Category: Woodworking Classes

OK, here’s a confession, I’ll do anything that Vic Tesolin asks me to do. The dude cracks me up, and then all of the sudden, I’m in a wedding dress. No. Wait! I’m in the Woodworks Conference organized by the Ottawa Woodworkers Association.

This two-day conference in Perth, Ontario, promises to be lots of fun and a great learning opportunity. On Sept. 27-28, 2014, a bunch of talented woodworkers (and myself) will be speaking to a bunch of fellow woodworkers on a wide variety of topics. Garrett Hack on furniture design. Tom Fidgen. Konrad Sauer. Ron Barter. Mark Harrell of Bad Axe. Linda Manzer. And me on nails, chipbreakers and doilies.

All this takes place at the very cool Algonquin College in Perth, Ontario. Perth, which is right outside Ottawa, is a beautiful little town that is home to lots of fantastic stone houses, bakeries, restaurants and Rosewood Studios, a great woodworking school. And Algonquin College is one of the few schools trying to preserve our history of hand skills. It’s definitely a great choice for this event.

If you are a citizen of the United States, I know what you are thinking: How can I cross the border into Canada? The answer: In my trunk. No. It’s actually quite easy. Yes, you have to have a passport. So get that process started now. Here. If you are Canadian, you have no excuse. Please attend.

If we get enough Americans to attend, perhaps we’ll annex Perth. No, I kid. Perhaps we will drink all of their beer instead.

In any case, check out the full schedule of events here and register. Vic says so.

— Christopher Schwarz

The teaching job I was looking forward to the most this year was in Anchorage, AK, with the Alaska Creative Woodworkers Association. I have wanted to visit Alaska since reading Jack London’s “White Fang” as a little boy (yes, I know it takes place in the Yukon Territory).

As it turns out, the state is even more beautiful than I’d imagined. Flying into Anchorage was more like landing in an alien country than an airport. I have simply never seen so much undeveloped wildness.

The woodworkers in Alaska are, of course, just like the woodworkers I have met everywhere else in the world. They are a close-knit and friendly bunch, easy to like and drink a beer with.

The club doesn’t have a dedicated facility, per se. But they hold their classes at the shop of member Don Fall, who has an enormous and fully equipped facility that can easily handle 14 woodworking benches. The shop is on the outskirts of Anchorage, so there is a lot of wildlife.

This morning, the members were smoking ribs for a barbecue, and the No. 1 concern was luring bears in from the woods. And after lunch a moose visited the school and stripped some bark off a birch tree to eat.

This was a small moose – only about a year old – but was bigger than any horse I’ve seen. (I know I sound like a tourist. But getting 10 feet away from a moose is both stupid and incredibly cool.)

For the last two days we have been building precision layout tools – straightedges, winding sticks and try squares – and working on the finer points of sawing, planing and chiseling. Tomorrow we start building Dutch tool chests and will focus on working our butts off.

Some of the fun parts of the class:

• We built Alaskan polissoirs. We made these from a whisk broom and hose clamps. Then we wrapped the whole thing in duct tape. They worked quite well. I only wish the duct tape were camo (so you couldn’t see it).

• Tony Strupulis of Raven’s Edge Toolworks transformed a worthless chisel/rasp into something useful: a bottle opener.

Time for bed. My body still thinks it’s tomorrow.

— Christopher Schwarz