Tag Archives: Traditional Woodworking

Teaching, Workshop

Teaching Schedule for Spring and Summer 2015

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“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” — Albert Einstein

I love teaching as is allows me to share my passion for traditional woodworking.  This spring and summer I will be teaching several workshops I developed for the North Bennet Street School. If you have previously been a student in one of my courses and can share the information below with others who may be interested, I would very much appreciate the referral.

Introduction to Shutters @ The North Bennet Street School

Saturday, May 30

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Register
Saturday & Sunday, May 30-31, 2015

Instructor: Bill Rainford $425 Learn about traditional wooden shutters in this two-day workshop. Using traditional joinery, students build a sample shutter and learn the skills to layout and build shutters for your house. 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.

Group picture with some finished shutters
Group picture with some finished shutters

Bill Rainford is a graduate of the Preservation Carpentry program and many PC and CFM workshops. A long time woodworker, Bill currently works on commissioned pieces from his own workshop, site projects, and personalized instruction. More Shuttermaking Workshop Info From A Previous Running of the workshop can be found here.

Sawhorse Workshop @ The North Bennet Street School

Boston, Massachusetts

Saturday & Sunday, June 6 – 7, 2015

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Register

Instructor: Bill Rainford $400 Build a pair of heavy duty work-site saw horses and a pair of neatly joined nesting horses (or ‘Hurdles’) for using in the workshop. Learn various mortise-and-tenon joinery, trestle structures, hollow chisel and plunge router mortising, table saw tenoning, and laying out of splayed legs. If time allows, we also discuss additional fixtures/accessories. You’ll wonder how you ever worked without them.

Heavy Duty Saw Horses
Heavy Duty Saw Horses

Prerequisites: Either Fundamentals of fine woodworking or Fundamentals of machine woodworking or equivalent experience.

Window Sash Workshop @ The North Bennet Street School

Boston, Massachusetts

Saturday – Sunday, August 1-2,2015

8:30 AM – 4:30 PM Register

Instructor: Bill Rainford $425

Using some scraps to make a framed mirror for my wife
Sample Window Sash

Learn the basics of building a traditional window sash. The sash you make can be used as a small window or a wall hanging. Skills learned include: milling muntin stock, layout from a story stick, mortise and tenon work, coping a profile, draw boring, making pins, cutting glass and the basics of glazing. If time allows, we discuss other styles and tips on fitting a sash to a frame. Prerequisites: Fundamentals of fine woodworking and Fundamentals of machine woodworking or equivalent experience.

Learn more about building a window sash here. As always my current teaching schedule can be found at the top of my blog on the page titled ‘Instruction‘. If there are other topics you want to see covered — either new workshops offered, or bring back a few I haven’t run in a while, please let me know. I look forward to seeing many of you in class. Take care,

-Bill
Historic Places, Traditional Woodworking, Woodworking Techniques

The Woodwright’s School

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For Labor Day weekend this year I flew down to the Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, North Carolina to take a 3 day class on making a Jointer Plane with Willard ‘Bill’ Anderson (more on that in an upcoming post).

My flight got in early on Friday and I had the chance to hang out with some friends at the school during the last day of a class on building the Anarchist’s Tool Chest with Chris Schwarz.

The Woodwright's School
The Woodwright’s School

The Woodwright’s School is located in downtown Pittsboro which is a scenic town about 20 minutes from Chapel Hill.

Roy Underhill planing a groove
Roy Underhill planing a groove

Don’t let the sometimes quiet streets fool you, once inside the school you are in a lively space full of folks who as passionate about woodworking as you are. Roy was on hand to help students as they worked their way through the last day of week long class on building a traditional English tool chest based on Chris’ book ‘The Anarchist’s Toolchest’.

The class busy working on their Anarchist's Toolchest
The class busy working on their Anarchist’s Toolchest

One of the attractions to Roy’s school is its focus on only using traditional English/American hand tools — there were no whining power tools, no Dozuki saws and no plastic handles to be seen — or at least none that I saw when Roy was making his rounds. 😉

Feeding Bill's bar tab and Khrushchev's shoe
Feeding Bill’s bar tab and Khrushchev’s shoe

If you ever read Roy’s book on public speaking you’ll get why Khruschev’s shoe is an interesting trophy. Beyond the witty stories and advice on how to keep a crowd engaged and entertained, the last chapter on the morning after a presentation was the one that resonated the most with me. Applying the advice therein has improved several lectures I have to make each year.

Drilling out a mortise
Drilling out a mortise

Traditional woodworking can feel like a very small world at times — the gentleman in the photo above was also in the class I took earlier this summer on making a Name Stamp with Peter Ross at Roy’s school — even though I was 700+ miles from home I happy to see that I could still run into people I knew.

Roy's corner cabinet
Roy’s corner cabinet

Loitering in the back of the classroom is a corner cupboard you may recognize from Roy’s show. I heard his wife has been waiting on it for a while — which made me feel a tiny bit better about the dresser I owe my wife Alyssa — which reminds me I need to get working on that again….

Chris Schwarz teaching
Chris Schwarz teaching

It was also great to spend some time hanging out with my friends Chris Schwarz and Megan Fitzpatrick including a stroll through Ed’s tool shop above the school.

Chatting with Megan Fitzpatrick
Chatting with Megan Fitzpatrick

No toolchest is ever completely filled and Ed’s shop has a huge collection of traditional tools on par with some of the best regional tool shows. I tried my best to be good and save my pennies for the Nashua tool show later this month, but I did find some new toys.

Chris' Dutch Tool Chest
Chris’ Dutch Tool Chest

I had fun chatting with everyone, examining some interesting tools and helping to sweep up before a trip to the City Tap — which is a awesome bar just behind the school with great food and drinks.

Roy helping a student
Roy helping a student

On my way out of the school I saw my old friend Otto Salomon and various other proper woodworking models from the Teacher’s Handbook of Sloyd.

Sloyd Prints
Sloyd Prints

It seems the Woodwright’s School is full of new and old friends that are literally popping out of the woodworking.

If you’d like to learn more about the school, make some new friends, meet up with old friends, or sign up for a class you can check out the school’s website here.

-Bill

Historic Places, Museum

The Historic Trades at Old Salem

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This summer I had the chance to take a week long road trip and travel around to a lot of historic sites in Virginia and North Carolina. One of my favorite stops along the way was my visit to Old Salem Museums and Gardens in Winston-Salem NC.

Interpreters in the Joiner's workshop inside the Single Brother's House Shop
Interpreters in the Joiner’s workshop inside the Single Brother’s House Shop

I first learned about Old Salem while having dinner with Thomas Jefferson at Colonial Williamsburg. (No joke).

Window sash, drill bits, and chisel rack
Window sash, drill bits, and chisel rack

I also heard good things about it from Glen Huey’s book ‘Furniture in the Southern Style’ which draws upon some pieces from MESDA (The Museum of Southern Decorative Arts)

Carving over a bench hook
Carving over a bench hook

During our visit, my wife and I had a great time exploring the historic area and visiting the many shops and buildings.

Great traditional bench -- note how the shoulder vise is cantilevered out and there is a set of dog holes in the skirt as well.
Great traditional bench — note how the shoulder vise is cantilevered out and there is a set of dog holes in the skirt as well.

As always, the most exciting part for me was visiting with all the craftspeople who work in the various historic trades.

Full chisel rack
Full chisel rack

In the Single Brother’s House there were a series of workshops housing various trades that were vital to the community.

Molding planes
Molding planes

I felt right at home in the Joiner’s shop and if my wife would have let me I would have spent my day at the workbench talking to people….

Joiner's bench with angled legs and wedged tenons
Joiner’s bench with angled legs and wedged tenons

The workshop had a great assortment of jigs, fixtures, tools and unusual benches. Look at the great wedged tenons on the bench above. (Also check out the floating shoulder vise and skirt board with dog holes on the bench further up. Looks like they did not see as much use, but an interesting idea)

The shoemaker plying his craft -- in this case making a leather bucket.
The shoemaker plying his craft — in this case making a leather bucket.

The single brother’s house was where young men of a certain age could learn the craft and ply their trade before they got married and moved on to their own homes. In the shoemaker’s shop we had a great chat with a shoemaker who was making a leather bucket which was one of the many other wares a shoemaker would make for the town.

Some wares made by the Potter in his shop
Some wares made by the Potter in his shop

In the potter’s workshop you could see on display a wide variety of earthenware dishes, cups, and other ceramic objects. Most interesting to me were the ceramic tile shingles which you can see in the restored village.

Other trades on display were the gunsmith, apothecary, tailor, tinsmith and gardeners.

If you’d like to learn more about the craftsmen and women who work in the historic trades at Old Salem you can read more here.

If you are ever in the Winston-Salem area I highly recommend visiting Old Salem and checking out the workshops.