Paul Sellers

More Pins than Tails

Paul Sellers — Tue, 21 May 2013 07:23:39 +0000

More tail makers than pin makers

Of course there are always more pins than tails, that goes without saying, but does the tail wag the dog? In the overall scheme of things I might reason that in over 97% of cases, woodworkers cut the tails first and make the pins follow. So in this case, the tails predetermine that pins follow the tail in like fashion that form always follows function in the real world of non-fantasy craftwork. I am constantly reading (and being told) that there are two ways to cutting dovetails and people are always telling me there are many ways to do this or that and that there is no one right way if both ways work. As a kid I learned to ride a bike backwards sitting on the handle bars and steering with my body between my hands on the handle bars. Both ways worked. When someone cuts one dovetail joint dovetails first and then their second dovetail pins first, they might asses the two methods to be equal. My view is that a person might want to cut a hundred or so using each method so as to become proficient and then ask themselves which is their go-to method. Therein might rest the truth and even an absolute. In my experience most woodworkers who never mastered the art made maybe one or two dovetails and failed. The joint was loose and they gave up because of their own unrealistic expectations of that ever evasive illusion we call perfection. Hating any kind of failure, they instead substituted their developing the skills needed and resorted instead to using a router, dovetail bit and dovetail jig. They donned their gladiator kit, bought into the extractor system and became firm believers that the router system was the superior way and therefor the only way to go. One drawer later and after many hours of setup, they put it away and never used it again.
These are the projects we made through the woodworkingmasterclasses.com series two months ago. Some students in last week’s nine-day Foundational Course workshop (just completed Sunday) found themselves surprisingly ahead of those who had not yet discovered this teaching resource.
I make several dovetail joints in a week as a matter of course either for making or teaching. Mostly both. Probably about 20 at least. I have done that most of my life, but let’s say I only did it for half of my working life as a woodworker full time. I always work a six-day week without exception, so that translates into 1000 dovetail joints a year if I take two weeks off. On a most conservative level then, I have made 25,000 dovetail joints over the past 25 years. It’s actually more likely I have doubled that and I can say that the only time I have favoured pins first is in repair or restoration of previously completed work where pins already existed. I think that if someone wants to cut pins first and prefers that method then they should stay with it and enjoy it. Teaching both methods has value too.
Have I ever used a router for cutting dovetail joints?
Never. Two people have told me that to be a teacher true to my cause I should have at least tried it once. One was a magazine editor and the other a woodworking teacher who taught machine only methods. It doesn’t take me too long to determine what takes skill and brings peace and what is quite dull and uninteresting. It’s kinda nice to be able to say after 52 years since I picked up tools that I never cut a dovetail by machine. A close friend of mine, a highly skilled professional hand tool specialist, still laments the day he made a dresser with 8 drawers in it using a router and dovetail jig for the first and only time. He was instructed to get the price down by his bosses and he was slow but good.
I think ofttimes it is true that we stick to the first method we were taught and indeed if you sat under one woodworkers instruction you might adopt his method even though it might be the least popular of the methods available. Of course we all know that that’s not necessarily the best or right method, but hopefully we will be open to considering other methods, try them, and make a decision responsibly. I did look at a router one time to see if that was where I wanted to go. I am as much an expert in machine woodworking as I am in hand tools, so that wasn’t an issue, and I indeed use a router for some tasks, about once a year I suppose, but routing when it’s unnecessary or it substitutes for developing skill is not an option for me. There I draw the line. Now, having said that, it is not too late for anyone to master the skills and in reality this is indeed so much easier than you might think. Today I sharpened 18 dovetail saws in 42 minutes ready for the next dovetail class in three weeks time here in the USA. From this time on I have just decided that students can bring their own tenon saw and file and sharpen their own personal saws. I will teach them this, I will teach them to cut dovetails and they will have the skills for the remainder of their lives. How about that!

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More on Tails and Pins

Paul Sellers — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:17:52 +0000

The question of awls and knives came up several times in referring to the previous post on tails and pins in dovetailing. Awls used for marking out dovetails has become an issue with traditionalists and lines left in across the tails accepted as a relevant witness of tradition seems well accepted. I have seen this throughout my life in looking at old joiner and cabinet maker’s tool chests and some marked all the way across with a round semi-pointed awl while others used a knife wall. Still others used a knife and some used a cutting gauge. Awls were simple tools in general and a lot more accessible in the pre-pencil age when layout was with a steel marker. The awl was of course the obvious choice but not for neatness but more practicality. On building super structures such as timber framed buildings and large doors , door casings, paneling, frames and such, what’s called a scratch awl in the US and a striking awl in Great Britain was the method of marking out for joinery and identification of components. Chisels too were used for this type of marking.
Different books and articles expose the calibre of craftsmen past. Some woodworkers prefer a more puritan approach and thereby lay claim to traditionalism over our more modern expressions where dovetail and pin shoulders are cut within the recess to distinctly separate the boundaries of the recesses from the remaining material. This clean-shaven look to dovetails is therefore rejected in favour of retaining tradition. Whether that’s the right thing is of course individually appraised. I would most likely not do this as it is no quicker than simply pacing the knife wall with the knife really. I teach and use the combination of pencil followed by knife so that temporary marks laid on with the pencil can subsequently be delineated with the permanent knife-cut shoulder lines I need for perfecting my work. This was how I was trained and indeed many craftsmen from my era. Replicating an early piece for museum work in say a series, I might indeed preserve the authenticity of method and use a gauge or a striking awl or knife, but in my everyday work I find the knife line definitive and uncompromising.
Cutting dovetails takes practice to deliver quality work. Last week we taught another nine-day Foundational Course and that included making the Shaker candle box I first taught back in 1988. The class was full with 18 people making the box and for the main part, all of the dovetailed boxes were the first boxes everyone made. I have to say that most of the boxes were very well made using my methods and that each corner improved, with the last corner being the best. This is an important record for the students in that the box itself is secondary to the skills taught and subsequently mastered. I would not teach the awl or marking gauge method because of tradition though we do often discuss this as a historical consideration. I am often amused by visitors who pass through my workshops, look at the dovetails and say something like, “I cut dovetails once in school,” or, as happened last week, “I cut a dovetail by hand once. I just felt like I had to do just one so that I could say I had done it, but then I used a router after that.” He, as with many machinists, felt like that was the step to more advanced methods using machines when in reality he never reached any level of perfection or skill but of course substituted for the discipline that would have made him highly effective. I read another passage where the author talked about the experience of cutting a few dovetails as though that somehow qualified as a badge of merit. Describing the process as not that difficult, I realised that most people really fall short in discovering the art and craft of woodworking because they are always looking for something new and more stimulating. A bit like a a kid in a toy shop. A friend of mine once went home from the workshop I had just taught on dovetails and came back six months later to make a coffee table with dovetails in the construction. His dovetails were so perfect they amazed me. I asked him about them and he said he had gone home and his wife said they didn’t have the money but they need twenty Christmas gifts for relatives. They decided to make Shaker candle boxes for each present and that’s what they did. He said that by the time he had made the twenty boxes he had the process down. So, there are just six months left to Christmas.

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Tails and Pins – Which is Best?

Paul Sellers — Sun, 19 May 2013 10:24:41 +0000

This highly provocative issue is a regular question for me and I usually avoid the controversy. I might be guessing here, but I would say that from my personal experience, most woodworkers who actually made their living from furniture making and woodworking in general cut their tails first. of course everyone is entitled to their opinion whether they are right or wrong. It’s a strange new world this world that changes with each typed symbol that others occupying the globe read, judge and pass opinions on as though just opinion alone somehow mattered. Many write that there are many ways to cut dovetails after they tried but two methods and then then made two or three dovetails before realising that there may be many methods to make the cuts, but that there are not but a couple of methods to sequentially cut them, if you see what I mean. Distilling out the fiction of pluralism just a tad takes out the excesses of verbiage and leaves you with actual task that we woodworkers who ‘do’ woodworking do. Generally, you either cut a pin or a tail first. Which ever one you choose first means that the other quickly follows. Because a small minority of people cut pins first, I take it that the tails is the better, more practical way forward, but I don’t discount that the ‘other’ method works preferentially for some people.
Resolving mistakes
I cut pins first only because I made a mistake. I don’t need to throw away a piece of wood that’s already fitted with dovetails to a previously made corner. The adjacent dovetailed effort may have failed because a piece of wood split wrongly or something and so I then cut the new tail piece from the existing pins. This is logical and resolves the issue. Like many things in life I have a choice of just two ways to do some things. I can walk forwards and see the future or I can walk backwards but not see where I am going. I cut tails first because cutting from the outside on push strokes using my native western-style saw means the outside fibres are supported as I push into the main body of wood. (That’s also the reason I don’t use Eastern-style saws too.) This means that I don’t get broken fibres on the visible outside corners of my dovetails (very logical, really) and so, when I press my dovetails together the corners are in tact and the dovetails look pristine. If I cut the tails from the pins I must then cut from the inside toward the outside face of the joint and the risk is that the crispness I seek can be lost. Aside from that, every craftsman I ever worked with, that guided me through my formative years to become a craftsman, cut their dovetails before they cut the pins. I never met a practicing craftsman from my youth who cut pins first. Knowing both ways means that repairs can be made when something goes wrong. Add into the equation that it is extremely difficult to cut half-lap dovetails accurately using the pins-first method, it makes sense to cut tails first as a matter of course. Understand that though we call through dovetails common dovetails, it is relatively more common to cut half-lap dovetails than through or common dovetails.

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Four days left of the nine-day course

Paul Sellers — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:47:23 +0000

Today was the fifth day of challenging work but progress brings new confidence, a few jokes, some kickback to absorb the changes and a sense of genuine wellbeing that’s hard to match on a computer keyboard. The days past fast now we all have the second project done we are ready to tackle the oak table. We dished out legs for surface planing and most everyone went straight to the diamond plates to sharpen up their number four Stanley planes. Some already have it. They have followed my training on the woodworkingmasterclasses.com coursework and have also followed this blog’s structured teaching that emphasis simple methods that really work. It’s really neat knowing that they understand the methods we teach and have incorporated them into their lives for better work and close-to-the-core elements of our Real Woodworking Campaign. Accuracy has always been key to what we teach and that goes along with the techniques that simplify what’s become more complicated year by year.

Today, seeing the shelving units come together, means we have crossed one more bridge toward true simplicity in that we can cut accurate housing dadoes as quickly as most machine methods and with an accuracy that parallel some very sophisticated equipment. Throughout these US courses we use the Veritas router for jobs like this. This tool knows no equal when it comes to dialling in the exact depths we need for dead accurate housings such as the ones we use in making bookshelves. Stanley and Record once held the market but now the more refined makers have become well established in just about every continent. I get emails from mainland Europe asking me which router to buy. Veritas has become my stock answer.

We have an awareness of family here in the classes as people often talk about their families and especially their children. Snoopy came along to supervise Richard’s work here a couple of days ago. We took the picture to show how inclusive family ties need to be when someone comes away from the family to take a course like this. This blog helps keep people informed and secure at some level and so I enjoy passing on the fact that every single one of those who came is really doing exceptionally well in their achievements no matter what they may say to you. The dovetails all came out. For some it was a breeze, for others a struggle. The important thing is that a box was made and so too a shelf replete with dovetail joints, mortise and tenons and housing dadoes and all of this using no more than my Three Joints and Ten Hand Tools methodology I first taught back in the late 1980′s. Not much has changed but we have all grown into woodworkers and that’s a great move forward.

Beyond the projects, tools like scrapers are front burner issues now that we’ve progressed to using oak. Sharpness is key to good work and accuracy is impossible without surgical sharpness at the cutting edge. By the time we are done they will understand sharpening saws to task, how scrapers overcome the wildest grain and that planes cannot plane some woods no matter what they tell you at woodworking show sales areas. At the end of the day they will know exactly what they need to know to work wood. The next few days are critical in my endeavour to change their lives and deindustrialise their lives to find new balance and self worth.we shut mass-manufacture out at this point in time. We all like that. Peace partners with hand tool methods and harmony reigns.

Here are a few answers to recent questions:

Which glue do use mostly?

Any PVA works well for me. I haven’t found a great deal of difference between the makers and they all certainly work fine. There are specialist glues for plastic laminate and such, but we are talking about glues for wood. No I don’t use polyurethane glues in general.

What’s the liquid in the spray bottle you use on your diamond plates?

I use inexpensive glass cleaner. That’s not window cleaner by the type of glass cleaner sold as auto-glass cleaner. I buy it from the Dollar Store in the US or the Pound Shop in the UK. It’s safe, keeps the stones from clogging guaranteed and usually costs no more than a dollar or a pound.

I was wondering when and how much will cost the 1 month course you’re making in UK. From your website I saw it’ll be somewhere in 2014?

Our dates are not set yet because we have an extensive three month program coming later in the year. We have put everything on hold to invest our efforts in a concentrated effort to change the way we apprentice people. Our 2014 dates in the UK are undecided but we will be working on that in the near future. We do have one major month long intensive course starting in July here in the USA and that seems to be gaining much interest so we are looking forward to that.

We will be adding more questions in the general blogs in future. We are also planning to make more comments on the magazine and catalog content by the different magazine publishers and catalog companies in the US and Europe. If you have issues you would like me to look at please feel free to send them on but make certain to give good reference details.

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Designs that Defy Time – Articles of Note

Paul Sellers — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:24:29 +0000

Sometimes there are classic designs that somehow defy time. This is of course an Arts and Crafts design I make in my classes. I just saw a beautiful chair design on the back of the latest Fine Woodworking magazine and it made me conscious of just how many designs have come about through the decades and centuries. We were talking about the simplicity of Sam Maloof’s design today in class and indeed the simplicity of making what is essentially a simple design that’s as simple to make as the design itself. Why is that? Well, the design replaces the use of traditional mortise and tenon joinery with all of the complexities surrounding compound angles it takes to make shouldered tenons corresponding to tapered front-to-back seats and places the seat-to-leg joinery on the side in a neat arrangement that recesses the seat into the leg and the leg into the seat. This virtually eliminates the limits normally associated with tradition and allows a more free-flowing shape that defies that tradition altogether to allow a free-form expression in three dimensional beauty and grace. John Cameron, the maker-designer, shadows the work of other designers (as we often do, perhaps most times unconsciously) to develop his own distinctive lines and presents us all with the challenge of creativity.
A classic design chair, good or bad, can stand the test of time with and without joinery

In the flea markets and car boots of the world there are thousands of chairs that retain the structure of the most used joint in the world. I see them wherever I travel with hide seats and woven seats, solid wooden seats carved to shapes corresponding to the human form and as flat as a pancake. They can indeed be monotonously dull and uninteresting until you consider their origins and the work that went into these complex pieces that somehow defy the impossible stresses and strains we expect them to withstand in the day to day of life. The point in all of this is to say that there are still new designs that occasionally hit the streets from time to time that I predict may or may not be up there with Hepplewhite or Adams but will be recognisable as 20th century designs of note, with authors recognised for their awareness and distinctive approach to working wood.
I also thought another article worthy of note beside Jonathan Binzen’s above was Chuck Bender’s article on Wharton Esherick. Of course we can’t all travel to every venue supporting our inheritance of woodworking designers and so the articles are of real value to us. I thought that Chuck conveyed me right into the heart of this designer’s front room studio in the way he wrote the article. It was for me a lovely article and one I would like to keep and read over from time to time. Chuck is a working craftsman teacher and we shared a little time on the Woodworking Show’s circuit this past three months of winter. We chatted as he a carved a ball and claw foot one day and I will add some pictures when I find them. This article was in Popular Woodworking.

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Changing People’s Lives – Working Wood

Paul Sellers — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:29:40 +0000

A New Nine-day Workshop Changes the Lives of More People
Tomorrow we will be on the 4th day of our nine-day Foundational Woodworking course here in Upstate New York. When I arrived two weeks ago the trees were in bud and now with outspread leaf a green tinge softens the rays, goslings rest on the edges of the pond and the swampy woodland beyond is vibrant with spring life.
Since the success of the pervious two-day workshop we have started out latest course. The correlation between woodworkingmasterclasses.com course work and the class hit me more today than ever before. Some of the guys jumped in for the extra at-the-bench instruction with me and they are producing impeccable work as an extension and continuation of what they have learned through the online broadcast the masterclasses brings. More and, more emails pour in and I am sorry if I have missed any as we don’t have wifi at the school proper and during classes I don;t travel around much at all to get it. You are all so encouraging so please keep them coming and remember to join us on Facebook too.
I have so enjoyed the class and as I always feel this way my expectations are usually high before, during and after the classes. Expectations are sometimes unrealistic in the early days of workshops like this. I think that that’s because often we might find ourselves living in a microwave world of woodworking where skill levels have been dumbed down by using low-demand skill-less methods. At first things can indeed seem a little daunting but then, on the fourth joint, the thousandth plane stroke, something suddenly registers and a perfect union of heart and soul and mind and effort suddenly results in what we hoped might be truly achievable.
The energy is always visceral and contagious. Two logs in a fire equals a synergy, 20 people who love even the thought of woodworking cannot keep the energy levels down. Sparks ignite from one side of the workshop to the other. Students walk from one bench to another and they share a short exchange before resuming work. We eat lunch outside and guess what we talk about. You guessed it. Everyone has a story and we all listen. Wood, tools, technique, methods of work. A failure, a success a new shop, an old shop, back to the shop. We are off again. Sometimes we are totally engrossed to the preclusion of all else. At other times someone laughs and everyone laughs. It’s shared time even when pockets of frustration seem to almost win for a moment. Suddenly the tide turns and successes follow one by one and then, looking around the shop, a bunch of benches are glued up and left overnight to dry.
Of course to me the box is pretty immaterial. I like to think of the skill they now have. The working knowledge of the plane working for the first time. Feeling the saw cut and the vibration they were robbed of for years. The sense of accomplishment they have that was never there before they picked up their chisels and planes freshly sharpened for the workshop. from here on they sharpen their own planes and chisels. from this day on they will never look to another for how to sharpen them. It’s theirs. It belongs to them. They paid for it in their effort and time. They didn’t substitute developing skill for any easy alternatives because they wanted to know that they could take the pressure and become skillful. You can’t can it or sell it but you can share it with a few friends and people you are training side by side with. That’s success.

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Myths busted – Do Quick-Release Vises Work?

Paul Sellers — Fri, 10 May 2013 21:11:16 +0000

Of Course They Do – and Exceptionally Well Too.
Today I read an article that stated that, “We invented iron quick-release vises, which won’t hold much of anything relating to woodworking.” Bemused by this, I wondered why it was said and then I wondered why hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of woodworkers used something that didn’t, according to the author, “hold anything relating to woodworking”. The quick release vise has indeed stood the rigours of testing for a century now and has sold over any other vise ever invented. One of the most noted was of course the Record quick-release vise.
So, I too have used quick release vises for 50 years now, and one of them was almost 50 years old when I got it. My Woden vise opens to a massive 16″ and it too is about 80 plus years old.
I simply don’t want anyone to be put off using cast iron vises that offer quick release options, absolute dependability, functionality and solid safe holding through and through. All of the ones I have used lasted, work effectively, save much time and can be installed in under an hour for a lifetime of use.

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Framing the issues…

admin — Fri, 10 May 2013 18:22:44 +0000

…determines the outcome

It’s said that the one who frames the issues determines the outcome. With frame saws that may not be so predictable and so I found myself drifting with thoughts of frame saws these past few weeks and the thought crossed my mind that rigid plate steel saws like the ones developed in Britain and further developed in the USA by people like Henry Disston might seem to be a more advanced methodology than say the mainland European frame saw. It struck me then that thin plate was the demand of craftsmen for finer work such as dovetailing and small tenons used in furniture making and so on, but that the plate envisaged was actually too thin for a push-stroke saw without some way of keeping the saw plate from buckling under the forward thrust between hand and wood. Hence the addition of brass or steel splines that allow thinness and rigidity in the same tool.

Thick and thin plate

Thicker plate seemed to be preferred in Western makes of ‘freestyle’ saws as the saws were not pulled into the stroke but pushed, and that then required slightly thicker steel plate. To counter some of the weight and retain strength, Western makers came up with the taper-grind that removed about one third of the weight without compromising rigidity. This also enabled a change in direction for alignment if needed and even a curved cut to a certain degree. Of course thicker plate stock meant more effort and energy in the cut. Adding a rigid back, be it steel or brass, gave rigidity to thin stock and so the Western-style tenon saw was born for finer joinery and furniture making work. In recent years we have seen the Western world adopt Japanese saws and so there has been another trend toward pull-strokes. These saws work well too, but because they are more difficult to sharpen, over time we have seen yet again another substitute with the arrival of the disposable pull-stoke saws mass-made by various giant tool companies. And that’s the kind of saw most people buy today.

Differences do exist between types

A huge difference between push and pull stokes is that the pull-stroke saw almost demands a vise and bench to pull against, and whereas the push strokes work really well on saw horses, pull strokes are indeed more problematic; having the whole earth countering downward pressure from above is a whole lot easier than pulling against your own strength in the same motion. Accuracy too becomes an issue between the two. Which one is backwards seems to me a matter of the culture you are raised in and programmed by.

Mainland Europe’s frame saw

Though of course Britain has long since had a variety of frame saws, most of those in the furniture maker’s arsenal are turning saws. Isambard Kindom Brunel and Samuel Bentham were indeed the first ones to create the vertical frame saw for slabbing trees into boards and this method was used up into the early 1900‘s in some regions of Britain. The frames were huge and so too the blades. It wasn’t so very long before we saw the continuous bandsaw blade we know today.

Frame saws old and new

In mainland Europe and later on in North America, frame saws of every size were used for everything from limbing and logging to fine dovetailing and shaping for violin necks and so on. Many modern-day woodworkers like Frank Klaus use frame saws in their everyday work and on an added note Joel Moscowitz of Tools for Working Wood came up with a most stunning development by simply extending the length of a common coping saw blade, refining the cut, and adding the components for making your own turning frame or bow saw. Joseph uses one he made from the kit parts for all of his shaping work in making violin necks and bodies. It makes a really fine tool. Made using the same cross-beam and stem structure, with tourniquet tensioning to a thin blade pulled taut by the pressure on strings traversing the length of the saw, the saw has a handle and pinion that allows the user to turn the actual blade during a cut, so that the blade can readily follow curved sections in similar fashion to a coping saw.

The advantage of the frame or bow saw is that push and pull stroke both work as and if necessary and for some applications this can prove greatly advantageous. The steel can be super-thin and you don’t need a whole lot of width to the plate for most work. For this frame saw I used a very functional metal cutting bandsaw blade generally used in a hand held power metal-cutting bandsaw. The bimetal steel quality is really excellent and the aggressive non- or negative-rake to the front of the teeth cuts wood along the grain quickly and effectively. Because of the size of the teeth, I can also cut cross-grain with smooth efficient cutting too and so I found that this bow saw can cut small tree limbs and dovetails with equal alacrity and leaves a very smooth cut. I also found that I could rip along the grain or at a tangent, so this answered my quest for a saw that could be used for a range of tasks far beyond those that I could get with a regular handsaw or tenon saw. Of course I am not suggesting that it replaces either. I think that the frame hinders certain tasks that are easier with the British-style saws, but for under $5 I have a saw that adds new dimension to my woodworking and also gives me a saw I can hand to a young woodworker that will give a measure of bandsaw capability without the dangers of a bandsaw machine.

Simply made in half a day

Making the saw is not complicated, even though my two jointed intersections may at first seem intimidating. This is a functional saw and making one is constructive and enjoyable. On Monday evening this week we had a hands-on workshop making this saw with friends and staff at the Maplewood Center woodshop. I made one complete in about four hours, but I also taught it and took two hundred pictures for my how-too as well. By the time the evening was over we had made eight bona fide frame saws that not only worked but worked exceptionally well. Here are the first dovetails I ever cut with this particular frame saw using a metal-cutting bandsaw blade as the blade. Eleven year old Isaac made one too, alongside his dad, David Ashdown. This is just another step toward getting children back into the woodshop. I think too that this is a good step for others who might be intimidated by machine bandsaws. It’s not exactly the same purpose or intent, but it means people are equipped for certain types of work without the inherent dangers machines inevitably bring.

Evidence of work and functionality

Here are my finished dovetails. I also cut a mitered haunched tenon that followed the gauge lines perfectly. You may take an hour to get used to the lightness of the saw and the nuances of flexing to task rather than forcing the saw.

A new series

I am about to do a series on spoons, spatulas and other shaped items and this saw helps me span the huge crevasse between hand and machine methods for those who prefer not to use machines and those who simply cannot use them.

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I’m Taking a Sabbatical – kind of

admin — Tue, 07 May 2013 09:18:34 +0000

I have been traveling the different states in the USA for several months now, teaching and training. I taught two courses last month in the UK New Legacy School at the Penrhyn Castle workshops and that was the fulfillment of our ongoing vision to expand the horizons of woodworking everywhere.This coming week we hold the same two workshops at the Maplewood Center for Common Craft here in Upstate New York. Beyond that there is always much more going on too.

From Local to Global

My two-day introduction to woodworking is much more than the name itself really implies and though I know that for many this course is set to change their lives, to describe it as a life-changing course may seem a little over the top. In reality, this and the upcoming 9-day workshop has actually changed the lives of literally thousands of woodworkers worldwide, so why should I be reluctant to call it anything less.

The Month-long Workshop

In just a few more weeks we will be holding the last month-long workshop we will be holding in the USA. On this course we take a handful of enthusiastic woodworkers with only minimal experience in hand tool woodworking to transform the way they think about and work with wood. It’s hard for some to imagine, but they will build three complex projects from three different wood types. They start first by building a coffee table like this one using solid North American Oak. The table is quite a challenge in that we incorporate the use of dovetails and mortise and tenon joints to create a truly heirloom-quality piece.

The class is limited to 15 people and at the time of posting this we have 10 spaces available. Click here to book.

A Cabinet Makers Tool Chest

The second classic is a tool cabinet maker’s tool chest from Pine or mahogany. In previous years we have made this piece from woods like Eastern White Pine European Redwood and whereas the attendees have a choice between the two woods, we thought some might like the hardwood version and may change its function to be used somewhere else in the home. This is also the piece we will be featuring in the next upcoming series in a couple of weeks time. To find out about our online broadcast go here woodworkingmasterclasses.com and follow the prompt to subscribe, which is free and costs nothing for many featured films that pass on techniques such as how-to-makes and in skills issues.

A Craftsman-style Rocking Chair

The third piece is something of an iconic Arts and Crafts piece that replicates an inspired design I developed from the Craftsman-style furniture era. This is again a piece I see as critical to anyone who wants to master the skills of chairmaking and enter the realms even professional woodworkers find intimidating. This rocking chair is very much a scaleable piece from which the makers can adapt and alter for other chair types such as office and dining chairs.

upcoming schedule is fairly radical. As you know I work hard to pass on my woodworking skills as a generational gift to counter past and current trends that have so undermined the future of young craftsmen and women in the USA and Europe. My sabbatical does not translate into a year off but more a year different. My decisions do affect you and so so I want to appraise you all of the changes we envision so that you can make plans accordingly.

One (maybe two) More Nine-day Foundational Courses this Year – Book Early

There are still spaces available in the June 22-30 Foundation Course in Upstate NY. Click here to book

If the demand is there, we may be able to offer one more nine-day workshop this year. There is always a tendency to wait to book until the last minute, if we do the class it will be in October but in order to make the progress we need to make we must have a cut-off date after the month-long class. Contact us as soon as possible to let us know if this October class will be in demand.

Apprenticing 8 Woodworkers From Around the World

Later this year we will be taking 8 young people under the age of 30 and over 18 years to spend three solid months making about 50 pieces of furniture between us. This series of pieces will go on exhibit in the UK as exemplary works of art created by studying artisans. The goal as always is to enter core realms of real woodworking and furniture making and so we have decided a minimalist path works best for establishing true skill only possible with hand methods of work. We will use one machine only during the three months and a range of different hand tools to convert our stock too useable rough-sawn sizes. We have chosen the Laguna 16” bandsaw from Laguna USA for one of the machines and are considering three UK or European types for a second bandsaw.

Beyond Our Local Reach

We also have other strategies planned for training in other world regions including Africa and India. The vision we have takes much time for planning and this is the reason for some necessary shifts to our short and long term ambitions. Does this mean that we are not continuing our work in the US? Not in the least. We started almost 25 years ago and we still have work to do, but by current necessity classes will be restricted for a season. That said, it does seem that after the July/April Month-long I will not be teaching in the USA for at least 12 months. Our visionary work to progress woodworking on every continent now continues expanding through the different series we film for woodworkingmasterclasses.com. Woodworkingmasterclasses.com has become an essential arm to our efforts in the real woodworking campaign and has enabled us to reach audiences on a much expanded level. Your involvement enables us to make further progress by that support you give and so as we train you in the traditions of hand work, we are able to take what we develop for you and take it to needier continents too.

Because of all this, I plan to teach only this one upcoming month-long workshop as described above, which will be on a first-come first-served basis. If you or anyone you know is interested in this hands-on workshop, please let us know as soon as possible. You can call me directly on my cell phone 518 260 5320 if you have questions, or email Joseph@hisbench.com. Beyond that you can book your bench space directly on the NL website here.

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New Beginnings for Everyone Working in Wood

Paul Sellers — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:46:50 +0000

Over the weekend

We finished two workshops this weekend and I will spend time getting ready for the upcoming class starting this coming Saturday. It was a special weekend really. Nick Richards finished his Timber Framing workshop and everyone took away their trestles made exclusively using timber-framing methods and M&T joints of different types with them. The weather was so beautiful we kept all doors open and let the gentle breezes pass on through. I got to make friends with the guys Nick was teaching too as they came in the shop to see my class and we sat for lunches together too. Of course mortise and tenons are all scaleable and so we cut the same joints in furniture making but we adapt techniques and tools to suit size and task. The accuracy they strove for in making the trestles was impressive. Shoulders dead square in both directions and then the draw-bore peg pulling the shoulders permanently tight. The bracing gave absolute rigidity to the whole and when they came to lift them, being green wood, it really took two to hoist them into the back of the trucks and trailers.

Saying goodbye always has mixed feelings somewhere between satisfaction and separation. Everyone shook hands and hugged and went on their way with their trestles in tow. The workshop was made all the more powerful without machines subbing for developed skill and so too the sense of accomplishment is always heightened because of the physical demands it takes to work wood by hand. So, I think we will all look forward to meeting again somewhere in the future.

As the real woodworking campaign continues gaining success from one phase to the next, I find more and more people becoming creative in realms they never thought possible. My two days passed in a heartbeat. Much faster than I thought they would and before I knew it I was sitting on a bench by the pond getting my journal up to date. I think we gained so much and of course the thing that makes the workshop so interactive is of course around the bench Q and A time. You could say that this is somewhat predictable but, really, it’s not at all. Every question may have the same inquiry, but then it’s often asked differently by different people. This makes the time really proactive and one day I may get to recording the questions.

Pretty usual early on is the time spent on sharpening. I just read a book on sharpening that someone put our recently. I thought it was funny because the intro said in two sentences that the task was remarkably simple and then made the whole procedure more complicated by presenting analytical facts and scientific data that totally changed what is essentially simple and straightforward. How many books we need on sharpening I don’t know. perhaps I should write one too. Six pages should do it. There was no new revelation in the book and I couldn’t really recommend it. There is nothing new under the sun I suppose. We spent time demystifying the misinformation on planes and planing, joints and making joints and of course this is all preparatory for further workshops whether they be at the bench live with me or through our Online Broadcast with Woodworkingmasterclasses.com.

Judging by parting comments we did hit the mark. The goal of course being to inspire and make free. I think the mysteries were debunked for sure. The joints came out well and some needed a little more practice, but they are now ready for the next phase in their training. This two day workshop really works well so I was glad to see its success so well received. I closed with the last picture as I walked to my apartment for rest.

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