Registration opens tomorrow at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking (MASW) where I am teaching a weekend class in 2023 in making a staked stool.
This is a rare instance of me leaving the nest to teach. But I’m doing it for three reasons.
Marc readily agreed that all proceeds from the class, including students’ tuition and my instructor fee, will go to the Roger Cliffe Memorial Foundation, which funds scholarships for woodworking education.
Marc (and Kelly Mehler) were the first two schools that took a chance on me as an instructor. I was a terrible teacher at first. In fact, if you were in my first class at MASW I owe you a personal apology and probably a T-shirt. Yet Marc kept me on there for 10 more years.
This is Marc’s 30th year in business, and he asked many of his past instructors to come back to teach a class. How could I say no?
The class is Oct. 14-15, 2023. All the details are on the MASW website. Hope you will consider joining us.
Our storefront on Willard Street in Covington, Ky.
We are offering some new classes and old favorites at the Lost Art Press storefront during the first half of 2023. All these classes take place in our bench room at our Covington, Ky., location.
Our storefront is located in the center of the city’s Main Strasse village, and we are surrounded by lots of places to eat, drink and stay – all without ever using your car. The bench room is a nice place to learn handwork. Every student gets a heavy workbench, the bench room is filled with natural light and the floors are oak, which is easy on your back. Oh, and the class size is small: a maximum of six students.
Registration for these classes opens at 10 a.m. Eastern on Sept. 26 through our Covington Mechanicals classes page (where you’ll see “Register Now” buttons on each class – but you can’t until 10 a.m. Eastern on the 26th). Classes tend to fill up fast, but there is some turnover. So we encourage you to sign up for the wait list if the class you want is full.
Here are the classes for January to June 2023. (And we may add another class or two in the weeks to come – if so, they’ll be announced here.)
Comb-back stick chair in black cherry.
Comb-back Stick Chair with Christopher Schwarz Jan. 16-20, 2023 Build a comb-back stick chair, an excellent introduction to the craft of chairmaking. Students will construct a comfortable chair using mostly bench tools and just a few specialty tools. Students are encouraged to customize their chair by combining different hands, arms, stretchers and combs. This class is open to anyone who can sharpen their own hand tools.
Traditional sawbench
Build a Sawbench with Megan Fitzpatrick Jan 28-29, 2023 Build a traditional sawbench as you learn fundamental hand-tool skills including how to lay out your cuts, use handsaws, chisels, bench planes, router planes and more. Plus, you’ll learn how to properly use cut nails (without splitting the wood). Sure, you’ll get a nice sawbench out of it, but the real joy is in the new techniques you’ll pick up.
Anarchist’s tool chest
Anarchist’s Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick Feb 6-10, 2023 In five days, we are going to build traditional full-size English tool chests – a.k.a. “The Anarchist’s Tool Chest,” from Christopher Schwarz’s book of that title – using hand tools. If you don’t like dovetails, this is not the class for you. If you’d like to learn dovetails (while you build a sturdy chest that holds about 50 hand tools…which is to say almost all the hand tools you need to build furniture), this is absolutely the class for you – you’ll get plenty of instruction and practice.
Plus, we’ll make handsome and (almost) bomb-proof raised-panel lids, and cut the mouldings, skirts and lids by hand. And though we will have time to build only the outside of the chest, I’ll discuss how to divide up the interior for efficient work, and show you some options.
Staked backstool in ash.
Staked Backstool from the ‘Anarchist’s Design Book’ with Christopher Schwarz Feb. 18-19, 2023 This contemporary side chair is a two-day introduction to many of the operations involved in chairmaking, including drilling compound angles, making tapered mortise-and-tenon joints and creating short sticks. This class is open to anyone who can sharpen their own hand tools.
Dutch tool chest
Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick March 3-5, 2023 This handsome tool chest is a great three-day introduction to several bedrock hand-tool joinery techniques: dovetails, dados, rabbets and more. Plus you’ll learn how to cut a fingernail moulding, raise a panel, use cut-nails and rules for carcase construction. By the end of Day 3, you’ll be able to pop all your tools in your new chest (which fits in the back of almost any car) for your drive home.
Lowback stick chair in black cherry.
Lowback Stick Chair with Christopher Schwarz March 20-24, 2023 Build a lowback stick chair, a fairly simple chair that involves a good deal of cutting and shaping compound curves. This is a great dining chair and offers excellent lumbar support. This class is open to anyone who can sharpen their own hand tools.
Dovetailed Shaker trays
Dovetailed Shaker Tray with Megan Fitzpatrick April 22-23, 2023 Make a classic Shaker silverware tray in this introduction to hand-cut dovetails. In this two-day class, you’ll learn: dovetail layout using dividers; how to saw to a line with a backsaw; how to wield a coping saw; how to pare and chop with chisels; how to fit dovetails;cut and fair curves and more.
Staked sawbenches in poplar and oak.
Staked Sawbenches with Christopher Schwarz May 13-14, 2023 During this weekend class you’ll build a pair of staked sawbenches, which are essential for any shop that uses handsaws. During the process of building your sawbenches, you’ll learn about compound-angle joinery, making tapered mortise-and-tenon joints and leveling the legs to the floor. This class is open to anyone who can sharpen their own hand tools.
Dutch Tool Chest with Megan Fitzpatrick May 19-21, 2023 This handsome tool chest is a great three-day introduction to several bedrock hand-tool joinery techniques: dovetails, dados, rabbets and more. Plus you’ll learn how to cut a fingernail moulding, raise a panel, use cut-nails and rules for carcase construction. By the end of Day 3, you’ll be able to pop all your tools in your new chest (which fits in the back of almost any car) for your drive home.
If you know anything about woodworking, I think you are qualified to teach it to others.
In my earliest days of woodworking as an adult, my friend Chris and I taught each other what we knew about woodworking, even though we each knew enough to fill up a thimble. In the early 1990s, I taught my neighbors how to make basic casework, even though I barely knew how to make basic casework.
I don’t think you need to be certified. I don’t think you need formal training. All you have to have is a little bit of knowledge and the willingness to share it with others.
During the last 15 years I’ve taught lots of people about woodworking in exchange for money. And I’ve observed a lot of woodworking teachers both good and bad. And I have picked the brains of people who are extraordinary teachers (thanks, Trevor). All in an effort to become a better teacher.
Recently I made a list of the principles I actively follow as I teach. You might find them useful if your neighbor Ed ever asks if you could show him how to build a radiator cover.
Small bites of information. When explaining a technique, every lecture is as short as possible. Usually 5-10 minutes. Never ever longer than 20 minutes. My pattern is this: Present small amounts of information. Have the students act on it. Repeat.
Teach without talking. Many of the lessons are embedded in the material and are not explicit. I might put cabinetmaker’s triangles on everyone’s stock. There will be no lecture about the triangles, but students will be required to use them. Later in the class I will reference them offhand while we are working. The students then understand them through use, and they are much less likely to resist or object to the material.
Never do their work for them. I strive to never touch the tools or work of my students. If they make a near-fatal error I will ask them if they want help, but I will never insist or step in. If I have to I will (with their permission) take their hands and show them how to perform an operation or repair.
Avoid having lines at machines or specialty tools. There is nothing worse than the line at the abattoir. When we have one tool for the class (say, a tenon cutter) that everyone has to use, I give the rest of the class two or three things they can be doing at the bench as they wait their turn.
Draw the lesson. Demonstrate the lesson. Let them do the lesson. Sometimes information isn’t sticky enough. Or it takes a few attempts to get it in your head. To help this, I try to draw out every lesson on the board before a lecture. Then I demonstrate the lesson. Then I immediately ask them to do the operation. I also encourage them to photograph the lesson on the board to help them remember it.
On praise and criticism. Praise and criticism is specific to the student’s work and always genuine. Point out what is right and wrong. Explain why. Some students will deflect both praise and criticism verbally. But they do hear it.
Stop at every bench, every day of the class. Spend time looking at their work and listening to them talk about it.
Warm up before every demo. Demonstrating when you are cold is difficult. If you have to tenon four legs, tenon one before the lecture. This ensures you will have all the tools you need at the bench and get your head in the right place.
Understand the goal of each student. Some students want a trophy and no more. Others want skills and don’t care about the thing they are building. Both are valid approaches.
Finally, I try to learn from my students. Even a first-day woodworker can teach me something because they are coming at it with fresh eyes. Or without preconceived notions.
Oh, and tell stupid jokes. Make fun of your own failings. Show your flaws and shortcomings – even revel in them.
We are in the middle of prepping hundreds of parts for a July 11-15 stick chair class in partnership with The Chairmaker’s Toolbox, and I am setting aside my aversion to plastic for this one moment.
As Megan Fitzpatrick and I prepare the parts – straightening the grain, octagonalizing the bits and sometimes tapering them, I sort through them. I group the parts by color and grain. And I wrap each bundle of parts into packets with a minimal amount of stretch-wrap plastic.
There are packets of legs, short sticks, long sticks and stretchers. When all the stock prep is over, I’ll group all the packets into 10 chair kits that are matched for color and grain.
It takes a lot of extra work, but I do this for two reasons. One, it makes for better chairs. Two, even the nicest people in the world become total dork-holes when it comes to picking parts willy-nilly from a big communal pile of parts during a woodworking class.
Inevitably, one or two people end up with all the exceptional boards. And the slow students, who need all the help they can get, end up with the dregs.
To combat this problem, I started picking and grouping wood for students years ago to avoid this “Lord of the Firs” approach to distributing parts. And I have stuck to this philosophy to this day.
Why am I telling you this? If you ever find yourself facing a pile of parts in a classroom, please be kind. Don’t be a hoggy-dog and take all the best parts for yourself. Someone is watching. And they are judging you.
And Furthermore….
If you are taking a woodworking class this summer, here’s a little tip that might make you feel better about your performance during the class.
If you follow a lot of instructors, schools on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter (like I do), you’ll see a lot of posts that exclaim, “These students are KILLING it.” Or “These students are amazing! Hardworking! Insanely Talented! Oblong!”
I’ve taken enough classes and taught enough classes to tell you that this piffle is either:
Unconditional positive regard (that is undeserved).
Marketing for the school/instructor.
Woodworking in a classroom environment is both tense and fun. In my experience, everyone struggles a bit – that’s what happens when you learn stuff. There are always failures in a class – a mis-cut, a broken part, a brain fart.
If you struggle in woodworking classes (I sure do, both as a student and an instructor), then you are perfectly normal. All those social media posts are just the gauzy, filtered unreality that clogs our phones and likely contributes to a lot of self-esteem problems.
Bottom line: If you make it through a class without locking yourself in the bathroom while sobbing, throwing your tools against the wall, or making a through-mortise in your hand, then you have succeeded. (All these things have happened in classes.)
But I will say in all honesty that every student in my classes has indeed KILLED IT (as long as “it” is a tree).
Today we are opening up the list for people who want to attend our Chair Chat™ class at the Lost Art Press storefront Oct. 10-14, 2022, with me, Rudy Everts and Klaus Skrudland.
The class is $1,300 per student (plus materials). The attendees will be determined by a random drawing on Wednesday, July 6. Here’s how you can sign up. Please read the following with care.
The class is for people who wish to build a vernacular stick chair. We’ve had several people ask us if they could take the class and instead build a ladderback, Hans Wegner chair, Windsor chair or other factory chair that involves bent laminations, steambending or factory methods.
The answer is, unfortunately, no. We don’t have the equipment, jigs or time to make one of these chairs. We would fail your expectations. We are equipped to make any stick chair (that we know of), as long as it’s vernacular.
To sign up for the drawing, send an email to: lapdrawing@lostartpress.com before 3 p.m. (Eastern) on Wednesday, July 6, 2022. Please use the subject line of “Chair Chat Class” and include the following information (incomplete forms will be discarded).
Your name(first and last)
Your phone number (this is only to contact you in case email doesn’t go through)
One sentence about the chair you would like to build. (It can be as simple as “Welsh comb back” or “Irish armchair” or “whatever.”)
How you would like to build your chair. Choose one:
Almost entirely by hand
A balance of hand and machine methods
Almost entirely by machine
This last detail is important as we need to get a mix of students so that people aren’t waiting in line to use the chopping block or the band saw.
Klaus at work on a chair leg.
Students will be allowed to bring their own materials. Or we can supply them for a fee (likely about $200 per chair). More details about the class and the instructors can be found here.
After the drawing occurs, don’t despair if you aren’t picked. We will keep your name handy in case students need to cancel (it happens).
Klaus, Rudy and I are looking forward to this class and sharing everything we know about chairmaking, eating too much fried chicken and drinking just the right amount of beer. It will be a fun week.