Spring Harvest Fine Woodworking
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Spring Harvest Fine Woodworking
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Here are some photos of two students (husband and wife) learning some fundamental hand tool skills.
Here the couple hone their hand plane and chisel skills.
The sound of razor sharp tool steel hissing through wood is both rewarding and enjoyable (sometimes I make shavings for no reason at all!).
Few woodworking jobs are as rewarding and personally satisfying as plowing a groove with a plow plane.
Properly set, sharpened, waxed and in the hands of someone trained to use it, a back saw can accomplish amazing things. Assembling a project is very exciting!
Jeff concentrates on dovetailing his candle box.
Ken and Jerry learn to chip carve.
Gary, Gerry and Doug are seen here practicing traditional woodworking methods. The benches in this picture are adjusted at three different heights to fit the students. Here the student's heights vary from 5'3" to 5"11.
Here Doug, Gerry, Sue and Gary work to master the marking gauge. Although they are very focused here, smiles and laughter were plentiful.
Josh and Austin are two attorneys from Austin who had great fun working with old world hand tools. Josh prefers a wheel marking gauge to a pin marking gauge. The brace and bit were the first cordless drills. When the battery goes bad, it means you have to visit the doctor.
Will, Ken and Bob practice chopping mortises. It's much faster than you might think.
Jeff works efficiently by gang sawing shoulders on the skirts of the accent table project (with a beautiful antique Disston #4 tenon saw that he brought with him). Later, he planes the edge of a quarter sawn panel he glued up, flattened and thicknessed earlier. He completed all the parts for the table in less than two class meetings (about 12 hours total). He left only needing to paint the base, stain and varnish the top and assemble the table.
Sandra uses an antique wooden plane to shave the shelves flush with the uprights. She remarked that she likes this plane much more than the metal planes because it is much lighter. Joe and Sandra show off their finished shelves made using tapered sliding dovetails and painted with brick red milk paint.
Diane uses a chisel to pare the miters of her candlebox. Hand planes and chisels are her favorite tools.
Heidi uses a wood rasp and Jo Lynn a bench chisel and mallet to shape their spoons out of cherry wood. The secret of course is to start with a block of your favorite wood and carve away everything that is NOT a spoon.
Barbara and David use chisel and mallet to roughly and quickly shape their spoons. Olive and David use spokeshaves to refine the shape of their spoons.
Joe, Vanessa and Paul show their cherry spoons oiled and ready for use. Vanessa shapes her spoon with a rasp.
Joe and Paul split out waste wood to form the back of their spoons with mallet and chisel.
Jim chops a mortise. A mortise through an inch and one half thick board can be chopped in about ten minutes by an experienced hand tool woodworker. Kim flattens the bottoms of his tapered sliding dovetails. Following only a few simple rules, the beginner can make this often feared joint with great success.
Linda saws the tenon portion of her mortise and tenon joint while Tom cleans out the mortise. Rosemary and her niece show their wonderful shelves that they completed together. Although my classes are normally restricted to those over 18 years of age (sharp tools), I figured (since the remaining work for Rosemary's shelves was painting, gluing and a little hand planing) help from little hands was okay.
Long strokes in the direction of the grain before the project is assembled is the secret to a great paint job. |
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GHuron@springharvestfww.com with
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