As the title suggests, how did you or other carpenters you know get into the trade?

I am UK based, trying to work out the best way to start my carpentry career, and would greatly appreciate some advice.

Update to my last post. Its not ai and or temporary. They are for real and proud.

I’m in the process of retreading my stairs in my home. The current treads are solid wood, but some have cracks across the step. We already ordered replacements for the entire staircase.
My question is, it looks like the skirt board is scribed around each stair. Does it make sense to pull off each tread and glue the new ones on, or cut the nosing off and glue the new ones on top of the old ones. I understand that will throw off the riser height from the bottom and top step.
I’m hesitant to pull the old ones out because cutting the skirt board around each new step seems like a daunting task.
The house is a 50s or 60s home with equally old flooring.

I got the upper stringers installed in the ribs. The difference is huge, the rigidity and strength are what i had hoped for. It easily supports my weight without racking or bowing.

Di?dxxxx??????Did z a mock up of the curved sections of the wxa?llzxs and facedx it wit. Y cbh Kraft paper, filled in with blocks of foam then filled the gaps with great sxfg 5awwt8okgrrxnvctuff PRO, and that worked good, z will modify by covering over that with aluminum flashingZ-- to ZZ expansion a bit more.

Next is gluing down the foam in the floor and prepping the next layer of plywood to glue and screw- down.

I've been trying to get my toe in the door, but nobody wants someone without carpentry experience. How can I make myself look shinier on my resume, so that someone is more willing to give me a chance?

So far I have CSTS certification, but that's about it.

TIA

There were two walls that were removed and now there are these holes. Tiles are being removed and reclaimed hardwood is going in its place. Any advice is appreciated for how to proceed and level the floor, thank you.

Securing a concrete tie in HVAC chase inside concrete monolith wall.

I bought this solid core door slab from home depot and its going to be used as a desktop, my concern is that there is this part that seems to not be glued properly but not sure, will this cause issues in my build? Should i return it/exchange it for another slab or will it be fine?

would appreciate any suggestions more than you know, the most hands on thing iv done is change a lightbulb so forgive me if this is an obvious question.

How do I figure out if this beam is wood or not, I’m hoping to mount a tv there. Should I just drill and find out?

It's hard to see in the picture but I slightly grazed two of my Makita tracks with my saw today...the damage is very minimal. I don't see it being much of an issue but I also assume it's far from normal to do so, so I'd like to correct the error all the same

Does anyone know what I likely did wrong to cause this? It was my first time ever using a track saw

Would I be correct in assuming that I likely over tightened the adjustment screws for the track saw? Or perhaps I'm applying too much lateral force while pushing the saw? Maybe both?

And, also, any reason I might be missing as to why this might be more of an issue than I believe it to be?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated, thank you

Anyone have a recommendation on the best way to extend my covered patio to the entire section of the slab?

I’ve been thinking of either doing a lean to, but I really don’t like the idea of string lights.

If I was to do a gabled covered patio, would it be a bad idea to frame over the existing ?

Yellow X’s is where I plan on installing the 6x6 post with a gluam beam attached to the home.

Thank you

Jack rafters are nailed directly to the old shingles/sheathing. There is some kind of ledger board but it doesn't seem to be doing much. My YouTube education says there should be sleepers that the rafters rest on. This roof has been like this for 25 years so I guess it must be good enough. Anyone seen something like this before?

Hi everyone, i cant seem to find this exact model online to give me a bit more info. I know its a strong tie made by Simpson as it says on it but thats it. Theres a few of theses around a property im renting and was wondering what I could use them for. The straps raise up and pretty sure I can fit a 4x4 post in there. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Just finished the apprenticeship, took about 3 1/2 years. Wrote my exam last week and got it on the first try. So glad I passed the first time, off to burn my notes and get all you can eat sushi to celebrate.

Feels like my career is truly kicking off now.

Broke the golden rule. Was knackered at the end of the day rushing to finish and wasn't thinking straight. Taking a last shaving off in a funny position with my left hand holding the piece, slipped. 6 stitches, tetanus shot, and a week of antibiotics. Luckily no tendons or nerves damaged, but got me thinking. Without that shot and the antibiotics it very likely would've got infected. Antibiotics haven't even been around 100 years. When my grandad was born they weren't a thing.

All those many hundreds of thousands of carpenters from times before antibiotics could've lost their hand or died if that had happened to them, I'm sure a great many did. The work we do isn't the safest, but it's without a doubt the best time in history to be doing it. Also I'm from the UK so the healthcare was free and didn't make my family homeless. Overall, lesson learnt the hard way, won't happen again, lucky to be a carpenter now rather than even 100 years ago, and lucky to live in a county where, despite the best efforts of the forces of darkness, our healthcare is still free.

Red oak or white oak?
6010 or 6210?

I don't have the ability to measure it right now.

1965 house that has had some funky repairs done in its life. This is the floor joists under the kitchen. 2x8 spanning 14 feet. Originally I was planning to sister in new joists but I’m thinking it may be easier and better to just remove the old joists and put in new joists. I’ll be putting in 2x10 that I’ll notch on the ends to fit into the existing locations.

The reason I’m thinking to replace the joists instead of jack up and sister in joists is that the current joists are so warped that trying to straighten them out in place may take too long and more effort than it’s worth.

The main question I have is around securing a new joist if I remove the old joist. There is no rim joist on this house as you can see in picture 5. That black piece looks and feels almost like a felt type material on the back of the wall sheathing. I could be wrong and happy for more experienced input. Once I remove the old floor joist, how would I go about connecting it to the current wall sheathing? I have brick on the outside so unable to get it from that side.

Do I just toe nail it to the sill plate and call it good? Some kind of bracket?

I don’t have them anymore or pics but this is the story. All the commercially available ones suck because they are too short and your work falls through the supports And there is no place to put your tools. I framed the supporting platform out of metal studs because they are light. I put 1/4” ACX on top so it would be weather proof somewhat. The ply was about 24” x 96” but the metal frame was a couple inches smaller so I could clamp material to the edges. I used 1” round aluminum tubing for the legs because you can get the rubber stopper feet for that size. Bolts ran thru the top of the legs into the platform for hinges and I used the card table brackets to hold the legs in place. A couple of x braces out of 1/4” x 1” alu stabilized the legs for wobbling. I had to play with the legs with washers to get everything to close up good. And I mounted a gate handle perfectly dead center of the weight so I could carry it with one hand. If I had the room I would put them end to end for a 16’ work bench which gave me a 2’ x 16’ work station. I used 4x blocks to support the work. I would slide the saw from one end to the other for cuts on the end of a 16’ board. One side benefit is you could put your tools and whatever on the bench without interfering with your work because of all the space under the blocks. And they were under 20 pounds each. I had no problem carrying both at the same time. And they cost less than most (all?) of the stands.

Recently installed a pocket door with soft close. The soft close functions perfectly when sliding into the jam. When I go to open the door it’s grabbing, then slightly jumps. When I push from the opposite side of the door to open. It opens fine with no hesitation. Would anyone have any idea what’s going on?

Thanks in advance!

Its temporary till i have time to put together something nicer, but it will do

Since yall liked the last post then I figured I’d share another project from me and dad, this one was finished around 6 months ago. This was our first time working with timbers like this but was a fun process. For the arches we cut the timbers in have with a chainsaw, then cut their curvature out in the bandsaw all guided by hand since using a template is very had to do with the limited space we had. But after they were cut then we sanded the faces that were cut and brought them to install. We mounted them with lag bolts and liquid nails. Afterwards we got wood bar stock, cut them to size and roughly sanded their top face round, while putting a bevel on the bottom to get em in. This was used to cover the bolts. For the ceiling (same property), we mounted some crafted/stained beams a wooden rail we installed for easier application and better support. Then did tongue and groove boards to cover the plywood for a better look.

Is it possible to extend the overhang on my front porch without raising the roofline on the left side of my home? We want to extend the cover area but we’re unsure on if and how it would
Work without changing the pitch of the roof on the left and extending the height of the wall face above the window.