These are my preferred starting power tools for woodworking, these are in order from most important to least, remember this is my opinion but I’ve learned quite a bit over the past few years learning.
#1 Hammer Drill + Impact Driver.
Hammer drills assist with drilling holes, driving screws which are essential in the wood working process as I am sure you can assume. Realistically I had a hard time between drills and the circular saw being the top of my list. Realistically however you can have the big box stores break down your wood for you which is why drills are now at the top of my list. I would recommend getting 18-20v models as you’ll sometimes need the power to drill through lumbar like 4×4’s etc.
As for brand I started out with Craftsman for all of my tools, they are a great affordable beginner brand. I also cannot recommend Ryobi enough if you are just starting out, they have a wide arrange of tools at a very affordable price. I will link my Amazon affiliate link for the Craftsman set as that is what I stand by, if you are just starting out please look for tool kits that come with batteries as you’ll find collecting them is a good idea!
#2 Hand held Circular Saw
Breaking down lumber is crucial especially when big box stores tend to charge you when you need them to break down goods. There are TON’s of different types of saws realistically you can get a corded 7 1\4″ saw that will last you a good while. I personally picked up a .. you guest it craftsman 6.5″ saw on sale. Personally if you wait for the big holidays they will have a deal where you buy a battery and get a free bare tool, I tend to take advantage of those quite often to stock up on batteries.
I will go out on a limb and saw this is one of the most versatile tools you can have for the shop, there a ton of different variations of these including the track saw which I can get into later. One thing I will stress however is whichever battery platform you go with for lets say your drill \ impact please get the subsequent tool variation on that same platform, if you mix and match things get expensive really quickly, so if you choose to go with Craftsman for the drill and driver please stick to Craftsman for the saw. Again I will link to the saw on Amazon!
#3 Table Saw
Coming off of the hand held saw comes the table saw, this can be very intimidating to use at first but once you get used to this tool it because the centerpiece of your entire shop. This allows you to break down large goods accurately, you can get a miter gauge and cut miters with the saw. As I sit now it has become the single most important tool in my shop. There are different variations of these such as size, jobsite, cabinet, contractor. As well as blade length. I have always used my step-dads handed down craftsman 10″ table saw but I recently picked up a Skill 10″ table saw on sale and honestly it has been the best investment I have made in a good while.
Again, love this saw you can get the larger variations like the cabinet saw based on your budget. However since this is aimed at beginners I am going with my own recommendations. If you choose to move away from the skill I also recommend DeWalt as they make some good saws, make sure the fence is good because that is what you are referencing your cuts off of.
#4 Router
I will openly admit the router at first is terrifying. I bought one to put round overs on my wooden signs I was making for craft shows. They can be loud, you have a spinning cutterhead fairly close to you but man are these essential. I would however say you can probably do the most with these, you can use them to cut groves, round overs, chamfers, flush trim you name it. Again, for me this one took the most time to get used to but once your comfortable with these I say sky’s the limit. There are alot of different types of Routers such as size, corded/cordless etc. You have larger .5″ routers and you have 1\4″ routers that are normally smaller. I went with 1\4″ size in the form of a “palm router” as most people call them, perfect for edge profiling. If you plan on doing anything larger however you would need a half inch. For now though this is perfect
As for products I bought this Makita corded one, candidly its been through a lot and has not given me any troubles, I was gifted a craftsman cordless one and honestly I use both. I just have different bits in both of them to make switching over easy. I can’t recommend the Makita enough so I will post an affiliate link below the image.
#5 Random Orbit Sander
There is one thing that us woodworkers can agree on universally and that is we HATE sanding. There is no avoiding it so make this as pleasant as possible, I have tried the different types of sanders, like the square sanders along with the triangle shaped sanders but please just get a random orbit 5″ sander. Also as a side note don’t get cheap sand paper, meet in the middle with Diablo’s mesh sand paper \ 3m sandpaper.
Now for brands, I obviously went with Craftsman, I love it. I have sanded countless projects with it, great dust collection, great price, great quality. I recommend this one through and through. This also isn’t because its Craftsman but because it is a genuinely good sander. They have a dewalt one with a variable speed, but at double the price I don’t recommend it. ALSO I DO NOT recommend battery versions of sanders. They don’t have the power, you don’t want to have to worry about switching batteries. I don’t recommend it
#6 Shop Vac
I am not sure if a Shop Vac counts as a power tool but as woodworkers dust collection is an ongoing battle one of which I struggled with in the beginning. It is very important you get dust collection for your tools, for instance the Skill saw has good dust collection, the sander has pretty good dust collection. I had a cheap shopvac that died and I upgraded to a Rigid vac from the big orange store. Great suction, I will mention I recommend getting some hose adapters on amazon for quick connects. so you can add it to things like your table saw, sander, miter saw etc.
Realistically you would get a dust extractor given the budget calls for it, most of the time starting out however most people don’t want to drop 500-700 dollars on a dust extractor I am actually one of them lol. I personally have the Rigid vac but craftsman makes an okay one. DeWalt makes a decent one, honestly just get the rigid
#7 Jigsaw
Jigsaw’s are important for being able to cut details out of wood, curvatures etc. They help with making handles just all in all a good tool. I used these a lot when I made craft Christmas trees that I sold at craft shows. This is not necessary but I think it is important you have on in your arsenal at some point in your wood working journey. This has been one of those tools that occasionally a lightbulb will go off in my head and realize I can make great use of this.
For Brands you honestly can’t go wrong with any of them, I don’t have too much experience with these but regardless they all do the same thing. I personally use the craftsman one, remember stick to your battery platform. Either way, I’ll post an amazon link below the image truthfully these are fairly inexpensive.
#8 Miter Saw
The miter saw while very important I have fairly low on the list due to the table saw being able to do Miter cuts which ultimately makes the dedicated miter saw useless. For my personal experience I actually use this tool a lot for both DIY home work and woodworking. It is nice to be able to cut 45 degree miters, flush 90 degree cuts. They can be scary at first but very useful to quickly breakdown wood into manageable lengths.
I’ll be honest there a million ways to go with this one, I actually started out with a harbor freight chop saw. The big take aways are blade size, beveling, sliding. I started out and would recommend you as well start out with a 10″ blade, this will do 95% of projects you are working on, you can get these corded or cordless, I would recommend corded because at this stage I doubt you have a large stock of batteries to run higher end saws. Personally I recommend a sliding saw, I’ll post an amazon link for a Skil 10″ sliding miter saw. I have not personally owned this one but it has great reviews and based on how much I love their table saw I feel I am in good standing recommending this one.
#9 Planer
Now we are on to the planer, I believe this tool take you from DIY to having a small woodshop as this is a very niche tool. I mainly use this to thicken wood and remove twists \ curves out of wood boards. I recently purchased a planer and honestly I love it, is it necessary? No, realistically you can buy pre-surfaced wood if your doing furniture building or if your doing 2x projects you just have to spend a bit more time at the big box stores finding good useable wood.
Now for brands and purchasing, I recommend a lunchbox style planer like you see here with the DeWalt, now depending on shop size it might not be a good idea to get a large cabinet style planer. Also DeWalt makes two of the best lunchbox style planers which is the DW734 and DW735. I had a bit of a love hate relationship to purchasing this planer, I originally actually went with a WEN 13″ planer, this didn’t work right out of the box so I ended up returning it and I got this DeWalt. Can’t recommend the DeWalt enough. If there was anything I can take away from this it’s a “buy once cry once” purchase. There are a lot of bad ones out there and there are few good ones, so purchase one of the good ones.
#10 Jointer
Last but certainly not least we come to the jointer, now I understand its uses but it is all the way down because you technically don’t need it. This is one of those items that is more of a convenience that a need. There are plenty of ways to joint lumber with a jointer so this one is near the bottom simply because its a convenience item where the others are actually needed in some cases. A jointer will give you a flat face to reference off of, you can make a flat face with a table saw with a jig, router, circular saw. I personally use a DIY track saw to joint wood.
Now for brands, Delta makes a good one, I heard the WEN one on Amazon is pretty good too. As a Craftsman fanboy I will put the Craftsman one linked here. I personally do not have a jointer but I’ll be honest when I am ready to purchase one I think I’ll get one off Facebook Marketplace
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