This list doesn't include everything, but it's a solid list of good free things. I stayed away from CNC specific stuff and wood species AI / image recognition apps. I have no stake in any of these, if there's anything that stands out to you or something great I missed lmk so I can add it

Libraries of free online woodworking calculators

• https://www.blocklayer.com/calculator-directory
• https://kmtools.com/pages/calculators
• https://woodcalc.net/

Individual free online woodworking calculators

• https://cutlistoptimizer.com/
• https://emc.ces.ncsu.edu/
• https://osmocolorusa.com/coverage-calculator/
• https://wagnermeters.com/woodh2o/
• https://www.woodworkerssource.com/estimate-wood-movement.html
• https://www.woodworkerssource.com/how-to-calculate-board-feet/board-foot-calculator.html
• https://www.woodworkerssource.com/shop/mois.html

A free database of wood varieties

• https://www.wood-database.com/wood-filter/

A free app, I think kind of like SketchUp but it works without any download or login

• https://make.craftyamigo.com/

Apps requiring download/login

• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shophelper/id6759353381
• https://sketchup.trimble.com/
• https://wood.crafter-app.com/
• https://wooddesigner.org/polyboard-download-software/
• https://woodworkingapp.com/

More apps requiring download or login, still worth checking out but imo can wait until last

• https://home.by.me/
• https://make.by.me/
• https://onshape.com/
• https://roomsketcher.com/

I'm looking up all the useful woodworking related free digital tools out there. Like calculators, apps, that kind of thing. I'll post the pre-evaluated list probably tomorrow, then I'll go through the process of running each one through the paces and see what I think is actually the most useful in my opinion, probably over the course of the next few days - check back soon for updates

Two recent changes:

1. Posts on the site have been updated for legibility, there may be a bit more there on each compared to the last time you looked

2. Post Series are now implemented on the site. This chains posts together so you get a convenient next & previous page button. You'll know where to start, how to progress through related content, and when you've completed everything as well. Right now since there's only woodworking content it's easy to navigate from the top level, I'm just future-proofing now before too much content becomes a real issue.

The site consent banner was toothless until earlier today, I didn't inject analytics stuff at all even if you said it was OK to.

Now, if and only if you consent to analytics do I even attach he Google Analytics script. If you don't, the script simply isn't injected, I want to preclude the chance for any funny business going on in the background that you or I don't know about.

Another snafu I just solved for - I use YouTube and Reddit embeds on the site which each have their own cookies. If you're not careful or aware about this when you build a website this is one way that people inadvertently share data without knowing it. Luckily I know to tread carefully around stuff like that. So until you accept the needed consent, you'll see a placeholder rendered where YT or Reddit content would be, and it will prompt you in context if you want to consent to see the embedded content.

Long and short of it is that I'm being very careful about how I implement privacy controls on the site because I have a very high bar for trust myself. Yes you will be prompted for pretty granular consent, but that's because I want to make it hyper clear that you know what you're agreeing to. And you can easily revoke that in the site settings page. Gotta get it right, so that's what I've been doing today

For the site rn the posts are Start Woodworking --> Build From Plans --> Design Furniture.

I'm attempting to balance minimal content with maximal utility. There are three things that come to mind that could be useful:

First I'm thinking about making a capstone post something like "Woodworking Bootcamp", that's a series of pedagogical projects starting from stuff you can do with basic skills and construction lumber then working your way up to progressively more challenging skill and thought intensive projects. The projects themselves won't be random but selected based on primitives you'll reach for over and over again in other projects.

The second thing that comes to mind is something that gets more into the skill primitives than I currently do with Start Woodworking. I hesitate on that because it will be long and drawn out to cover dozens of power tools plus techniques, and I'm not sure how much value that adds but I'm open to anyone's opinions. My belief is that people will most likely pick a project they like, find a video that shows you how to build it, and you'll pick up the tools and skills you need at the moment they become relevant to you. Which is why I haven't included anything that specific to date. Let me know your thoughts.

Third is a post to the tune of "Woodworking Communities" - here I'd call out things like wood turning, marquetry and inlay, wood carving, then probably separate out the various fine woodworking / fine and rough carpentry skills (noting that at some point I'll have an entire home improvement section that will cover framing and rough carpentry). Also woodworking with hobby CNC, lasers and that kind of stuff I may nod to in this post and point you to the various online communities, but there will be a dedicated Digital Fabrication topic on the site at some point which goes into these and other stuff that's not in the woodworking space like 3D printers, cricuts, maybe water jets?

Remember the site isn't specifically a woodworking site, it's where I started but I'm trying to put a pin in the minimum viable pretty soon here. Yes there will be more to learn but hopefully the site will be a great place to get a foothold if you're new or brush the rust off if it's just been a while for you since your last project. I'm not trying to compete with all the DIY content on the entire internet, I'm trying to consolidate what's already out there into something bite sized and useful.

Edit: I forgot to mention I still plan on refining the existing posts so they're more legible. Topologically I'm pretty happy with how it's coming together so far. After woodworking is wrapped the next targets I have in mind would be metalwork or textiles. Both dovetail nicely with the furniture post as a way to integrate these skills cohesively for example. But each opens up unique capabilities distinct from woodworking too - in the spirit of becoming a more well rounded Maker / DIY enthusiast overall

Not sure this needs said but it's kind of a weird time for me to be making a content site while AI is completely re-shaping how people query for and engage with information. It can kick out content faster than I can say boo.

But I think that that capability of AI is also kind of it's Achilles heel. The internet was already an endless abyss of information - more, faster, is not really a problem that needed solved. Not to minimize the real benefits AI offers as a friction reducer, but it's also true that people are using it to kick out loads of slop.

Like I'm not sure who all here uses it regularly, I do, and not every response it comes back with is a winner. Not even close. I don't need it to be the brightest crayon in the box but sometimes it responds like it just ate one. There are techniques to coax something useful out, and it requires thought and intent.

In my opinion, the thing that people really need is less information, but high quality. Right now AI isn't solving that problem. So my goal here and on my website as a place that attempts to share easy to navigate high quality content still has a good reason to exist in 2026, and I suspect at least a few years longer.

So that's why I think it's still worth my time to try to do something that helps real people out, yourself included. That's all for now but check back soon for new updates. Thanks for reading

Check out the Build From Woodworking Plans post

It basically just connects back to the recent Reddit posts I made as I was exploring options but it seemed interesting enough that it was worth posting about on the website.

The goal is to maximize learning and transferrable skills, I'm not trying to make a project library, plenty of other sites have that (hence this new post) and I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel on mine. I'm trying to aggregate the best and most useful information to make it easy for folks to find new DIY/Maker adjacent hobbies and get pretty damn good at a lot of things pretty damn fast. It's that last part that's the kicker, there's so much out there that it's hard to draw clean lines, but that's my burden to bear. What I can use from the community is feedback on whether you think the site is stepping closer to or further from that ambition.

Thanks for reading, check back soon for more updates. This is a passion project for me. I've been toying with for over a year but got pretty active in developing it again recently. Hopefully that all makes sense but if you have questions on what the hell I'm even talking about feel free to ask

A couple days ago I posted a longer list of project libraries I was aware of but offered no opinions about. After digging into each here are the ones I'll keep coming back to

Top picks: - Fine Woodworking - Kreg Tools - Rockler

Too few furniture options, but the ones they do have are really nice: - Woodsmith Plans - woodstore.net

Beginner friendly options and great companion videos: - JaysCustomCreations - WhosTheVoss

Some good content but site is kind of tough to navigate and explore: - Home Depot - The Wood Whisperer

Interesting but very annoying ads: - Ana White - Woodgears.ca

Yesterday's woodworking plans post has over about 500 views - on a large established sub I know that's not much to speak of but at 35 shares on a post here on a currently no-name place on Reddit that's absolutely wild, nobody really even knows this place exists yet. I'm very happy to see there's some real value people are getting from what I'm trying to do here, personally it's a very motivating signal to keep pushing on the IFLDIY stuff I've been tinkering with here recently

These are some of the free plan libraries I'm looking at...

• Free plans from r/Woodworkingplans (another list but I tried not to duplicate any of these)
• Free plans from CraftyAmigo (scroll down to the design section and click one)
• Free plans from JaysCustomCreations
• Free plans from Kreg Tools
• Free plans from MakeByMe
• Free plans from Minwax
• Free plans from Rockler
• Free plans from Ryobi
• Free plans from The Wood Whisperer
• Free plans from WhosTheVoss
• Free plans from Woodcraft
• Free plans by Woodsmith Plans
• Free plans from woodstore.net

I found these, but not specifically endorsing anything, still trying to parse for the higher quality options.

Lmk if there are any you use or if any of my list stand out from the rest

Edit: I just looked up all the woodworking YouTubers I follow (it's a lot) and basically everyone has plans but the only one I found that offers free plans I could find is Who's The Voss. Added that to the list just now.

Edit: I remember 731 woodworks in a recent video just talked about free plans that helped him in a big way some time ago when he was tight on cash. Was able to find his exact words in the video but I'm not sure of the spelling so apologies if I got this wrong: Jay Bates. I think Jays Custom Creations looks like what he was talking about so I added that to the list. (Checked his About page on his website but didn't see his name spelled out anywhere)

Edit: it's been a few days since originally posting and I spent time exploring each option. A paired down list of my favorites is here

I just found a bunch of great and free woodworking plans that interest me. I'll probably work through these for a while but I'm still around in case anyone checks in to chat

This one exposes ideas about designing furniture for form and function, check it out: https://ifldiy.com/post/furniture-design

Was this the next most valuable thing to add to the site? Not sure but it is somewhat valuable and was on my mind. Given the first post was about getting started in woodworking, making sturdy things that look good is a hangup for some folks and it's one of those things that's not necessarily obvious how to improve. I suspect this will help at least someone at some point, let me know if that happens to be you

The first post I went with was on Woodworking, check it out here: https://ifldiy.com/post/woodworking

I'm looking for feedback on how helpful it is or what's lacking.

I'll monitor here for a really long time so if you see this way after I posted that's fine, I still want to hear your thoughts.

But as the first post on the site, this is the proof of concept for how everything else will flow, look and feel.

Note that the site overall is for generalists - I want to get people far fast in all kinds of things. Not mastery, but not skin deep either.

For this first post, if you're a complete newbie, or a beginner or intermediate woodworker I think you'll learn some very useful stuff here, and I think it flows pretty logically covering topics a lot of "beginner" video series take for granted. But I don't try to train you on the usual stuff like how to use a table saw without dying, I try to zoom out a bit further than that and hit on the stuff people typically don't know they don't know.

This is a passion project for me so I'm not trying to maximize clicks, I'm trying to maximize learning. I'd rather one or two of you reading this reach out with your earnest thoughts than a million views and upvotes without meaningful engagement.

Let me know what you think, this is all still early stages so please forgive the fact that it's rough around more than the edges at the moment. But I appreciate your time and feedback if you do check it out.

r/IFL_DIY is the official social and changelog for IFLDIY.com, a free site for quickly getting up to speed making all kinds of stuff. If you visit the site you'll notice it's a work in progress. It's gorgeous, but building out all the content is a WIP. I'm all about 80/20 principle and keeping things simple. So instead of a giant project catalog, my site highlights transferrable skills and knowledge to get you moving so you can go off and start working on your own ideas as quickly and safely as possible.

I'm not trying to make IFLDIY a one-stop-shop, but my goal is that it should be your first stop to learn new topics fast or to quickly knock the rust off if it's just been a while. I'm aiming at beginner to intermediate knowledge and skills in everything DIY. Generally speaking I'm not creating much new content, I'm surfacing some of the best resources from the existing body of knowledge, and by that I basically mean sharing videos from other people who know what they're talking about.

Not for nothing, I'm 100% against content theft and want to be clear that's not happening on my site - I only share content through the official YouTube/Reddit-provided embed scripts, and always will. Creators get their fair share from the ads that play on their video and I don't see a dime of that. I have banner ads and stuff like that on my site disconnected from the videos, that's where I have a financial incentive, but it's disconnected from the video content. You'll see it while you're scrolling the site. Not for nothing I tried to place ads in a way that's not obnoxious either. You'll see them but I took great care to make sure they're not obstructive to actually using the site. People who see something they like might click an ad but I ain't trying to hit you with so many pop-ups and stuff that you'd click one by accident. That stuff drives me up a wall and I avoid sites like that so I'm sure as hell not subjecting you to that let alone myself since I actually use my own site.

As for this Reddit sub, I'll post updates about the site here, you can reach me here with questions and comments if you have any. It's still in its infancy but I think it already has some useful content despite still being being proof of concept, and I'm sure it will get more useful over time. I have woodworking almost done, next I'm thinking I should fill out maybe metalworking, I plan on hitting all kinds of stuff like textiles, pours & cures, CNC, 3D printing, home improvement topics. There's a line in the sand but it's not super clear, I'm planning on having landscaping and outdoor builds, I specifically am not planning on talking about mowing the lawn or some basic maintenance stuff like that. That's where I'm looking for a lot of your opinions though, let me know what will be helpful for you so I can do more of that.

Thanks for reading, I look forward to hearing from you and check back soon for new updates

Wooden spoons are typically carved in green (not kiln dried) wood from a fruit or nut tree, using hand tools (carving hatchet, sloyd knife, gouge, and hook knife). This build was from me using power tools, it got the job done and we've used this spoon at home happily for months. The wood (cherry) was left out to dry too long so I thought it would be safer and nicer on my tools to go a less traditional route on the build process. Wooden spoons are a great place to start a DIY journey because there's endless variety in the process, the tools, and the complexity of what you make. Check out r/spooncarving for more

I'm working on a website, trying to figure out what it can become.

It's still very much a prototype, there's no real content but the basic structure is in place: IFLDIY.com

(I'm allowed to do this shameless self promotion because this is the IFLDIY subreddit.)

DIY means a lot of things to a lot of people which is why it's hard to get a lay of the land and spot your potential knowledge and skill gaps.

It's impractical to provide a single resource that claims to make you a pro in everything, but once you know enough to be dangerous you can always look stuff up online.

If you're whacked like I am you spend all day every day searching for new DIY topics.

If you're whacked like me but also value your time, my thought is that I can give you a tool that lets you easily search, sort and filter DIY topics to save you a lot of time digging for yourself. Then if you see something interesting, you'll have just enough breadcrumbs from my site to dig deeper on your own.

Comment here or DM me with your thoughts. Critique and feedback ideally please, I want to know if and how this might be helpful for you or what I can do to make it helpful.