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You probably know what you're doing but for a beginner, 2x4 isn't a good choice because:

1. 2x4 are not 2" x 4" and when you start, you make a lot of assumptions that land you in hot water.

2. A beginner will not know what does "green" vs. "klin" mean and will have a hard time getting anything to be straight.

3. Construction lumber is made for construction and not interior use because of many different factors.

I would highly recommend choosing poplar 1x8 boards (they will neither be perfectly 1 inch in thickness nor 8 inches in width but close). They are easy to work with because poplar is soft, even though it called a "hardwood". And the wood takes paint and stain very well.

Also, with poplar, your list of beginner tools will be spot on. You wouldn't even need much more and I'm confident that I can put together a good enough kit for under $250 by using only corded tools and an extension cord.

I’ve been using 2x4s (1.5” by 3.5”) as a beginner, and I’m happy so far. They’re a very nice, convenient shape for a lot of things and aren’t very heavy and are very cheap.

1. Precisely! When you run into catches like actual versus nominal dimensions, you don't want to be working with a $40 piece of wood, but a $5 piece of wood. When you're wrong, you toss it and try again. Or you unscrew it and try again.

2. That's okay! If it's not quite straight or square, it's really fine for most pieces. Unless you've really s-ed up, you won't be able to tell.

3. I have plenty of pieces of furniture made from construction wood, especially in the kids' room, and they do just fine. Kids grow fast, and an elementary school table won't be what we want in middle school. Heck, we might want something different if and when hobbies change.

The point is to make a bunch of pieces quickly, and to develop the technique to be able to:

* Make a (roughly) perpendicular screw hole without having the wood splinter on the opposite side, and perhaps with a proper countersink hole

* (roughly) cut a piece of wood to length, with a (roughly) square edge

* Get intuition for the order to measure/cut/assemble pieces so everything fits

* ... and so on.

There's a bunch of mechanical skills (like making a square cut) and spatial reasoning skills to develop. The best way to do this is to do it over, and over, and over many times. Once past that stage, poplar is ideal. Starting out, make as much stuff as you can as quickly and cheaply as you can.

Even now, I'll sometimes cut a piece of wood to the wrong length, and I've been doing this a long time. The first few pieces? Forgetaboutit.

2x4s can go a long ways. I know that this is a professional furniture maker but Hal Taylor made a beautiful rocking chair out of 2x4s from Lowes. That said, this does not make it cheaper because it still a professionally made chair with very intricate details, but it is a testament that you don't need expensive tropical hardwood to make something beautiful.

http://www.haltaylor.com/for-sale.html

> (GOOD) clamps

Any advice on what to look for or what brands you might recommend?

I bought a couple furniture clamps a few years ago and they are complete garbage.

Bessey is very good and worth every penny. I also have some Bora clamps that are good. Parallel clamps are generally the best since the clamping force is even.

Parallel clamps are the result of hundreds of years of research into developing a clamp even less intuitive than handscrews. I love 'em, but man are they a hassle when the head doesn't engage the bar.

Pipe clamps are comparatively cheaper with the bonus that if you need longer clamps, you can go to the plumbing supply for a longer bit of pipe. They aren't as nice as parallel clamps for gluing up thin panels though.

For handscrews, I highly recommend Miro Moose. The Besseys are surprisingly subpar. Lie-Nielsen makes them as well for a reasonable price, but they galvanize the screws, and I don't like the action as much.

I absolutely love pipe clamps. They still provide a lot of clamping pressure but are significantly cheaper than parallel bar clamps. And if you need a longer clamp all you need to do is go buy a longer piece of pipe

How much adjustability do they have?

If I got pipe clamps would I need to have a whole range of pipes just to handle standard work?

No, the pipe clamps still work for anything shorter than the pipe. One end of the clamp screws on to the pipe and the other side slides so it is very adjustable. But I would still recommend some small clamps like the quick-grip clamps or some F clamps.

I agree with the advice of all the other commentators, but I'll add a recommendation to have a few Irwin Quick Grip clamps on-hand (or similar). They're my go-to for 90% of just holding something in place for a moment (e.g. when drilling a hole with two pieces aligned).

You want a good pair of parallel clamps or pipe clamps too, for when gluing stuff, which can hold something precisely for a long time with a lot of pressure, but most of the time, you want something fast.

I also recommend a few clutch-style bar clamps, since a lot of time, you're reaching over something.

> It's less expensive than pre-made furniture.

Not a chance. Perhaps if you live in the Pacific Northwest, but outside of certain regions wood can be very very expensive.

The desk in my son's room cost <$100, and had I bought it commercially, it would have been >$1000. It's customized to his interests/hobbies. If it didn't have all the bells and whistles, it would have been <$50 (a few 2x4s and a spare chunk of wood I used for the top).

You're comparing apples and oranges, if you're building a desk out of some 2x4s and a spare chunk of wood, and comparing that to $1000 products. Undoubtedly the manufactured products are lighter, more robust, and made from better materials. That isn't to say that these desks are more suitable.

One could build a desk from even better materials than the $1000 desk; maple, walnut, mahogany, stainless steel, brass, whatever. But it wont be <$1000 for materials then, let alone <$100.

I'm in favour of DIY and think it's admirable that you would build your son's desk yourself rather than buy, but I think it's important to be realistic about the costs and materials. These costs were a surprise to me at least, after getting into woodwork/metalwork.

Nah. The costs are for specialization. Anytime you buy a specialized product, you're going to pay an arm and a leg. If you want to get a proper lab workbench (for just about any scientific/engineering discipline; that's not a generic thing), a proper studio desk, or what-not, you're going to pay an arm and a leg. That's not buying you a mahogany desk, so much as something well-suited to an esoteric task.

Compared to commercial, what he's got is:

1. Lighter (2x4s are light)

2. More robust (2x4s are tough)

3. Looks better (An off-the-shelf product would look better in a showroom, but this one fits his room exactly, and fits his equipment exactly; that makes a much bigger difference).

I'll mention: That's true for most of the crude furniture I make. I have fine woodworking, and I have not-so-fine woodworking. The fine woodworking pieces tend to be generic (e.g. a bookcase). The not-so-fine-ones tend to be special-purpose. Right now, I have custom stuff built up for remote work, for example, with cameras/cables/etc. properly routed.

Perhaps it's a regional thing then, in my country 2x4's aren't exactly cheap if you're buying enough to build an e.g. woodworking bench, and you need a planer even if they're pre-planed.

I'm currently planning a studio desk right now, funny enough. I could buy one for maybe €500, but just the heavy duty shelf sliders I need will be €70 for a pair. A pre-bought one will also have a light aluminium frame, whereas mine is going to weigh a ton with steel tubing.

Like you say though, if I make one it will fit the space perfectly etc. All in all it's worth it for me even if I personally don't save money

Funny that. I bought heavy-duty shelf sliders for $15 for a pair:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-18-in-Full-Extension-Si...

They're rated for loads up to 100lbs, and they're plenty tough enough to hold up a full-sized MIDI controller. They're stiff enough too.

If you're worried, though, you can double them up (two on each side). Now, you're at $30. Typically, when you double up, the load-baring capacity more than doubles.

I have a planer, but I didn't use it at all in this project.

Might be regional. US has a ton of land and resources, so maybe wood is cheaper here. You're pricing in Euros, and Europe is a bit more densely populated.

I wouldn't expect a beginner to have a planer. (Nor would I put it in the first $2500 of tools to recommend to someone starting out.)

Nor should they. A planner won't even get the board flat. It'll trim a small amount off the top.

Price list:

* Bosch drill/driver kit: $100

* Circular saw: $100

* Tape measure: $20

* Square: $10 x2 (one big, one small)

Total: $240. That's 1/10th of what you quoted.

"Step it up a notch" kit as next step:

* Random orbital sander: $70

* Router: $170

* Planer: $120

* Guides: $20

* Clamps: $100

And we're up another $500. Still a good ways short of $2500. And that's at current Lowes prices. If you wait a few months, you can find complete 5-tool kits on sale sometimes.

I don't think $250 is unreasonable to spend on a hobby starting out. If OP is at FAANG salaries, then dropping $750 isn't unreasonable either. And if OP is a student, use a university woodworking shop, or buy used. These things go for a song on Craigslist sometimes.

Planer (or belt sander) saves money in the long run. You can recycle (free) old wood, use cheap S1S2E wood, and similar. For the most part, you just want to build a lot of stuff. Given the random orbital recommendation, I thought of the two, a planer was more versatile. It has unanticipated beginner uses too. E.g. If you mess up and make something 1/16th of an inch too small, you can trim a bit, and it will fit. Or if you can't do layout/cuts precisely and well, you can leave a bit of margin, and keep trimming a piece of wood until it fits.