I taught a sharpening class last night at Woodcraft in Grand Rapids. Ten students which is about max for the size of their shop. Nearly everyone sharpened something. One of the best groups of students I've had, great questions and some really rough tools to sharpen/fix.
This information is not complete, its just a bunch of stuff off the top of my head. The companies listed are people that I have purchased things from and been happy with the service and products I received.
Recommended Reading, These are the books I consider to be essential, in the order I would recommend reading them:
The Essential Woodworker by Robert Wearing
Compleat Early Nineteeth Century Woodworker by Stephen Shepherd
Encyclopedia of Furniture Making by Ernest Joyce and Alan Peters
Mechanik Exercises by Joseph Moxon http://tinyurl.com/85qelv3
Mechanic's Companion by Peter Nicholson http://tinyurl.com/88ohq5k
Read Understanding Wood by Bruce Hoadley as well, I'm just not sure of it's proper position in the list.
Used Tools:
http://www.brasscityrecords.com/toolworks/new%20tools.html
http://hyperkitten.com/tools/ForSale/Tools_FS.php
http://www.blackburnbooks.com/Tools/HandtoolsForSale.html
http://www.jimbodetools.com/What-s-New-c67/ <- expensive because he caters to collectors
I'm sure there are many other fine books and tool vendors out there.
Bill
Friday, February 17, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Becoming a Hand Tool Woodworker: Build a Side Table
Becoming a Hand Tool Woodworker: Build a Side Table
It’s about building stuff. It’s not about dovetails or mortise and tenon joints. It’s about building things with your hands. It’s about honing skills and learning old ways of doing things. It’s about getting sweaty and making functional pieces of art.
Come learn with me about woodworking in a shop where you can listen to soft music and talk with your family or friends while dimensioning lumber. Come and experience the joy of using tools that don’t require hearing protection and don’t have safety warning stickers attached.
Together we will each build a side table in the style of the Shakers. The class will teach you to turn rough sawn lumber into furniture without plugging anything into the wall. Learn to work wood the way your grandfather did, with handsaws, planes and chisels.
Other courses of this type require that you pack up your tools, drive for hours, live in a hotel for a week and eat every meal in restaurants. Learn to build furniture with me, sleep in your own bed and have dinner with your family.
Students for this class should:
It’s about building stuff. It’s not about dovetails or mortise and tenon joints. It’s about building things with your hands. It’s about honing skills and learning old ways of doing things. It’s about getting sweaty and making functional pieces of art.
Come learn with me about woodworking in a shop where you can listen to soft music and talk with your family or friends while dimensioning lumber. Come and experience the joy of using tools that don’t require hearing protection and don’t have safety warning stickers attached.
Together we will each build a side table in the style of the Shakers. The class will teach you to turn rough sawn lumber into furniture without plugging anything into the wall. Learn to work wood the way your grandfather did, with handsaws, planes and chisels.
Other courses of this type require that you pack up your tools, drive for hours, live in a hotel for a week and eat every meal in restaurants. Learn to build furniture with me, sleep in your own bed and have dinner with your family.
Students for this class should:
- be excited about building furniture
- either own or be prepared to own the kit of tools (I suggest that you not purchase new tools prior to the first session)
- not be afraid to sweat and get out a little of breath now and then
- be ready to have fun and learn
- Notebook
- Pen
- Combo square
- Bench Chisels
- Sharpening system
- A Bench plane
Saturday, February 11, 2012
You can't beat good corn.
I did a sharpening demo at Woodcraft today. I do those pretty often. The demos are definitely different than classes. In the demos customers huddle around the work bench and seem to really enjoy the show. One employee counted 35 attendees another said the were 42, either number is fine by me. I work at audience participation and usually pull them in. I start the demos and the classes the same way every time, "How long does it take to sharpened a dull chisel? How long from dead dull to take your finger off clean sharp?" If I don't get quick responses I ask specific people. The answers come back, "Five minutes...fifteen minutes...depends on how quickly the mailman returns it...it's not actually possible..." I always hold up a hand and say, "twelve seconds" pause for effect "on a bad day." I then hold up a crappy old Marples Blue Handled turd chisel, spray my Shapton stones and spend about eight seconds on the 1000 grit stone and three or less on the 30,000 or 16,000-depending on which one I brought that day-wipe it clean and slice a piece of paper cleanly with it. Now I have their interest.
In today's demo I taught a young lady to slice hard maple end-grain to finish ready state in about 30 seconds. Had a couple guys check it out, smiled and told her that only Gary-the owner of the store-was more of a chiseler than she was. You can't beat good corn.
I talked about the physics of sharp and sharpening. I spoke briefly about oil stone, water stone, and sand paper techniques. I always go into maintaining your edge tools and sharpening system and how each system's difference is primarily in that maintenance and speed.
As always, I sharpened pocket knives for three or four people. Straightened out chisel edges and flattened backs-some rounded by the manufacturer-some rounded by the well-intentioned purchaser.
I always finish the demos with the announcement that the next couple of minutes are the infomercial. I then explain that the store pays me to come in and help the customers decide on the best will to lighten their wallets. I appreciate the fact that the store doesn't tell me to push anything. On the other hand, its clear that they can't pay me to do these things without a return on their investment. I enjoy going to the shelves with the last dozen or so people that have specific questions about products.
The demo was scheduled for an hour but I never leave until all of the questions are answered-three hours today. The store sold a bunch of water stones, some Shapton gear, strop material and buffing compound. Best of all my Sharpening class next week is now full. A couple folks signed up for my -still unannounced- Handtool Woodworker class. That's a pretty good day in my book.
In today's demo I taught a young lady to slice hard maple end-grain to finish ready state in about 30 seconds. Had a couple guys check it out, smiled and told her that only Gary-the owner of the store-was more of a chiseler than she was. You can't beat good corn.
I talked about the physics of sharp and sharpening. I spoke briefly about oil stone, water stone, and sand paper techniques. I always go into maintaining your edge tools and sharpening system and how each system's difference is primarily in that maintenance and speed.
As always, I sharpened pocket knives for three or four people. Straightened out chisel edges and flattened backs-some rounded by the manufacturer-some rounded by the well-intentioned purchaser.
I always finish the demos with the announcement that the next couple of minutes are the infomercial. I then explain that the store pays me to come in and help the customers decide on the best will to lighten their wallets. I appreciate the fact that the store doesn't tell me to push anything. On the other hand, its clear that they can't pay me to do these things without a return on their investment. I enjoy going to the shelves with the last dozen or so people that have specific questions about products.
The demo was scheduled for an hour but I never leave until all of the questions are answered-three hours today. The store sold a bunch of water stones, some Shapton gear, strop material and buffing compound. Best of all my Sharpening class next week is now full. A couple folks signed up for my -still unannounced- Handtool Woodworker class. That's a pretty good day in my book.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Hand Tool Woodworkers
On November 8, 2011 I wrote a post titled Care To Watch Me Work. Oddly it was the most popular post I've written on the blog by a small margin. Today's post is the same and yet the opposite. This time after watching me work I'm going to watch you work.
There are still some details to be worked out but it's close enough that I'm comfortable sharing some information. I'm teaching a hand tool only woodworking class for beginning woodworkers or beginning hand tool woodworkers. Each student of the class will construct a Shaker inspired side table with a drawer, as represented by this Google SketchUp image.
The table will be made from cherry. Students, upon request, can select Northern White Pine instead. The table stands 27 1/2 inches tall. The top is 18 by 18 inches. The drawer face is 3 1/2 inches tall by 11 3/4 inches wide. The legs are attached to the aprons with mortise and tenon joinery which will be completely hand cut and fit. The legs are attached to the lower front rail with a mortise and tenon joints and to the upper front rail with a half-blind dovetail. The drawer is assembled with through-dovetails in the rear and half-blind dovetails in the front, all cut and fit by hand. Students may modify the dimensions to suit their use, however, only after discussion with me to avoid unpleasant surprises at the end.
There are still some details to be worked out so some details may change. The class consists of five sessions held at Woodcraft in Grand Rapids. The first will be March 28 from 6:00pm until 10:00pm. At this session we will discuss why you may want to use only hand tools, my tool kit, the difference in designing for the hand tool mindset and what you can expect in the rest of the sessions. In this first session we will also build the most common hand tool bench accessories; a long-grain shooting board, a standard shooting board and a bench hook. We will use each to build the next. These bench accessories will be used in almost every other session. The remaining sessions will be Saturday April 7 from 9:00am to 6:00pm, Sunday April 8 from 11:00am to 4:00pm, Saturday April 14 from 9:00am to 6:00pm and finally Sunday April 15 from 11:00am to 4:00pm. In those 32 hours you will learn to turn rough lumber into boards and boards into furniture without noisy machinery. If time permits, in the last session the students will learn to French Polish.
Dates and times may change so stay tuned, more information will follow.
Update 2/7/2012: The first class date has changed from 3/29/2012 to 3/28/2012
Update2/6/2012: The sentence "The table is represented in cherry, and while students can select that for their lumber, they will be encouraged to make the table from Northern White Pine." has been changed to "The table will be made from cherry. Students, upon request, can select Northern White Pine instead."
Update 2/5/2012: Some dates have changed.
There are still some details to be worked out but it's close enough that I'm comfortable sharing some information. I'm teaching a hand tool only woodworking class for beginning woodworkers or beginning hand tool woodworkers. Each student of the class will construct a Shaker inspired side table with a drawer, as represented by this Google SketchUp image.
There are still some details to be worked out so some details may change. The class consists of five sessions held at Woodcraft in Grand Rapids. The first will be March 28 from 6:00pm until 10:00pm. At this session we will discuss why you may want to use only hand tools, my tool kit, the difference in designing for the hand tool mindset and what you can expect in the rest of the sessions. In this first session we will also build the most common hand tool bench accessories; a long-grain shooting board, a standard shooting board and a bench hook. We will use each to build the next. These bench accessories will be used in almost every other session. The remaining sessions will be Saturday April 7 from 9:00am to 6:00pm, Sunday April 8 from 11:00am to 4:00pm, Saturday April 14 from 9:00am to 6:00pm and finally Sunday April 15 from 11:00am to 4:00pm. In those 32 hours you will learn to turn rough lumber into boards and boards into furniture without noisy machinery. If time permits, in the last session the students will learn to French Polish.
Dates and times may change so stay tuned, more information will follow.
Update 2/7/2012: The first class date has changed from 3/29/2012 to 3/28/2012
Update2/6/2012: The sentence "The table is represented in cherry, and while students can select that for their lumber, they will be encouraged to make the table from Northern White Pine." has been changed to "The table will be made from cherry. Students, upon request, can select Northern White Pine instead."
Update 2/5/2012: Some dates have changed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)