Hacker News Reader

Comment by derwiki | Hacker News Reader

1) learning guitar. Bought guitar and didn’t make much progress. Took Zoom level 1 guitar and now I’m good enough that it’s fun to try playing songs. 30 min/day. Prefer over others because: I love music with good guitar parts, it has been mentally stimulating, fun to do with others

2) woodworking. Bought table saw, then router, specialized tools. Watched 1-2 hours/day to learn stuff on Youtube (Steve Ramsey, etc). Find a project, it can suck as much time as a fun programming task. But projects are key. I started with step stools and moved into picture frames and patio furniture. Still not good at detail work but better at hiding mistakes. Why this: scratches same building itch as programming but diff domain, requires math and spatial reasoning, helps a lot with home ownership.

View on HN

I started woodworking again last year; something I took a decade break from due to space and money. I still don't have enough space for all the machines, but after thinking about it I decided that this time I would work with hand tools.

I find it fascinating how much my perspective has changed. In the past I felt that hand tools were past their time since they are slower and require skill while machines require thinking first and skill second. Now I am well into my engineering career and I am happy to do something that does not scale and does not require anything electric.

If you are interested in woodworking but don't have much space you can try hand tools. They still need an area that you can make quite messy, but that area can be only a few square meters.

Here are a few photos of my "shop" [1], it is situated at the step between my office and the rest of the house.

[1] https://photos.app.goo.gl/3D9kWL6goFK49RPH8

Similar experience with woodworking. During the pandemic, I ended up doing a lot of work on a relative’s farm (eg. installing fence posts, building new barn doors, turning an old boat trailer into a utility trailer). Not only did I enjoy working with my hands, it was refreshing to not be able to Ctrl+Z mistakes away.

Since then, started acquiring tools to pursue woodworking at home and am really enjoying it. I also find myself going down YouTube woodworking rabbit holes often.

It appears indeed to be the same itch. I know a really good programmer who started doing artisan (hand tools only, fine wood etc) furniture as a hobby and is now apparently accepting orders for his work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com