First night of class

Just before everyone arrived. I have, with lots of help from Trent, milled the MDF that we will use to make shooting boards, milled poplar for bench hooks and cut the 6/4 cherry into leg length 6" wide chunks.

After building our bench hooks. We laid out our aprons and table tops on rough cherry boards with chalk or heavy pencil. Then the sawing begins. I taught everyone to saw and they begin by making all of their cross cuts. Jackie, despite never using a handsaw before, did every cut straight and square. Clearly the instruction was amazing or maybe Jackie is a natural.

Matt had handled a saw before and made all of his cuts like a pro. We are cutting from the bench top because some nameless person forgot to load up the saw benches that he had made specifically for the class.

Scott is contemplating a career change. He thinks that he could become a bench dog with just a little more practice...
Zach is cutting out his table top.

 Scott realizes that I'm recording his mad skillz.

Zach realizes that someone is getting picked on and checks to see if it is him.

Jackie starting a 42" rip cut. By the end of the cut she had wandered off less than an 1/8 of an inch. I wonder if I can get her as an apprentice?

And then the shot is no longer candid.

The whole group near the end of the session.

Everyone had a sweaty fun time using our cookie-powered tools, and the cookies were delicious.

Next session we will dimension our boards with hand planes and the shooting boards that we all built.

Bill