In the contemporary age, every conventional job in one or the other way does have a presence over the Internet. It is a phase, where even a small store located in Brown County of the Wisconsin State can make its presence known worldwide with the help of online platforms. Similarly, a small store owner can distribute his or her products worldwide through various retail portals online and reach the desired target audience like never before.
The woodworking industry is also not an exception to it, as there are professional woodworkers in every corner of the world keen enough to share their prowess and skills with the world. Like an unwritten rule applicable in all types of markets, few of them succeed and most of them not!
But if there is a brand consistently offering so-called ‘best woodworking plans’ for the past many years, bifurcating the entire community of reviewers in terms of opinion, then it is pretty obvious to come under the radar for scrutiny.
Introduction To Ted’s Woodworking Plans
Ted’s Woodworking plans are a series of paid digital resources in which Ted McGrath has assembled his lifetime archives of woodworking ideas with frequent updates (addition and deduction) as per the changing trends. The entire resource package is marketed as the ‘Bible of Woodworking’ by the makers with a plethora of contemporary woodworking plans to choose from. With over 16,000 commercially viable woodworking projects, the package features instructions that are easy to follow and do come up with elaborated blueprint of the assignment of your choice.
The key objective of writing down Ted’s woodworking review is to clear the air and put a brake on the speculations that are circulating online about this woodworking package. Here, I will share with you the fact whether the product offered by Ted is as impactful as Ted McGrath claims it to be, or is it simply another marketing hoax to cajole you to click the order button and regret later.
I am keeping this review limited to my own purchase experiences and would try to shed light on both sides of the coin i.e. equally emphasizing both the pros and the cons associated with this woodworking package online.
So with that, let’s get on with it…
The Circumstances That Lead To The Purchase
Being a professional carpenter myself and working in this industry since 2010, I have come across various carpentry needs from time to time. Though with the grace of God, in my professional career in the last one decade, I never experienced a big loophole in my craftsmanship but whenever finished my woodworking project, I wondered would it have been done with more finesse? Is it possible to achieve a better quality of work with less investment in money and time?
My purpose of exploring the utility of Ted’s woodworking plans was to broaden my art of craftsmanship and identify the errors that I was committing on the professional front.
I visited various blogs and forum posts offering Ted’s woodworking plans review and found myself inside the labyrinth of contradictory opinions from an immense number of review handles.
There were many questions revolving around my head with no legit source to deliver the right answers. I found it challenging to identify whether –
- Ted’s woodworking review an honest customer opinion or not,
- and if it is not the right woodworking plan, then why the DVDs of Ted’s package are the bestsellers across the Internet?
- Are these users using the package incorrectly and then holding the company accountable?
- What if this whole negative promotion campaign is merely a facade to promote a competitor’s product instead?
I decided to make the purchase myself and forge an unbiased opinion based on my personal experience with the original Ted product.
I ordered both beginner woodworking plans and advanced woodworking plans of Ted from the official website. The best part of ordering Ted’s woodworking plans from the official website is that you can either order a conventional DVD edition and wait for it to reach your postal address or instantly download the entire package in the digital format and access it in no time. Please note that if you are keen to order the DVDs, then you are required to do the same from the member’s area. If you are downloading the digital package in the PDF format, then all you are required to have a sound, uninterrupted Internet connection. I do have fast Internet connectivity and easily downloaded the whole package at a discounted rate in no time.
How Was My Experience After Purchasing Ted’s Woodworking Plans?
It is an Overwhelming Collection of Carpentry Projects, Ideas, and Tips!
More or less, there are 16,000 woodworking projects featuring a widespread range of applications right from furniture and cabinet woodworking plans to wooden toys plans for kids. If you have opted for carpentry as a hobby, then its step by step instruction manual can help you build the project right from ground to the top without any professional intervention. Besides, there are many DIY woodworking plans that would keep your kids engaged during their summer or winter breaks and induce them with the creativity of the next level.
Detailed & colorful schematics like this, so that you don’t have to guess anything ( Perfect for beginners & professionals ):
As a professional woodworker, my prime area of focus was the custom woodworking plans that enabled me to outfox my existing abilities and how can I deal with the client assignments with a better vision and approach. And trust me, the whole package along with the added bonuses can make you a better craftsman as a whole. It helped me to work on my weak areas and hone my skills in a better way.
Here, allow me to throw some light on the pros and cons associated with Ted’s woodworking project. I will only mention the advantages and disadvantages that I personally came across and the ones that I can intimate you about with utmost confidence. Once you get familiar with them, I will let you get familiar with my verdict and leave the purchase decision entirely up to you.
Categories & Ted’s Wood Projects Examples
These are the categories of Ted’s woodworking projects & all of them contains a few wood plans with a schematic diagram:
These are a few examples of projects that you can make:
Customers Feedback On Ted’s Wood Plans
Pros & Cons of Ted’s Woodworking Plans
The Pros:
The art of carpentry is largely dependent on external information and the customization of any design is based on the list of materials, plans, dimensions, etc. While using Ted’s woodworking projects package for the last 3 months, I came across some of the positive features associated with the package that I would like to share with you down here.
✓ Step-By-Step Instructions Process: I found the instructions in a detailed manner to build various projects. As the instruction manual is in digital PDF format, finding a specific instruction step or switching between the pages is much easier. You can arrange all the required accessories for the project in advance and get the work done at a faster pace by swiftly passing through each step.
✓ It Helped Me Save Wastage: How good it would be if you can get the measurements for the materials in advance? It would help you save time and curtail the amount of waste. Now, a smart craftsman is going to know how not to spend hard-earned cash on over wrong wood, wrong quantity, or wrong accessories.
✓ The Schematics are Well Elaborated: It took me over a week to go through the colorful schematics provided with each plan. After glancing through them, one thing is for sure that there would not be any guesswork involved after you get a clear picture of what Ted is trying to convey with his sets of visual instructions. Once you understand them, all your puzzles would “fit” into places and your project would build itself.
✓ Detailing from All the Angles:Finding exactly how the things would look like before you build them is not the luxury that everyone can afford. If you are investing in a large size project, then you might require to make a 3-D model or miniature from an architect to see what your final product is actually going to look like.
I found several cool woodworking plans in my downloaded package with images featuring intricate details from every angle, every joint and corner. I created benches, shelves, toolbox, containers, and the dog house with the help of representative images and found the finely crafted products quite identical to them.
While writing down this review, I am implementing bed woodworking plans, cupboard woodworking plans, desk woodworking plans, and birdhouse woodworking plans suggested by Ted and would update this section in the future with both positive and negative experiences encountered in the same.
✓ Found it Ideal for Professionals & Beginners Alike:I found the projects and instructions crafted in a language that can be easily read and understood by the workers with different competence and skill-set. The language and instruction manual is working pretty well for a woodworker like me with a decade-old skill-set and so to Dane, an amateur woodworker interning at my workshop for the past two months. In short, it is a good choice for woodworkers to function at different levels.
✓ Simple Language and Lifetime Assistance:The American woodworking plans offered by Ted McGrath are explained in a very simple language. Even the most professional terminologies are put forth in layman’s terms for an easy understanding of the masses. It does not matter whether you are looking for antique woodworking plans or baby crib woodworking plans, the package in pdf format can easily work at different levels.
Additionally, there is lifetime access to all the members with no extra duty or fee required to pay. The benefit of this lifetime membership access would be the fact that for all your DIY projects, you can come across the updated information absolutely for free. For instance, 10 years from now, coffee table woodworking plans would not remain as same as they are today. Any update to the work approach, accessories, or technology would be shared with the member without charging an extra penny.
✓ The Bonus Material Along with the Package:I received a drawing and CAD plan viewer along with the package without paying an extra sum. I took the help of the software twice and found it’s working pretty fine. Additionally, there is a package of 150 woodworking videos that I personally think can help a lot to the beginners who have just entered this line of business. On my personal learning level, I did not find these videos of much help as they are primarily focused on the basic skill sets. Yes, there is a 200-page woodworking carpentry guide that I somehow found really interesting. The guide carries a list of off-the-book tips and tricks that only come with smart work and experience. When I went through this list, I wondered why these tricks didn’t come into my mind in the first place?
✓ Surprisingly Well Organized:When we learn about Ted’s woodworking 16000 plans, the first thought that crosses the mind is that how we are going to organize such a pile of digital information? But when I went through Ted’s woodworking plans pdf, it did not take me much time to figure out what is where. I easily reached the desired sections of the book and found different folders with proper labeling ensuring ease of navigation.
For example, when you are looking at children’s woodworking plans, then you will find the wooden toys category, crib woodworking plans, etc. well organized and within the designated categories only.
✓ Money-Back Guarantee:Now, this is one feature that I am not 100% percent sure whether it would actually work or not. It is primarily because I am using the package for the past 3 months and not intended to return it back. But yes, the product comes along with 60 days money-back guarantee scheme for those woodworkers who are not satisfied with the package. So, if you are thinking to buy woodworking plans from Ted, then you need not worry about losing your money to an unfair deal. If you are thinking that it is not rightly meant for you, then you can simply log-in to the member’s area within 60-days of purchase and put forth the reasonable points of returning back the product and your membership deal would be canceled and order price would be refunded.
The Cons
There is no product or service in existence that is free of negative features. It is not necessary that a feature problematic to one user can affect another user in the same sense. But there are certain features that pose serious problems for all the members in common. Ted’s woodworking package is also not an exception to it! The following are some of the prominent cons that I personally believe might affect the woodworkers.
✗ Difficult for Conventional Woodworkers: Though when we look at our country woodworking plans, we normally find the woodworkers to be extremely techno-savvy and employ machine as a medium to hone their artistry skills. But if you are an individual who prefers to depend on guides and books with hardcover binding and tangible pages, then you might find it difficult to scroll through the soft pages in front of a standard size laptop screen or desktop monitor.
✗ Downloading Time: The size of the entire download package is humongous and comprises 16,000 projects along with the bonus items. Here, I am not going to mention the exact size, as it has been 3 months and along with the new updates it would vary. If you are having a slow Internet connection, then it might take several hours for all the projects and blueprints to land on your system.
In my case, due to a swift and reliable Internet connection, it downloaded within a matter of a few minutes. If you are having fallible connectivity to the Internet, then it is recommended to upgrade to the DVD edition and get the order delivered to you via courier. Just visit the member’s area and confirm your order for the DVD edition there.
✗ Broken Links: Now this is a problem that I personally experienced for the past couple of weeks. I visited bookshelf woodworking plans, cedar woodworking plans, and cradle woodworking plans in the member’s area and found the links to them to be broken. It might discourage users who are frequently visiting the member’s portal for updates. I do not know whether it happens occasionally with the official website but it happened to me more than once. I do not find it to be a problem with my Internet connectivity, as there have been several users on different forums complaining about the broken links. I hope, the makers of the website focus on this technical glitch and rectify it asap.
✗ It Might Appear Overwhelming at First: When so many projects pass right from the front of your eyes, it would appear a little overwhelming at the first glance. When I downloaded the package and opened it for the first time, the obvious question that was on my mind was how am I going to utilize a package with 16,000+ files? I admit the fact that it would take some time for you to navigate through all the files and folders. I would advise you to first go through the projects that are the priority and interest you the most. The projects are classified into categories, hence once you access a folder, you can explore all the related projects right in one place. I found that the files in pdf format, video formats, and other file extensions are pretty easy to identity and use.
✗ Not All Projects Are As Relevant As Claimed: I was well aware of this fact even before downloading the package. When I was navigating through some of Ted’s woodworking review forums before confirming the order, I found a couple of users claiming to successfully realize all 16,000 projects in their workshop. I knew it was a hoax right at the moment it caught my eyes but that does not mean that you can argue, is Ted’s woodworking a scam? I personally think they are just a couple of zealots eager to get the attention online.
My personal opinion is that not all the 16,000 projects are relevant as claimed by Ted’s marketing team. Of course, you are not required to practically implement the woodworking plan to see whether it is relevant or not. I went through some of the provided blueprints and the accessories recommended to finish the work and did not find them to be 100% pertinent at all. Obviously, that is the gut feeling you can count upon with the field experience of so many years!
With that, I would like to end my Ted’s woodworking plans review with the above-listed pros and cons. I hope the efforts would have helped you to find answers to various aspects before pressing the order button to buy woodworking plans from Ted.
Final Conclusion
Now, finally answering the question of whether is Ted’s woodworking plans legit or not, I would say this brainchild of Ted McGrath can work wonders in your woodworking career. It would help to improve the current skill-set of yours and add new ones during the course of learning. That is the reason why based on my personal experience I can say that the package is not a scam and not a bad deal for a one-time payment. There are several bonus accessories and timely updates in the future, which can have a lasting impact on your woodworking business.
We all know that no one is going to make use of all the DIY woodworking plans available with the set, but most of the plans you seriously delve yourself into would not disappoint. It is going to change the way you look at the art of woodworking once and for all.
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