I sort of cheat, I guess?
I use metaphors and comparisons a lot: my brain is sorta wired up to try and equate something unfamiliar with something I am familiar with. They're not necessarily the same, but it's a stepping stone that gets me closer to it. I am not a religious person, so on face value it's hard for me to empathise with what it must feel like to have someone trying to "disprove" my beliefs. But, I am very scientifically minded, and I do know the way I react to people with superstitions, to conspiracy theorists, to the History Channel aliens guy, and to people who quote "wrong science". I also know how I react to people who mistakenly believe that Batman is better than Green Arrow. I know what it's like to be so passionate about something that you can't understand why someone else believes different... so if I'm writing a devout religious character, I try and draw on those things. It's not a perfect comparison, but it gets me close enough that I can fake it the rest of the way.
I find that you can use that approach with most things. Maybe there isn't one single thing that is similar to all of it, but you might be able to draw on little bits and pieces of familiarity. Maybe you've never carved a chair out of wood before, but you've probably tried really really hard to get something perfectly lined up or perfectly in the middle of something. You've probably done that thing where you make a tiny change, you take a step back, then make another, step back, and so on. You probably know what the weight of a chair feels like; maybe you've had some wooden furniture where it's come a little loose, and you've had to whack the legs back on with the heel of your hand. The details that make a description really pop aren't necessarily knowing exactly the right name or term that you found in a google search; it's remembering that time you got rope burn playing tug-o-war as a kid, or that time you picked up a wooden crate and jammed a splinter into your hand, and channelling that while you're working on a ship or at the docks. Reading up on terminology and processes is the easy part: it's the rest of the sentence that makes it seem you know what you're talking about.
At least, that's the way I go about faking it.