve picked up in my apartment, I love it!

Look into night classes at your community college or ymca, if you don’t have friends/family who can work with you. Metalworking will be more specialized and more expensive. My dad was a carpenter, and I learned to hate wood, so I gravitated to welding and machining.

I was thinking about leaning towards woodworking because the lower barriers to entry, but metalworking does sound a little more fun. Care to elaborate on why your dads carpentry work caused you to hate wood?

[uniwelder]

Look into night classes at your community college or ymca, if you don’t have friends/family who can work with you. Metalworking will be more specialized and more expensive. My dad was a carpenter, and I learned to hate wood, so I gravitated to welding and machining.

I was thinking about leaning towards woodworking because the lower barriers to entry, but metalworking does sound a little more fun. Care to elaborate on why your dads carpentry work caused you to hate wood?

My dad was a real pain to work with, so learning something he knew nothing about had a certain appeal.  Metal also fits in better with my engineering mind--- 1) being able to reliably calculate how much load a part can handle and 2) able to work to very tight tolerances.

[nereo]

OP - if the motivation is to gain DIY skills for being a homeowner, I highly recommend joining a group like habitat for humanity and volunteering on as many projects as you have time for.

Between woodworking and metalworking I would say woodworking is very useful for a homeowner, metalworking not nearly as much (disclaimer: I’m a woodworker). I’ve often found my woodworking skills useful during my three house renovations, but have rarely needed welding to get basic home repair projects done. How ever, there are a bunch more skills that will come in handy for a homeowner, including plumbing, electrical and drywall in addition to rough carpentry. Those you can learn on a habitat for humanity build. Of those, knowing how to do basic drywall will really open up possibilities with home repair and renovation very quickly.  The nice thing about drywall is the west thing that usually happens is your wall doesn’t look perfect... and it’s usually correctable with another coat of mud and some paint.
Plumbing (with PEX) had also become very doable for a homeowner, though there are some obvious bigger risks if you screw up. Electrical isn’t hard per se, but it can kill you or cause your house to burn down, so be certain you know what you are doing and check it against code and with an actual electrician.

[Uturn]

Let's define woodworking.  You have different types and it usually comes down to tolerances.

Framer sees a 1/2" gap and think "meh, it will hold"
Carpenter sees a 1/8" gap and sees a decent joint
Furniture maker sees a 1/32" gap and doesn't sleep for two nights

[jfer_rose]

I'm a woodworker but I do most of my work in a makerspace that has both wood and metal shops. I'm interested in learning some of the metal work stuff eventually and it's nice to know it is available for me when I'm ready.

@Uturn your post made me laugh out loud. I guess my cabinetmaking-school training puts me in the furniture making category...

[SwordGuy]

Woodworking and metalworking are both great hobbies.   Both can be cheaply or expensively done.  I do both.  Expensively (now) but I used to do them cheaply.    If cheaply done, your ability to do many things will be limited or will take a whole lot more time.

If you have a place where you can get access to advanced tools for a nominal fee, that's a really big deal.   Not a lot of areas have that and those that do have a real treasure.

Woodworking will be much more useful for household carpentry tasks and repairs.    The tools overlap.

If your local community college has inexpensive continuing education classes outside work hours, try them both.

If it matters, I've found that (at the hobby level ONLY), woodworking classes tend to be mostly male and metal jewelry classes tend to be mostly female. 

[triple7stash]

OP - if the motivation is to gain DIY skills for being a homeowner, I highly recommend joining a group like habitat for humanity and volunteering on as many projects as you have time for.

The motivation is mainly just a fun hobby. Like something I could tinker around in a workshop and do, potentially build fun things for the house. Not necessarily DIY skills for the house, as I do have some of those already. The habitat for humanity is a great resource for that though! May still check that out haha.

Woodworking and metalworking are both great hobbies.   Both can be cheaply or expensively done.  I do both.  Expensively (now) but I used to do them cheaply.    If cheaply done, your ability to do many things will be limited or will take a whole lot more time.

If you have a place where you can get access to advanced tools for a nominal fee, that's a really big deal.   Not a lot of areas have that and those that do have a real treasure.

Woodworking will be much more useful for household carpentry tasks and repairs.    The tools overlap.

If your local community college has inexpensive continuing education classes outside work hours, try them both.

If it matters, I've found that (at the hobby level ONLY), woodworking classes tend to be mostly male and metal jewelry classes tend to be mostly female. 

Thanks for the insight! I’m thinking a community college night class may be my best bet for now.

[Fishindude]

Buy a fixer upper place and you'll immediately have all kinds of new skills and trades to take on and a whole house to do it in.

[lthenderson]

Buy a fixer upper place and you'll immediately have all kinds of new skills and trades to take on and a whole house to do it in.

+1 I'm on house fixer upper number three not to mention the dozens of assorted buildings I have built or rehabbed over the years on the farm. I like to say I'm a jack of all trades and a master of none.

[Jon Bon]

Woodworking has way more practical uses. A good circular saw you might use a once a month for random things. A welding rig, well you might use it 1x a year?

I've built tons of stuff over the years, I know a decent amount about wood, and practically nothing about metal. Hell I know a decent amount about concrete, electrical, plumbing etc. But ive never really had to shape/cut metal.

Granted Id love to learn and have a new thing to play with. But knowing your way around a table saw is more valuable then knowing your way around an arc welder. YMMV

[lthenderson]

Jon Bon - Like you, I mostly gravitated towards wood working because it fulfilled more of my needs. But in my last engineering gig, I discovered it was much faster to fab my own metal parts to build prototype machines than submit requests to be made weeks/months in the future when there was a lull in production. As a result, I became quite familiar with pneumatic nibblers, shears, spot welders, mig and tig welders. It was quite fun and if I had a 220 outlet and room in my garage, I would probably have a metal bench and a welder. But at some point I just have to say enough is enough and have others who specialized in welding do things I could be doing. I tell myself, one day when I build my dedicated shop...

[nereo]

I suspect a person finds solutions (and problems) which mirror their skills. If your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. If you are a woodworker you find you ways to use your tablesaw, and if you love metalworking your arc welder might seem a lot more useful.

Just my theory...

[Dancin'Dog]

My advice is to try a bit of any craft that you have access to and an interest in. 


Don't forget ceramics, glass, fiber, leather, stone, and plastics are all useful materials that are all unique but can be shaped with many similar techniques.  You can saw & drill all of these materials using similar tools & skills. 


Everyone should try throwing pottery sometime in their lives.

[Healthie]

I've gotten more seriously into woodworking - thrown some cash at tools, renting a space, building multiple pieces of furniture for my house & shop, etc.

It is both the most satisfying and frustrating hobby I have and I love it dearly. If I can give any advice regarding starting: buy a table saw. It allows for precise cuts easily that a skill saw struggles to do.

[fixie]

Depending where you are, make friends with someone who has a shop.  They will likely be eager to help you learn new skills, especially in return for teaching your own skills or helping with their shop costs or projects.  Be prepared to be an apprentice.
Then, maybe join a class in your area.  That will accelerate your endeavor.
Wittling and perhaps wood carving(without hammering chisels) can be done in an apartment and can be very quiet.
Try sewing perhaps?  I like to call it mancrafting.
Also line splicing, macramet, knitting, in case you don't have the duckets for classes, or access to friends with a shop.
let us know how it goes, and good luck! 
-fixie

[lutorm]

I agree that if you want to be able to work on your house, woodworking is most useful. The classic use for metalworking would be working on (old) vehicles, either restoring or customizing.

I have one of these Chinese mini mills that I've converted to CNC. The mill itself was like $900 and I've probably three times that into it for the conversion and tooling. That's not chump change, but compared to the cheapest actual CNC mill you can buy, it's less than a third of the price. And I've found it to be amazingly capable. If it's aluminum you can pretty much make anything that doesn't require 4- or 5-axis work and fits within the footprint. I have done some simple stainless jobs, too, but that's pushing it. You won't get aerospace tolerances but once you have a tool like this it's amazing how many uses you can find for it. And I've learned so much about  metal cutting and CAD/CAM with it.

[Car Jack]

I'll start by saying that I absolutely hate doing almost anything that has to do with wood.  It takes me forever to do any project involving wood, I'm impatient with it, unhappy with non-perfect results, hate to paint and it takes me forever.

  Recently, on a recommendation from a friend, I bought a $300 Harbor Freight "Titanium" core welder.  I've had a Lincoln AC stick welder long ago and a Harbor Freight, Chicago Electric POS core welder, so I've hacked steel together in the past.  I have to say that this Titanium welder has worked really well.  I'm building stuff for various projects.  One is a guard for the bolts on the differential of my Jeep.  I offroad and rocks mangle the bolts, so this guard will keep steel around the bolts to hopefully take the brunt of force.  I also have a snowmobile trailer (no snowmobile) and would like to be able to haul things like firewood and scrap steel.  I'm building rails that will slide into the ski tie down tracks and bolt some rods diagonally to the edge of the trailer, making a 4 foot wide cage.  I may sell some of my firewood when winter approaches and this will be very useful.

Many high schools and community colleges have welding courses at night.  From a friend whose done it, the key is practice.  I'm taking that to heart and not worrying that it's taking me a long time to complete any of my projects.  I'm trying to learn how to weld better along the way.