Season 30 of The Woodwright's Shop is available online!

[Jon Toebbe]

I don't get The Woodwright's Shop on TV, since we did away with the cable box and haven't bothered with rabbit ears. So, I was delighted to read on Chris Schwarz' blog this morning that Season 30 (http://video.unctv.org/program/1421129721/) is now up on the web.

Contemplating the pile of books stacked against the wall in my daughter's room, I was trying to figure out how to build enough shelf space to store them without resorting to plywood and biscuits. And voila! St. Roy's modular bookcase (http://video.unctv.org/video/1772022578) appears. This episode focuses on him cutting a sliding tapered dovetail joint -- a great tutorial of a joint I've always avoided due to its complexity. It looks like there's lots more great stuff (as always) to enjoy.

Listening to an episode from the other room, my wife said "wow, that guy really needs to calm down." :)

Previous seasons are still available at the old address (http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/video/3000/index.html).

[David Weaver]

Does season 30 have the Chris Schwartz shows on about sawing?

[Brander Roullett]

Yes, and the "Small tool kit" episode based on the "The Joiner and Cabinet Maker" book with Chris as well.

badger

[george wilson]

I know David wants to see the "Sawing Secrets" episode.

[Leigh Betsch]

I don't watch much TV and have only seen one or two episodes of the Woodwrights Shop, but I left feeling that Roy doesn't do very fine work. I'm probably wrong. Did he work at Colonial Williamsburg? George do you know him, and did you see some nice work there? Like I say I haven't seen much of his show so my impassion is probably flawed, does anyone have a link to some of his work?

[David Weaver]

I don't know if you can find his work in a library, per se, but there are magazine articles, etc, showing his work. One was in pop wood last year, a dovetailed blanket chest.

He did a book stand that was on one of the blogs, too, i think.

George, if I watch sawing secrets, then they won't be secrets any longer!

[Andrae Covington]

I don't watch much TV and have only seen one or two episodes of the Woodwrights Shop, but I left feeling that Roy doesn't do very fine work. I'm probably wrong. Did he work at Colonial Williamsburg? George do you know him, and did you see some nice work there? Like I say I haven't seen much of his show so my impassion is probably flawed, does anyone have a link to some of his work?

Well there's only so much he can do in 26 minutes without editing.:D I would say that the projects he does on the show are more "country" style, but I think that has been a conscious choice for both the limited time and budget for the show and his intention of showing people the basics of building things entirely by hand. He often has guests on the show and sometimes they illustrate more sophisticated aspects of furniture making, but focusing on one or two small parts, not an entire finished project. At Colonial Williamsburg he was the master housewright, so his work there was buildings, not furniture.

[george wilson]

So,David,what did you find out about "Sawing Secrets"?

[David Weaver]

So,David,what did you find out about "Sawing Secrets"?

Well, i did confirm that the episode fortunately did not have any nudity in it. So some secrets are safe.

I didn't see any sawing secrets, though. A lot of stuff from Wearing's book, though the reprint of that (mine at least) came from pop wood's lost art press (or maybe they're not related, i don't know).

[Paul Incognito]

At Colonial Williamsburg he was the master housewright, so his work there was buildings, not furniture.
Carpentry (housewright) and woodworking have completely different tolerances. I'll never forget when I was learning how to frame a house, I was giving measurements to the cut man, "71-11/16; 83-7/16" he held up the wide side of a carpenter's pencil and said "Look, THIS is the tolerance!" I don't think his tape measure had anything less that 1/4" graduations on it.
I'll never forget that little exchange.

Paul

[george wilson]

Glad they didn't use those tolerances when they built my shop!! I HAVE been in other job sites,and seen wall studs cut 3/4" too short,and put up anyway.

[Matt Radtke]

Carpentry (housewright) and woodworking have completely different tolerances. I'll never forget when I was learning how to frame a house, I was giving measurements to the cut man, "71-11/16; 83-7/16" he held up the wide side of a carpenter's pencil and said "Look, THIS is the tolerance!" I don't think his tape measure had anything less that 1/4" graduations on it.
I'll never forget that little exchange.

Paul

Ha. Dad and I are the same way. Just framed some walls and were measuring to the 1/16th, "strong or weak." Only a wall framed by an engineer and a systems admin would shoot for 1/32 accuracy.

[Chris Kennedy]

Ha. Dad and I are the same way. Just framed some walls and were measuring to the 1/16th, "strong or weak." Only a wall framed by an engineer and a systems admin would shoot for 1/32 accuracy.

I was helping my FIL with some retrofit framing. We had to put in a headerboard that had to follow an existing taper, and it was too big by about an 1/8 of an inch. My BIL and I took it down to go cut it to size and my FIL asked what we were doing. When we explained the problem, he handed us a bigger hammer.

Cheers,

Chris

[John Coloccia]

I saw a video where Frank Klausz examined one of his joints and said, "Not bad for a showman...". :)

If you watch his show, you'll see some of the work he's done off camera to later display on the show, and some of it is quite nice. His show is kind of in a how-to format, but it's just not really a how-to show. It's more of a show about the history and tradition of woodworking. Since it's all shot in real time with no cuts, it would be difficult to actually make something from beginning to end. He's so smooth that I'll bet most people watching don't even realize it's all done without doing any cuts.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

Just an aside, did anyone else find the audio and video not syncing up when watching it online? I ended up finding the source file (an MP4), and downloading that, and it was fine playing the file locally off my computer, but it got increasingly annoying watching online as the sound lagged further and further behind. I didn't think my computer was that old.

After having watched the first episode, it seems like they're using more than one camera (although still filming straight through with no cuts.) I don't remember that in the past.

[Paul Incognito]

I noticed that too. But, my computer not being made of wood, I couldn't fix it. :)

Paul