Category Archives: Teaching

General Information, Teaching, Traditional Woodworking, Woodworking Techniques, Workshop, Writing

A Few Good Carpenters

February 1, 2014 @TheRainford Leave a comment

A good carpenter can be hard to find. Many of us like to think that in earlier times there were was an abundance of exceptional carpenters, but this sort of lament is not a new phenomenon. Check out the interesting except below from the 1850s:

“The Author’s Experience.

These facts and reflections have been impressing themselves upon the mind of the Author of this work for twenty years past, while he has been serving the Public as a practical carpenter. During much of this time it has been his fortune to have large jobs on hand, employing many journeymen mechanics, who claimed to understand their trade, and demanded full wages. But it has been one of the most serious and oppressive of his cares, that these journeymen knew so little of their business.

Few Good Carpenters

They had, by habit, acquired the use of tools, and could perform a job of work after it had been laid out for them; but not more than one man in ten could himself lay out a frame readily and correctly.

Why Apprentices do not Learn

Now, it is not commonly because apprentices are unwilling to learn, or incapable of learning, that this is so, but it is because they have not the adequate instruction to enable them to become master-workmen.”

— William E. Bell ‘Carpentry Made Easy: The Science and Art of Framing’ (1858)

I think Bell’s comments ring as true today as they did when he wrote the above in 1858. I won’t focus on the lazy workmen uninterested in learning, but I will focus on those who want to keep learning new skills. As with many of life’s pursuits, you’ll get out of it what you put into it, and there is much to be learned if you know where to look.

Finding a good carpenter

Most of the best carpenters and woodworkers I know get the majority of their work via word of mouth and are booking months out at a time and thus don’t have to invest much in marketing. If you’re looking to find one of the ‘few good carpenters’, ask around at a local woodworking school, shop, guild, club or friends and family for referrals and interview your next carpenter.

Learning More

One of the best ways to learn a woodworking skill is to take a class or workshop.

I have a few upcoming workshops this spring at the North Bennet Street School (details below) and there are some seats available if you are interested in joining me.

Making Traditional Moldings Using Hand Planes @ The North Bennet Street School

Saturday, April 12 – Sunday April 13 2014

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Register

Instructor: Bill Rainford
$365

Learn to use traditional molding and joinery planes to produce beautiful traditional molding profiles. Learn the basics of tuning and using these planes. Build a basic sticking board, used to hold the moldings you are making. Layout and execute historic profiles. We discuss the history of traditional moldings, examine planes/profiles students bring (optional) and, if there is time, an introduction to carved moldings.

Introduction To Shutters @ The North Bennet Street School

Saturday, March 15 – Sunday March 16, 2014

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Register

Instructor: Bill Rainford
$365

Learn about traditional wooden shutters in this two-day workshop. Using traditional joinery, students build a sample shutter and learn the skills needed to layout and build shutters for custom projects. Discussion includes interior and exterior uses, fielded panels and louvered styles. Students should be able to plane and square up a board by hand and have some experience laying out and cutting traditional mortise-and-tenon joinery by hand. Some experience with tuned hand tools and power tools is required.

If the above does not appeal to you, there are several schools around the country that teach solid woodworking and carpentry skills. I encourage your to explore classes at any of these schools: The North Bennet Street School in Boston, The College of the Redwoods in California, The Heartwood School, The Shelter Institute in Maine, Philadelphia Furniture Workshop, The Kelly Mehler School of Woodworking, Phil Lowe’s Furniture Institute of Massachusetts, Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, and Roy Underhill’s The Woodwright’s School

If you’re not able to make it to one of the above schools there are scores of books that can help you along your woodworking journey. I think every carpenter would benefit from reading all 4 volumes of Audel’s Carpenter’s Guide, Tage Frid Teaches Woodworking Vol 1-3, Bell’s Carpentry Made Easy: The Science and Art of Framing, and Get Your House Right.

Woodworking is a life long journey and I hope that you will continue pursuing new aspects of the craft.

Take care,
-Bill

NBSS, Teaching, Workshop

NBSS Drywall Workshop October 2013

October 26, 2013 @TheRainford 1 Comment

Teaching a weekend workshop is often like a two day stage performance. I’m up at dawn to prep, drive down, unload, on my feet non-stop for the class, then cleanup, head home, quick dinner, then out like a light, and lather rinse repeat. For most people that sounds like torture, but for me it’s fun.

Light stick framing lesson, then hanging sheetrock — Light stick framing lesson, then hanging Sheetrock

I love to share my passion for woodworking with others and teaching helps to feed the tool and and supply kitty for my various projects .

Last weekend I taught a two day workshop on drywall, mud work and textures. I designed the class last January and this was the second time we ran it. I’m happy to say that it sold out both times and we covered a lot of ground given we only had 2 days to work.

Each student had the opportunity to learn all the basics needed to tackle a new drywall installation or repair project.

Using a hawk and applying mud to the corner joint

The course covered a wide range of topics including:

Basics of Stick Framing
Hanging Drywall and Coursing
Taping, Inside and Outside Corners
Working with ‘Mud’
Wet and Dry Sanding
Texture Work
Repairs

My last workshop back in May was going to be the last workshop the NBSS Arlington Location which is a 10,000 square foot workshop which was my home when I was a student at NBSS. (It used to be the workshop and classrooms for Preservation Carpentry and Carpentry departments at the school). The school has now relocated all the programs back under a single roof on North Street in the North End of Boston a couple of blocks from where the school spent its first 134 years. This workshop requires a lot of space, ceiling height and access to a large dumpster and with all the hustle and bustle of the school setting up at the new location it made sense to run this workshop in the old and largely empty space left in Arlington. The class went great, but the the one sad part for me was at the end of the second day when I had to say goodbye to the Arlington space for the second time. But like all good-byes, it is also a new beginning…

The good news is that I have a few workshops scheduled in the spring at the new campus location. You can learn more about them here.

-Bill

Historic Places, Traditional Woodworking, Workshop, Workshop Projects

Making a Jointer Plane with Willard ‘Bill’ Anderson — Part 2

September 12, 2013 @TheRainford Leave a comment

When last we left our plane-making heroes they were in the process of making a traditional single iron jointer plane with my friend Bill Anderson at the Woodwright’s School.

Bill demonstrating with a great bench plan cross section model — Bill demonstrating with a great bench plane cross section model

Bill had a great cross section model of how this sort of bench plane works — made by one of his students. With the body of the plane taking shape, next up was tuning the mouth opening and the abutments. If the mouth is too wide or too large the plane may not cut cleanly so you need to carefully fit the iron to the opening. If the abutment is not carefully placed when you re-flatten the sole of the plane you’d also be opening the mouth more. You also need to take care flatten the face of the bed that supports the iron — if there are high points the iron can pivot on those and make it tough to use the plane. One of the many testing/fitting gauges Bill had was a ‘bed testing gauge’ which looks and works much like a pair of ‘pants’ we use in timber framing to test out the thickness of a tenon, except in this case you are using it to check the thickness of the cheeks and how close your bedline is getting to the line scribed on the side the plane body.

With the mouth and throat all set, next up was making the wedge to hold the iron in place. The wedge needs to be carefully planed to fit the abutments inside of your plane and tightly hold the iron in place. Again here you are using an abutment gauge (wooden wedge of a known profile in degrees) to test your work as you go. With all the gauges and specialized tools you can quickly see why plane-making was its own dedicated craft specialty.

The wedge is further relieved so that the shavings can clearly escape the plane body.

Templates, gauge blocks and pants — Templates, bed gauges blocks and pants

Above you can see some of the many gauges used in laying out and testing parts of your plane, along with templates for the handles.

The handle is first cut out from a rough blank and then carefully shaped by hand to have flowing, graceful lines similar to that of a quality hand saw. The result is a handle that fits the hand so well it, the whole plane feels like an extension of your body.

Auriou rasps used to shape the handle -- they were a pleasure to use — Auriou rasps used to shape the handle — they were a pleasure to use

Various rasps, files and sandpaper are used to shape the handle. Using crisp hand stitched Auriou rasps made quick work of shaping the handles.

Above is the handle after a bit of light sanding.

Shown here you can see Bill’s finished/sample plane which is based on an historical example. I’ll post the final shots of my own plane when I finish it soon in my shop.

Rear 3/4 view of the completed sample plane

At the end of the workshop one of the most important tasks was to make sure you plane can take a nice shaving. I’m happy to report that I was able to get a nice full width shaving with my mostly completed plane. (I need to finish setting the handle, trim the edges, apply some finish and use my maker’s name stamp and it will be ready for regular use in the shop).

Making the first shaving with a new plane... — Making the first shaving with a new plane…

In an upcoming post I will complete this series with how I finished off the plane. Stay tuned…

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Bill Anderson or take a class with him, and I highly encourage you to do so, please check out his website here.

-Bill

P.S. You can see the first post on making this jointer plane here.

Historic Places, Traditional Woodworking, Workshop, Workshop Projects

Making a Jointer Plane with Willard ‘Bill’ Anderson — Part 1

September 10, 2013 @TheRainford 3 Comments

A single iron jointer plane is one of those tools you have use yourself to truly appreciate. Over Labor Day weekend I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to make one of these planes with Willard ‘Bill’ Anderson at the Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, NC.

Entrance to the Woodwright's School — Entrance to the Woodwright’s School

Bill is a passionate woodworker and skilled teacher. You may recognize him from his appearances on Roy’s television show or the articles that he’s written. He’s a molding plane aficionado and has studied plane-making and general furniture-making with many masters in the field. He recently retired from being a Scientist for the EPA so I see a lot of parallels to my own life working in software.

The plane is made of air dried American Beech and a new old stock English iron.

We started out by squaring up the stock using a wooden straightedge and winding sticks.

Next up was laying out the mouth and throat. The mortises are all chopped by hand with a chisel and refined via a series of floats and scrapers. It was my first time using that many different floats, and for what looks like it might be a fairly coarse tool, when sharpened leaves a remarkably good surface.

As we worked through the throat mortise a key was to make sure you don’t overshoot and chop through the abutment.

One of the last steps in refining the abutment and sides of the throat was to scrape the surface using a scraper chisel.

A very nice scraping chisel that Bill made

This beast of a chisel was made by Bill and heat treated by Peter Ross. It was based on some research Bill did into traditional plane making tools. The long bar of tool steel and handle allow you to put a lot of your weight into it as you scrape the surface flat. The cutting edge is a very steep angle similar to a scraper you’d use with a lathe (upside down compared to the lathe tool) but works well since you are only removing a little bit of material at a time.

Regular bench chisels are used to clean up any fuzz in the corners. Next up is cutting in for the wedge and cleaning up a cheeks. This is an operation that requires a steady hand and the ability to work to an exacting standard. You want your test wedge, and eventually your actual wedge, to fit tightly against the abutment so the iron does not move when you are working with the plane. I took my time and was very happy with the results.

In upcoming posts I will document more about my experience in building and finishing this plane.

In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about Bill Anderson or take a class with him, and I highly encourage you to do so, please check out his website here.

-Bill

General Information, Historic Places, Tool Reviews, Workshop

The Tool Store at the Woodwright’s School

September 7, 2013 @TheRainford Leave a comment

The Woodwright’s School is already hallowed ground for a lot of woodworkers, but hovering above workshop is Ed Lebetkin’s Antique Tool store….

Up the stairs and take a right at the large model plane

Before heading up there, I was warned to leave my wallet behind as there would be a lot of temptation at the top of the stairs….Ed’s store is filled with just about every kind of traditional woodworking tool and accessory you could want.

Wide angle view of Ed's Antique Tool Store — Wide angle view of Ed’s Antique Tool Store

An amazing assortment of chisels, planes of every kind, marking gauges, braces and bits.

One whole wall of the shop is filled with molding planes .

New stuff is always coming and going so you’ll want to visit often — or see about renting a space to camp out and be first to check out the new arrivals. 😉

During my visit I was enamored with an unusual boring machine. The castings on the tilt mechanism look similar to my old Swan boring machine but what made this machine unusual was the mechanism to advance the business end of the unit horizontally via the large knob on the bottom — rather than the whole dance of shimmying yourself and the unit up the timber and re-aligning the auger to make the next hole. The runners and support structure for it was all metal which leads me to believe it was a later design towards the end of that era.

New toys from Ed's tool shop — New toys from Ed’s tool shop

I tried my best to get out without buying anything — especially since the Nashua Live Free or Die Tool Show and Auction is coming up in a couple of weeks, but it’s like Ed knew I was coming. I found a great reprint book on Concord NH furniture makers, a book on the Shaker Barn full of tools at the Shelburne Museum in VT which I wrote about here, a MWTCA reprint of a tool catalog, a nice old Stanley auger bit extension for use with a bit brace, and a Stanley 203 bench clamp. This neat little clamp is something I’ve looked at in the past — and makes a nice addition to any bench with a sliding deadman. I look forward to giving it a try.

I’m looking forward to my next visit. If you’d like to plan a visit to the tool store or contact Ed you can find his contact info on the store’s web page here. Ed’s a great guy. If you meet him, be sure to tell him I sent you. 🙂

Take care,
-Bill

Blacksmithing, General Information, Historic Places, Masonry, Masonry Techniques, Museum, NBSS, Preservation, Teaching, Timber Framing

2013 BAC Traditional Building Intensive

August 21, 2013 @TheRainford Leave a comment

Most people relax on their summer vacation. After a day on a beach I get antsy and need to keep moving, exploring and building. For the second year in a row I spent my vacation last week sharing my passion for the craft by teaching the 8 day intensive that is part of the semester long ‘Traditional Building’ class I teach at the Boston Architectural College (BAC) in association with the North Bennett Street School.

The class is part of the low residency Master’s Degree in Historic Preservation at the BAC. In this 8 week long class, 7 weeks are online with a series of interactive lectures/discussions and traditional coursework and one 8 day week is spent with the entire class in Boston participating in a hands on format. This works great for students who need to juggle work, family and other obligations while also seeking a quality degree on the way to a new or expanded career path.

Touring historic homes and buildings with Steve O'Shaughnessy — Touring historic homes and buildings with Steve O’Shaughnessy

On the first full day of class we took a walking tour of the city with Steve O’Shaughnessy (NBSS Preservation Carpentry Instructor) visiting several historic house museums and notable structures in Boston. Having worked for Historic New England, Steve is an excellent tour guide with a lot of great information to share.

Traditional Woodworking with Bill Rainford

The second day I spent the morning teaching the basics of traditional woodworking — using a smoothing plane, molding planes, drilling, chiseling and other basic bench work.

In the afternoon I taught the class about window restoration, window reproduction and condition assessment reports. We then went out to do some field work at the historic Fenway Studios.

Next up we visited the Saugus Ironworks which is a National Historic Park. Senior Park Ranger Curtis White was on hand to guide us through this landmark site and enthusiastically share with us his latest research about historic ironwork. (He’s a great resource and if you ever visit the park and run into him, tell him I sent you. )

Ranger Curtis White explaining how the ironworks produced iron

Robert Adam (Who started the Preservation Carpentry program at NBSS and is a noted preservation consultant) lectured about historic hardware and fasteners.

Robert Adam talking about historic hardware and fasteners

Robert’s brings a portion of his comprehensive collection of historic hardware and fasteners allowing students to closely examine these items up close and differentiate fine details.

Sara Chase, a nationally known paint analysis expert and preservation consultant (+ advisor to the NBSS Preservation Carpentry Program) taught a session on traditional paints and their manufacture.

During this hands on session students not only learned how to identify various kinds of historic paints they also had the chance to mix their own paints in a traditional way and try their hand at applying them.

After a visit to the MFA in Boston, next up was NBSS Preservation Carpentry Instructor Rich Friberg to teach the basics of Timber Framing.

Rich brings with him a deep well of knowledge and a passion for teaching this craft.

Jennifer wielding the 'Beetle' mallet — Jennifer wielding the ‘Beetle’ mallet

Students had a chance to layout and cut mortise and tenon joints….

Joey with the 'Commander' mallet — Joey with the ‘Commander’ mallet

try out some joinery on the large scale with traditional timber framing tools…

and fit the joints they made.

The completed 8′ x 10′ sill shown above would be the first major element of a modest sized barn or outbuilding.

Matt Gillard teaching some basics of Masonry

Preservation Mason Matt Gillard (owner of Colonial Brick Works) and Matt Blanchette gave a great lecture on traditional masonry tools, techniques and evolution.

Rachel cleaning off some recovered bricks

This hands on session allowed students to mix traditional mortar, clean bricks, re-point, repair, lay brick and joint mortar.

At the end of the week the students also shared their presentations and research proposals. To celebrate the end of this very intensive week the Director of the Historic Preservation (HP) program Robert Ogle presented each student with an ‘I survived the HP intensive week 2013 @ the BAC’ Tee Shirt to commemorate the occasion. This well earned reward is one of three major intensives they will need to survive in order to complete the program.

'I survived the BAC Historic Preservation Intensive 2013' Tee Shirts — ‘I survived the BAC Historic Preservation Intensive 2013’ Tee Shirts

Given that we all survived this very intensive week and you survived reading this marathon blog post, I think it’s time for all of us to rest up and prep for next year. 🙂

You can learn more about this class and the program here or go direct to the video here.

-Bill

Blacksmithing, Portfolio, Workshop

Making Your Mark — Name Stamps with Peter Ross

July 15, 2013 @TheRainford 6 Comments

How do you mark your wooden tools ?

Carve your name into it? No.
Burn your name into it with a branding iron? Meh.
Sharpie? That’s so ’90s.
If you really want to be a traditional woodworker you’ll want to use a hand made metal name-stamp. I’ve seen some of these stamps over the years in tool sales, but never found my name or initials, so I figured it was time to take matters into my own hands. This past week I had the opportunity to take a workshop at the Woodwright’s School making a metal name-stamp. I had a great time during the class and will cover some of the highlights here:

Master Blacksmith Peter Ross at the forge

The class is held in the forge/workshop of Master Blacksmith Peter Ross who was the long time master of the blacksmith shop at Colonial Williamsburg. Pete is a friendly person and a great instructor.

In the afternoon Roy came by to visit. (Bill Rainford with Roy Underhill)

During the afternoon we were visited by Roy Underhill who came by to make sure we weren’t making counterfeit Nikes or anything illegal. 😉 It was great to chat with Roy for a few minutes and he’s every bit as nice in person as he is on TV.

My first stamp 'BMR' which will be used to mark some of my tools with my initials. — My first stamp ‘BMR’ which will be used to mark some of my tools with my initials.

Now on to business….for my first stamp I made one with my initials ‘BMR’ so that I can label some of my tools. By stamping some of my old wooden planes I’ll officially be part of the long line of owners who had them before me and those who will have them after me.

Testing my Initials stamp in some end grain

After forging the rough blank we learned to use the various types of files and letter stamps needed to make a nice stamp. Along the way we’d test the stamps in the end grain of some wood and in lead flashing.

Testing the stamps on some lead flashing

Why do you use end grain wood and lead flashing?!

The stamps work by crushing some fibers and leaving others proud, thus creating a 3D surface that can be read — much like you see in the maker’s marks on the toe of a molding plane. The lead does a great job showing you crisply where your stamp is pressing and where you may need to work on it some more.

Peter teaching the class how to file and use the leg vise

Peter demonstrated how to properly file and also how tough the surface of the stamps become once they were case hardened — the files were no match.

My second stamp -- 'RAINFORD' with a slight curve over the length of the stamp — My second stamp — ‘RAINFORD’ with a slight curve over the length of the stamp

Making a longer name stamp was even more challenging since the letters are all set free hand you could very easily mess it up with any given letter. If you do mess it up, file off the mistake and try again, and again as needed.

For my second stamp I made my last name and curved it a bit to make a gentle arch. Around the edge of the stamp you could decorate it any way you wanted, the most common being a traditional sawtooth-like border.

Another test block showing some of the variation across the stamps

Most if not all folks in the class got a chance to make a couple of name stamps and practice their filing skills.

Beyond the class itself we also got a chance to see some of the amazing work Peter does in his shop. From beautiful locks, to tools, to massive Roubo holdfasts it was neat to see the variety of black and whitesmithing tasks Peter carries out in his shop.

If you are interested in taking this workshop, please check out the Woodwright’s School website here. I had a great time and look forward to my next workshop at the Woodwright’s School.

Portfolio, Teaching, Turning

As the Spurtle turns….

June 24, 2013 @TheRainford 8 Comments

This past weekend I was busy in the shop working on a variety of projects. Sunday I spent most of my day doing some wood-turning at the lathe.

A favorite warm up project of mine is to make a traditional wooden spurtle.

What’s a spurtle?

A spurtle is a traditional Scottish kitchen tool that dates back to the middle ages. Traditionally made from maple this utensil is often used to stir soups, and beat the lumps out of porridge. If you are not big on porridge, it also works well with a wok and will not damage your pots and pans.

Over the weekend, my friend Dan Farnbach stopped by the shop for a quick lesson on the basics of spindle turning. He was a quick study and picked up a lot of the basics.

I learned about turning Spurtles from my friend and master wood turner Rich Friberg (NBSS PC2 Instructor). It’s a great way to make use of small pieces, produce something usable and explore design possibilities. For this piece I like how the small beads echo the light and dark similar to what you see in the curly figure itself.

A good spurtle is generally about a 10-12 inches long, held in the hand similar to a pencil or chop stick and stirs using a wrist action. I tend to like the designs that flair out a little bit at the bottom and are well balanced in the hand. Beyond that, the design possibilities are endless. The spurtle shown here is made from curly maple and finished with mineral oil. With use the finish can be renewed with more mineral oil or salad bowl oil.

If you make some spurtles of your own, make sure to share some pictures with us. If you get really good at making and using them you might want to enter the World Porridge Championships and compete for the Golden Spurtle.

Good luck and happy turning!

ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE:
Earlier this evening many of you may have received a partial post related to Sloyd showing a partial table — that was an accidental misfire wherein a draft got posted prematurely. But fear not, I do have some more Sloyd related posts coming up soon.

NBSS, Teaching, Workshop

Installing Doors and Windows as Performance Art

June 13, 2013 @TheRainford 1 Comment

This past Saturday I taught a workshop on installing doors and windows at the North Bennet Street School’s Arlington location. While it is the last workshop that will be taught at that location before the big move this summer into the new facility back in the North End of Boston it did not feel as much like the end of an era — it felt like the beginning of something new. The Arlington location was where I learned as a student and where I first started teaching workshops at NBSS so while I am a little sad to see the old shop get packed up, I look forward to seeing where we can push going forward with new classes and new opportunities.

In designing this class part of the challenge was to make accessible to a wide audience and also be reasonable with the materials. The format of this workshop was a full day of me demonstrating, lecturing a bit, answering questions and letting the class try some of the hands on operations. By the time I got home I was on my feet for about 14 hours that day and felt like I completed a long piece of performance art.

: Using shims to center and plumb up the door

We covered a lot of material given this was only a one day class:

basics of stick framing
how to install a new pre-hung door and adjust it
how to install a door knob and lockset
how to trim out the door
how to cut sheathing for a framed out window opening
installing and leveling a window
how to wrap and flash around a window
how to cut a stool and trim out a window
And MANY general questions along the way

Bill demonstrating how to adjust the door's opening — Bill demonstrating how to adjust the door’s opening

If there are carpentry, preservation carpentry, or general woodworking workshops you’d like to see offered at the school or in my own shop, please let me know as I’m always looking to teach something new and entertaining.

Woodworking Techniques, Workshop, Workshop Projects

The Road to Roy Underhill: Workshops With the Woodwright

May 1, 2013 @TheRainford 3 Comments

Jointer Plane Making & Name Stamp Workshops

At the Woodright’s School in Pittsboro NC

Are you interested in meeting and taking a woodworking class with Roy Underhill of the Woodwright’s Shop and Woodwright’s School? (Along with Peter Ross the former master of the Colonial Williamsburg Anderson Forge and Bill Anderson a master plane maker – both of which have been on Roy’s show)

I talked to Roy and the guys and they were willing to do a special run of the two workshops below on the following dates*: Arrive July 8th class 9-12th leave the 13th at Roy’s School in Pittsboro NC

* (Given the very long drive from NH down to NC I wanted to try and get a few days in a row down at Roy’s school to get the most I could out of the trip, and I am very appreciative they were willing to do so, but we need a few more people to sign up in order to run it) So if you are interested in one or both of these sessions I encourage you to sign up soon.

http://www.woodwrightschool.com/name-stamps-w-peter-ross/

1 Day class $145 + $40 materials

http://www.woodwrightschool.com/making-bench-planes-wbill/

3 Day class $425 + $115 materials (beech + plane iron etc) to make a massive single iron jointer plane

Total: $725 Tuition and materials for 4 days + your own food and lodging. I will be driving down (11hour drive from NH) and if folks from NBSS or the general Boston area are interested in joining me I can carpool. Hotels in the area are $55-100/night. Info from Roy on what it’s like to take a class at his school can be found here.

I also hear there is a good pizzeria behind the school that Roy has been known occasionally have a drink with the students after class and above the school is an old time used tool shop that has similar stuff to what we hunt for at the Nashua Tool show.

If folks are interested, we could also take an extra day to go see nearby Old Salem, which is home to the Museum of Southern Decorative Arts and a Moravian living history museum much like Colonial Williamsburg. http://www.oldsalem.org/ It’s kind of a crazy adventure, but I think it would be a memorable experience.

For more info, please contact me or sign up at Roy’s site:

You can reach Bill Rainford at: (My firstname ‘dot’ lastname at facebook.com) — or via my blog or my linkedin page

Woodwright’s School Registration Page

Rainford Restorations

Category Archives: Teaching

A Few Good Carpenters

Making Traditional Moldings Using Hand Planes @ The North Bennet Street School

Saturday, April 12 – Sunday April 13 2014

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Register

Introduction To Shutters @ The North Bennet Street School

Saturday, March 15 – Sunday March 16, 2014

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Register

NBSS Drywall Workshop October 2013

Making a Jointer Plane with Willard ‘Bill’ Anderson — Part 2

Making a Jointer Plane with Willard ‘Bill’ Anderson — Part 1

The Tool Store at the Woodwright’s School

2013 BAC Traditional Building Intensive

Making Your Mark — Name Stamps with Peter Ross

As the Spurtle turns….

Installing Doors and Windows as Performance Art

The Road to Roy Underhill: Workshops With the Woodwright

Jointer Plane Making & Name Stamp Workshops

At the Woodright’s School in Pittsboro NC

A Joiner's Guide To Traditional Woodworking and Preservation