Homestead Heritage Woodworking School

[Dan Gill]

I just stumbled onto Homestead Heritage, an interesting Christian community here in north central Texas. The thing that interested me most was their Woodworking School. It looks like they have lots of hand tool woodworking classes.

There is also a fair they put on at Thanksgiving, and they'll be having a barn raising, and will be auctioning off the barn frame. We don't see many barn raisings here in our part of the country.

Here is the website:
http://www.homesteadheritage.com/

They are located not far north of Waco, TX, just off of I-35.

[James Carmichael]

Cool, I drive through Waco every other month or so.

[Vijay Kumar]

Last summer I attended their week long hand tools class. We did 3 projects in the week of increasing complexity using only hand tools. A dovetailed candle box, a 2 shelf unit using stopped dado for shelves, and a small night stand using mortise and tenon joinery.

The philosophy at this school is to de-industrialize and to use minimal set of tools to get the job done. They have a thriving business in selling their hand made furniture which is of exquisite quality. The people who teach there are down to earth nice folks. The director Paul Sellers is a woodworking maven of some repute.

I would highly recommend taking a class there. It will sharpen up your skills whether or not you use hand tools routinely. It will also heighten your own awareness of your place in the universe. Yes these guys are truly inspirational.

Vijay