So I'm a complete newb when it comes to anything involving wood or metal (classic quotes of mine include "which one is a bolt again?"). I've been thinking of building up some skills in this area. Does anyone know of any classes or courses that teach really basic stuff?

A perfect example would be a one or two day course where I'd learn (from scratch) how to make a simple table or chair or something. Someone suggested I look into short courses at a TAFE. Any suggestions?

you should look into short courses at your local TAFE

Probably head to your local tafe for 1 or 2 day courses

i did an oxy, arc & tig welding course at northpoint tafe a few years back. it was a pretty cool course & every night it was on i'd bring in something that needed welding n the instructor would work it into the course as a practical example. at the time they were about to offer a welding course where you make a 4wheel trailer with brakes, where you supply the wheels & brakes & they supply all the other materials & at the end of it (as long as ya didn't f*** it up) you have a 4wheel trailer!

dunno about woodwork courses though... i've seen some advertised at bunnings but when i've been in there n had a look to see what they were doing it was like building pre-fab s***... i don't reckon you need to learn anything to do that :/ i did trickier stuff in manual arts at school. :P

go to bunnings/mitre10 and buy a bandsaw, circular saw + table and a router. Grab some wood, a DYI video and go nuts in your back shed.

bunnings also have the dyi workshops

Yea, just log onto the Bunnings website and they have various workshops listed each month for all sorts of stuff

I'm not sure about woodworking, i know when I was going to tafe for my Fitter & turner trade they were getting rid of all the woodworking equipment.

I don't even know if they have 1 or 2 day courses and I fail to see how much you could really learn. When I was doing my TIG course there was some guy who came in with the other apprentices so maybe thats an option. I know for sure they run night classes for machining on lathes & mills etc.

Whats the point of it all anyway, unless you can afford to spend thousands on equipment to have at home you'll probably never use the skills and by the time you do you will have forgotten it all.

go to bunnings/mitre10 and buy a bandsaw, circular saw + table and a router. Grab some wood, a DYI video and go nuts in your back shed.

Yeh this worked for me! We recently had a garage door put onto our house but there was a 'gap' between the facure (sp?) and the house to fill, so I built a door! I'm still stoked haha.

I absolutely suck at this s*** but have paid attention over the years as other people did stuff, and worked on a few building sites for my old man who is a roof tiler.

It worked out pretty well, I was kinda surprised. Also the difference between doing it myself and having someone else do it basically paid for my saw horses, circular saw, hand saw, power plane, clamps, etc etc. which is awesome cos now I can build other s*** too!

last edited by Hogfather at 12:08:21 28/Oct/08

gone are the days when all men were handymen.

hoggy: fascia

such days never existed ravnos

I went to Mt Gravatt tafe for a welding course. I enjoyed it and it was pretty easy going. I don't find much use for welding in my daily job of systems support tho :(

i rekn the price of the base materials is the reason not many people bother to make thier own furniture & stuff these days. when i was a kid my old man (who was an electrical engineer) used to make most of custom furniture for our house. he'd buy timber direct from the sawmill & there was always plenty of spare timber if us kids wanted to make something. these days even s***ty partical board is expensive & any sort of decent timber is prohibitively expensive!

i recently made a timber hood for my 8' fishtank using pine from the sawmill & it worked out to be about $40 more expensive than if i'd just bought a pre-made one. still.. i got eactly what i wanted by making my own plus the satisfaction of having made something that works well :D

i'm currently building my fishtank stand into a cabinet... using s***ty partical board but staining it to look like nice grainy timber. it'll also probably end up being more expensive than just buying a pre-made cabinet stand but i like building stuff! :D

[edit] yeh shad same here. i don't own a welder so those skills arent getting any use... but i still prefer to know how to do stuff like that properly.

last edited by demon at 13:00:38 28/Oct/08

Thanks guys, I'll check out Bunnings and TAFE short courses.

Whats the point of it all anyway

I reckon it's always good to build up skills and hobbies. Even better when you can combine them - I like telescopes and if I had some wood/metal skills I could start making telescope tubes or mounts. I don't really care if it's cheaper to buy something pre-made. I see DIY as part of the end, not necessarily just a means.

I wanna go do one of those courses myself. Thinking I'll go do some of those DIY workshops at Bunnings too.