Class Description:

Building on the techniques we learned in Foundations of Furniture Making, this class will explore delicate and exacting joinery while building a carefully detailed side table.

Dovetails

Dovetails are all over this piece – from the socket dovetail that joins the legs above the drawer, to the through dovetails at the drawer back and the half blind dovetails at the drawer front. There are so many ways to cut this joint and we’ll look at them all. One method doesn’t work for everyone, so I’ll encourage you to look for a method that makes sense to your hands, your head and the tooling you have available.

Breadboard Ends

One of my favorite joints – the breadboard end – tells a story of craftsmanship and consideration. Tenons cut on the table top join to breadboards with pins and wedges. The joint is engineered to hold tight and allow movement at the same time. Glue is used sparingly in assembly and the draw bored pins do the heavy lifting.

Fitting Drawers

Cutting fine dovetails is great, but you need a place for them to go. There’s nothing better than a finely fitted drawer that runs on wood runners. We’ll dive into a traditional approach to fitting a drawer that leads to silky smooth operation, no matter the time of year.

Shaker Style

Drawing from examples of Shaker pieces, turned and tapered legs give us a chance to explore turning furniture parts. Transitions from square to round take a bit of practice, so we’ll spend a day at the lathe tuning in our finished cuts. Delicately turned pulls give us a chance to shape graceful small parts.

Prerequisite: I’d highly encourage taking my Foundations of Furniture Making course before this one. In that class, we really have time to dive into knowledge of wood as a building material – and the exacting methods of building fine furniture. The ability to make a mortise and tenon joint and accomplish exacting layout is essential to your success in this class. A basic comfort level with the tablesaw, bandsaw and router are essential. Coming into this higher level class without a solid background in the fundamentals of woodworking may lead to a difficult experience.

Required Tools:

• Dovetail Saw
• Marking Gauge
• Combination square
• Mallet
• Basic set of chisels (3/8”, ½”, ¾”)
• Layout knife
• Rabbet block plane or shoulder plane
• Card Scraper

Additional tools – not necessary, but if you have a favorite:

• Block plane
• Cordless drill
• Hammer – for tapping in pegs
• Turning tools – Spindle roughing gouge, skew chisel, beading and parting tool

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Class Description:

In this two day class we will explore the basics of machine and hand tool woodworking through three simple, functional, and engaging projects. Each student will make a serving/cutting board, a decorative bowl, and a spoon which will introduce them to basic milling, turning, and knife work.

This class is perfect for beginners looking to dip their toes into woodworking and find their favorite way to work with wood. Whether you are looking to work with machines like jointers, planers, table saws, and lathes or if splitting and carving with gouges and a slöjd knife are more your style, we will do it all and more in this class!

Cutting/Serving Board

For this project we will go over selecting and milling wood for a glue-up. We will go over the safe use of chop saws, jointers, planers, and table saws. We will touch on wood movement and grain direction as we prepare for glueing up our boards. Once the glue has dried, we will go over getting our boards to finished dimensions before shaping, sanding, and finishing them.

Decorative Bowl

For this project students will be introduced to bowl turning. We will start with the preparation of the bowl blank and how to attach it to the headstock of the lathe using a lead screw in a chuck. Then students will be shown how to use a bowl gouge to create the silhouette and foot profile for the outside of their bowl. We will go over sanding and finishing before removing the bowl from the lead screw and fitting the chuck into the foot of the bowl to turn the inside of the dish. Once the bowl has been shaped, we will sand and paint, if desired, before finishing it.

Simple Spoon

For the spoon carving part of this class we will go over the splitting of green wood from a log and then start with shaping our blanks with our desired silhouettes. We will go over the use of a drawknife and shavehorse to remove excess material from our spoon blanks before using gouges and hook knives to hollow out the bowl of the spoon. Lastly we will go over the use of a slöjd knife to smooth the surface and finish shaping the spoons.

All the tools and materials will be provided for this class.

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Class Description:

Join Amanda Lee and Hunter for a two-day deep dive into the construction of hand brooms. Turkey wings, round-trees, hawks-tails, and more are all on the table as we apply a variety of techniques to achieve advanced results. We will cover multiple forms & materials, decorative techniques, plaiting, braiding, and more.

Prior experience in broom-making is highly recommended. The prior broom class, Introduction to Hand Brooms will prepare you for this advanced class. please keep in mind that broom making requires hand- mobility and an amount of upper body strength.

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Class Description:

Join Amanda Lee and Hunter for an introduction to hand broom construction. We will discuss broomcorn, the tools and materials needed to make brooms on your own, and the essential techniques for building a broom that will last, all while making it look good enough to display in your home. You will learn to make several brooms in this high-engagement one-day class to keep for yourself or give as gifts.

No prior experience required. When applying, please keep in mind that broom making requires hand-mobility and an amount of upper body strength.

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Class Description:

Make your own Krenov-style wooden plane, the Brazilian way! In the words of James Krenov, the hand plane is the cabinetmaker’s violin. Much easier to handle than a violin, the plane sure has its mysteries and magical properties. Very useful in a wood shop for various processes, including making boards and panels flat and square, jointing boards for glue-up, adjusting joinery and even finishing, the plane offers an efficient and intimate connection to our favorite material. Building your own plane out of wood is within reach for everybody. In this class, we’re going to go over all the aspects of what makes a plane work well, from construction to setup and sharpening to how to deal with difficult grain. In the end, you will leave with a plane made by yourself to fit your hands and taste. And with enough knowledge to make many more. Special Brazilian woods like Jatoba and Imbuia will be provided for you to choose from.

Tool List:

– Bench plane (No.3 or 4)

– Block plane

– Saws (rip and crosscut or one ryoba japanese saw)

– Rasps (one fine and one coarser if you want to do all the shaping by hand)

– Chisel 1/2″ or 3/4″

– Small steel ruler

– Square

– Marking gauge

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Class Description:

We’ll build a contemporary green wood low back chair with a hickory seat in this 6-day class. Students will split pieces from a log, shape the parts on the shave horse, bend the back posts and slats, add the carved leg details, and completely assemble the frame before weaving in the bark seat on the final day. Final finishing to be done at home, once the chair and seat have time to dry.

Open to all skill levels. The slender parts, along with rake and splay, make for a fun and challenging build.

Students need to bring a small tool kit.

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Recommended Tool List:

Needed:

• Drawknife
• Spokeshave (Flat or Round bottomed, flat will be a little easier)

Recommended: (please bring – especially the first eight on this list – but don’t run out to purchase if you don’t own one yet)

• Pencil
• Utility or Pocket Knife
• Tape Measure
• Sliding Bevel Gauges
• Tenon or Dovetail Saw
• Sharp Chisels (1/4″ and 1″)
• Pocket Knife or (small) Straight Carving Knife
• Claw Hammer
• Handsaw (smaller crosscut saw – ideally a tenon saw, though most anything will do)
• Framing Square or 24″ Straight Edge
• Deadblow or Lump Hammer
• Block Plane
• Compass (scribe)
• Card Scraper

We’ll use/cover, but not needed: (please bring if you have them)

• bevel setting gauge or protractor (a way to find angle for the sliding bevel gauge)

Workshop Description

In this workshop we will carve a bowl straight from a log using both power carving and hand tools. We will rough shape both the hollow and exterior of the bowl with power carving tools, and refine the shape with a variety of hand tools. Variations on tools, techniques, and approaches will be discussed, as well as exploration into some fancy feet. Heavy emphasis on questions and open conversation about process is encouraged. All levels of experience welcome. 

Tools will be provided, but you are also welcome to bring your own tools. Please label them with your name before class, and be mindful that we will not be designating time for significant rehabbing of tools.

Note: My book, The Handcarved Bowl, covers a hand-tool specific approach to bowl carving. The techniques and tools in the book are still very relevant to the process we will cover in this workshop, but they may not all be covered in class.

You Will Learn:

• Basic Wood Properties – Wood and its relationship to moisture and drying, how to store wood for later use, control cracks, and how to welcome them and incorporate them into your design

• How to break down a log  – Where to cut, how to visualize your bowl within the log, when and where to embrace natural flaws and when to avoid them

• Design & Layout – How to use basic tools to form simple shapes, and how best to utilize the material for particular designs

• Safety – How not just to protect yourself while carving, but long-term practices and habits that will help keep you carving

• Tools and techniques – How and why tools work for specific cutting operations, when to switch tools, limitations of tools, how to use your body to maximize their efficiency 

• Sharpening – Though curved blades may seem intimidating, we’ll cover the basics of sharpening that will make any blade much more approachable.

• Finishing and Decoration – A discussion on finishing oil and paint. Demonstration and explorations on chip carving, pattern and texture

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Class Description:

This course gives novices a strong foundation of techniques for spindle, end grain, and faceplate turning. Starting with the essentials of sharpening, Beth teaches participants to work safely and effectively with standard turning tools such as spindle and bowl gouges, scrapers, and parting tools. She also shares methods for making custom tools to achieve professional-quality results.

Participants begin with spindle turning and progress through a series of exercises to learn sizing, fitting, hollow work, and bowl turning. Instruction covers everything from wood selection to finishing, as students create a series of projects. Beth discusses problem solving and the development of a personal turning style.

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.

Class Description:

Whether you are a musician who wants to learn woodworking techniques, a woodworker who would like to learn the elements necessary to create stringed musical instruments, or just someone looking for a fun week, this is the class for you!

Let an experienced professional woodworker guide you through the safe use of tools, including the bandsaw, router, drill press, and stationary sanders. Students will learn to shape with hand tools, properly cut and inlay frets, layout scale lengths, then string and strum the dulcimer guitar you create!

All lunches are provided at Pine Croft.