If you were going to take a beginners class???

[Jeff B Bennett]

I’ve been a woodturner for 20 years but have developed an interest in traditional woodworking. I’ve bought a few planes, chisels, saws and a bench and been playing around cutting tenons, flattening and trueing up rough stock etc and trying simple project like a joiners mallet from the woodwrights shop episode. Now I want to take a class. Where would you recommend? I considered the Dutch tool chest class at Lost Art Press but think a more general class might be better than a specific project. Looked at the Roy Underhill site and looks like they are a bargain at $350 or a two day general class but they are shut down for Covid I think. What are some good options? Preferably driving distance from Memphis but I could be persuaded to fly.

[Joe A Faulkner]

I have had a couple of friends take classes at Marc Adam’s School of Woodworking, and they were very positive about the experience He brings in lots of different teachers. He is offering his Joinery course in September. His school is in south central Indiana so within driving distance

[Chuck Hill]

Have you considered a on-line course, such as Shannon Roger's Handtool School? It is an economical alternative to in-person learning at only $380 for a year. I have not signed up yet but will soon.

[Scott Winners]

I thought you might have more responses by now.

What worked for me, YMMV, was to go with the Paul Seller's _Working Wood_ , books one and two between one set of covers. Getting to Seattle from my home is a challenge, I would be half way to Kansas City from the house. As a beginner I didn't really look at in person classes because I dread having checked bags change planes in Seattle.

What I liked was there was one defined set of tools in the begining to finish all the projects in the book. I fully agree with Derek's comments elsewhere on this site about Paul the teacher, Paul the craftsman and Paul the evangelist. There are a couple chapters in the book I have X'd through so I don't bother reading them again, but not many.

I have done just about all the projects in the book. I skipped over the bookcase with the stopped dados and am currently working on the chairside table in beech. Only two critiques so far, I should have made a shaped strop for my gouge before I started making spoons. The other one that tripped me up was the templates in the book for the shape of the table legs. There is a user at wood something dot co dot uk who posted a fix for the template, and I have emailed the publisher as well.

Along the way I have restored a pretty fair set of Baileys and vastly prefer Chris S's "I can do anything with a #3, a #5 with three irons and a #8" to Paul's "you can do everything with a #4." You can do everything with a #4 if you have forever time and zero money. I have neither of forever time and zero money, but I also don't need a 5 1/4 or a #2 or a #7 or some of the other uncommon sizes.

A rabbet is a rebate, no matter who shows you how to do it. Same with mortises and learning to use a spokeshave downhill.

Anyway, having worked through that book, and gone to see youtube videos also by Paul wherever I was stuck, I am now agitating with Lost Art Press to have a Windsor chair building course. My first two chairs got bonfired, which I am OK with, my third chair will be in hickory so I can at least run it through a BBQ cooker if it stinks, but with just the above book and some time invested (and more tools than are in the opening chapters) I feel ready for a Windsor chair class, except for getting my tool chest to change planes in Seattle.

Good luck and best wishes.

EDIT: I have also availed myself to all three books in the Anarchist series, the "A-books" by Chris Schwarz. As I read through those I see stuff I already know how to do, or stuff I can see that I can learn to do, with the basic skills I already picked up from Paul. Learning to taper holes at a consistent angle for instance; once I had the tapered reamer I just built a banjo for my drill press, drilled evenly spaced holes in a 2x4 scrap and then tapered and tapered and tapered until I had four in a row where the legs looked OK...then I built a sawbench.

Again, good luck.

[Robert Flowers]

Jeff, take a look at the classes at Highland Woodworking, right now they are only on line at 10.00 a month or 99.00 a year. Hopefully they will be getting back to in person classes now that the store is open.
Robert

[Stan Powers]

Check out the North Bennet St. School in Boston. https://www.nbss.edu
Bring your spouse and enjoy Boston for the week. Great fundamental base for going forward.

[Mike Brady]

Hi Jeff. I live in Indy and have been to Marc Adams school a few times. I also have taken classes in Chicago from Jeff Miller. I recommend either of those. There are many good schools, but as you point out, geography is a major considereration, as are the additional costs of food and lodging.

There used to be some teachers near Berea College in KY. That college has a woodworking curriculum, so there might be some teachers offering classes privately. It might be worth going someplace and staying a week and really getting into the fundamentals of sharpening, planing, chisel use, and sawing. If you can get the fundamentals down, you can then concentrate on certain skills classes and projects that might be available relatively cheaply online. When I started, I also learned about the tools from restoring some and learning what techniques are needed to make them work properly. I also learned that there is a big differencein value between classes where you participate, and ones that are simply demonstrations by a teacher.

If you do happen to come to Marc Adams, You would be welcome to come to visit my shop in Indy and try out some tools. Also check into woodworking clubs in your area. Clubs should be reopening to live meetings by September.

[J. Greg Jones]

Berea College has their own school now, The Woodworking School at Pine Croft. https://pinecroftwoodschool.com/ The college purchased Kelly Mehler’s school, tools, the two houses, and the farm a couple of years ago. All their classes last year were canceled due to COVID-19, but they are having some classes this fall. Megan Fitzpatrick and Aspen Golann are on the teaching schedule. Andy Glenn is running the school and is teaching some of the classes, and he will do a nice job with it.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Tom Fidgen’s Unplugged Workshop is another one I would consider. He has a couple of books, lots of you tubes and a subscription service as well.

[Jeff B Bennett]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I’ll look into all of them.

[Steve Hubbard]

Another vote for Marc Adams. In 2011, my son and I trook the Introduction to Woodworking class taught by Marc. Great experience, introduction to power tool safety and use as well as joinery with hand tools. Since then, I have attended 15 or 16 specialty classes there. In the early years, it was a 9 hour drive for me, and worth it.

[steven c newman]

IF I were to ever take a "Beginner's Class" I'd just as soon head to Roy Underhill's School.....if and when he starts it back up.

Might have a few tools for the school assignments..
460478
In use this evening, between doing the loads of Laundry...Busy bench?

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

Just FYI that in the Dutch tool chest classes that I teach, you learn how to plane, saw to a line, cut dovetails, cut dados by hand, some non-dovetails-related chisel techniques and more :-) Which is not to say I think you should take that class – just that it isn't all about the project!

[Jeff B Bennett]

Megan I'm on the waitlist!!! Know anybody that could pull strings and get me in? :-)

[J. Greg Jones]

Jeff, if you get in send me a PM and I’ll have you over for dinner one evening of your stay here. Good luck!

[Jeff B Bennett]

Jeff, if you get in send me a PM and I’ll have you over for dinner one evening of your stay here. Good luck!
Well that’s an incredibly kind offer. Thank you.

[Mike Henderson]

When I started woodworking I took classes at my local community college. That was excellent because a class lasted the whole semester which gave you a lot more in-classroom and shop time. Also, they had a lot of different classes. There was the basic intro, advanced woodworking, hand tools, lathe turning, finishing, veneer, and classes targeted at a specific type of furniture - for example, there was a chair class. The instructors were very knowledgeable and helpful on an individual basis.

The problem with most of the classes that have been recommended is that they're too short.

I eventually learned a bit and went on to teach one-day classes in specific things, such as dovetails, box making, veneer, and carving. But I always wondered how many of the people who took my classes went on to use the skills I taught. When a student had problems, I'd do the task for him/her. There just wasn't time to work with that one student to help him/her master the technique. When you have a semester, and multiple hours of shop time, the student has time to work on their problems and master the technique.

It was also pretty inexpensive, especially compared to what you'll pay for those short courses.

Anyway, if there's a community college near you, look into it for woodworking classes.

Mike

[Here's a link (https://www.cerritos.edu/woodworking/)to Cerritos College where I took classes. You can see the kind of things being taught.]

[Jeff B Bennett]

Not sure any of the schools here do any continuing Ed classes like that anymore. University of Memphis used to have an extensive program of that kind of stuff. It wasn’t semester length but they were multi week deals once a twice a week. I did both a photography class and a kayaking class 20+ years ago. I think ultimately they weren’t profitable and they channeled all those resources into non credit classes for business and technical certifications. Really a shame because they were a huge asset to the community.

[Megan Fitzpatrick]

Megan I'm on the waitlist!!! Know anybody that could pull strings and get me in? :-)

Ha. I might know someone...but I'm limited by the # of benches! There is one slot remaining in my class in Berea, I believe: https://pinecroftwoodschool.com/dutch-tool-chest/

[Edwin Santos]

I'd like to put in a pitch for Southwest School of Woodworking in Phoenix, in case travel to Arizona (especially in the winter months) might be of interest.

It's a much more intimate setting than the Marc Adams school and the classes cover a variety of skill levels from basic fundamentals to master classes with visiting teachers like Michael Fortune.

Have a look: https://sw-sw.org/

[Mark e Kessler]

Not sure what to recommend school/class wise but would be good to find a series of classes where you start with the basics of hand tools their use, setup and maintenance, then “graduating” to a small project that uses those tools like a mallet before moving on to a larger project involving machines. Or some sort of hybrid of this.

Of course this may be way more involved/commitment than what you are looking for but just something to consider when you are deciding.
to me when starting out it is uber important to learn the basic fundamentals of hand tools then move on to powertools, by no means am I saying one should be an expert or even proficient with hand tools.

I actually started out slightly backwards, I was enrolled in regular college classes after high school however for reasons I won’t disclose I lost all of my books on a Saturday night out with the boys :rolleyes: instead of buying new books I transferred to all woodworking classes. These classes were more like - here is a project build it, instructor walked you through it and you used the tools they had…shaker step stool, hepplewhite side table…. But then found an advert in FWW for a school on the East Coast.

This is where my recommendation comes in, our first 6 months was all hand tools, design ect (there was also metalworking), our first project had to have a certain number of joinery features, we were given the rough lumber we spec’d for our design and an instructor checked your work along the way if you screwed up they resisted in giving you more wood, you were challenged to make it work by modifying the design or whatever.

Again this could be extreme and by no means would expect everyone to progress this way, there are PLENTY of woodworkers that did not take this path and are incredibly skilled at what they do but it did have (still does) lasting impressions on my work…

[Wayne Cannon]

Don't rule out classes taught at Woodcraft, Rockler, etc., stores.

Be selective. Talk to their staff about the instructors.

Our local store, for example, had Alan Batty teaching a great thread chasing class with lots of personal hands-on attention from him. I've learned a lot about woodturning (a great local commercial turner and instructor), sawing to a line, and hand planes for squaring, dimensioning, and smoothng from these local classes.

Some local instructors teach numerous classes on a variety of topics. I've been less impressed with some (not all) classes by such instructors.

What's missing is an overall syllabus for a recommended sequence of classes toward a goal.

Before they closed, the local Woodcraft also sponsored a woodcarving club which had many talented carvers willing to spend time teaching beginners (me) one-on-one solely for the kove of carving.