Hand Plane Skills w/ Bill Anderson
2017-07-30 | The Woodwright’s School, 89 A Hillsboro St, Pittsboro, NC, 27312, United States
Crank up your bench planes skills! We’ll cover the restoration, sharpening, and tune up of hand planes. You’ll get hands-on experience with both wooden and metal-bodied scrub, block, smooth, jack, try, fore and jointer planes.
You’ll see how to use the series of bench planes to surface and dimension stock and prepare stock for glue-ups. We’ll also look at how to plane different forms of face frames, plane figured and difficult grain, as well as end grain on squared and mitered stock. Your plane on the grain will never be the same!
Materials: $10

Making Table (Rule) Joint Planes w/ Bill Anderson
2017-09-22 - 2017-09-25
Four Days
Not for the faint hearted! First you make the tools, then you make the furniture! You start by making a matched pair of fenced rule joint planes that you can use to make dropleaf tables.
This is an intense workshop! We will be making 2 planes in 3 days and tuning them on the 4th. Students will have the opportunity to make a pair from one of two styles. Will also look at the process of making rule joints, how they are laid out and cut, depending on the style of plane used.
Designed to work in ¾” stock, you’ll make your planes from quartersawn beech. For each of the two planes, you’ll shape a traditional tapered iron and then head out to the forge of noted blacksmith Peter Ross for hardening and tempering.
This is a four-day class, with the fourth day dedicated to tuning and learning to use your planes to cut and hinge a proper rule joint.
This is an advanced undertaking, but once you know how to make planes and how to use them to build furniture — what force can possibly stop you?
Materials fee: $114, beech stock and hand forged irons by Peter Ross.

Make the Howarth Bowsaw w/ Bill Anderson
2017-09-30 - 2017-10-01
Two days.
This is the famous Howarth 15” turning bowsaw that Bill wrote about in Popular Woodworking, Nov 11, 2011. We’ll provide the hardware and the handles as you lay out the frame and stretcher, cut mortises, shape the parts using a drawknife, spokeshave, rasp, and bowsaw (!). This is a wonderful woodworking tool as well as an object of timeless beauty. This is a two-day class, as the tapered-pin requires careful fitting. The tapered pin works like a violin tuning peg – it turns when you want it to and not when you don’t! The original was made over 175 years ago. Yours will serve you well!
The included tapered pins must be custom-made for this saw. The materials fee for them, the blade, the turned handles and the wood is approximately $85 payable directly to instructor on day of class.

Two Days $295

Making Bench Planes w/ Bill Anderson
2017-10-13 - 2017-10-15
Three Days
Make your own darn bench plane! – A new coffin smoother, open tote jack plane, or closed tote jointer will be yours after three hard-working days. Made of quartersawn American beech, these planes use traditional tapered irons – typical of the eighteenth century. Although each of these planes serves a different function in the handtool shop, the techniques for making them are very similar. Materials approximately $85 including new “old stock” English laminated iron.

Benchwork Week w/ Roy Underhill & Bill Anderson
2017-11-10 - 2017-11-14
Your five-day workshop of traditional hand tool joinery and cabinetry is a concentrated introduction to classic bench work. Roy Underhill, former master craftsman at Colonial Williamsburg, conducts the full course along with author, teacher and artisan par exellence Bill Anderson. You’ll have proper vintage tools to work with, including both wooden and metal planes as we begin with rough-sawn seasoned timber and conclude with the ready to finish cabinetry.
The historical processes that you’ll learn in these five days at the Woodwright’s School will build a visceral connection with the timeless tools, techniques, and traditions of the craft (no matter how you work when you get home!) In the mornings and early afternoons, we’ll have demonstration instruction mixed with hands-on learning at our benches. The individual project is a dovetailed benchtop toolchest with molded skirt and paneled lid to take home.
This little chest gives you solid instruction and practice in:

Through dovetails for chests.
Edge to edge joinery with tongue and groove planes.
Beading planes
Complex moulding planes
Hot hide glue and rubbed joints
Miter ended skirt fitting
Cut nail work
Mortise & Tenon frame construction
Plow planes for panel work

As work progresses, we’ll add in lessons in techniques such as stock dimensioning (from the log), sharpening, plane tuning, dovetail variations, panel-raising, and any requested topic that we can fit in.
Materials fee including all prep work on poplar for tool chest (but exclusive of hardware) $90 payable to instructor during class.
Five Days – 9:00 AM – 5:30 PM

Hand Saw Sharpening
2017-11-19
You will learn to sharpen a rip panel saw (5-7 tpi) and a crosscut panel saw (7-10 tpi). We’ll study saw anatomy, restoring antique saws, and discuss merits of various sawsets, saw vises and saw tooth geometry. Finally, we’ll work on rip and crosscut sawing techniques both with panel saws and with backsaws. Bring your own saws or pick up a pair at the Ed Lebetkin’s Tool Store upstairs. Students will need to bring their own saw files (advice will be supplied on which to bring) or appropriate files will be available at the School to purchase at cost.

Dovetailed Memento Box w/ Bill Anderson
2017-12-03 08:00 - 17:00, 2017-12-09 08:00 - 17:00 (Asia/Karachi)
This workshop is geared for the complete beginning dovetailer – a great opportunity to help out Santa and his elves with a handmade present for someone special! You will learn two types of dovetails to complete this project, which is 6” by 8” and 3” deep with a beveled. sliding top. We will use a variety of hardwoods including cherry, maple, mahogany, black walnut, Peruvian walnut, lacewood or whatever else is available. Late in the day we’ll line the inside bottom with brocade fabric. This is an intense workshop, please note the extended hours!
Materials = about $25
