2013 Woodworking Classes
April
Basic Bowl Turning
Learn Face Plate Turning and come away with some nice bowls.
Instructor: Ernie Conover & Patrick Brown Prerequisites: None. (DVD: Disk I & Disk II Recommended) Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $375 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Saturday & Sunday) April 6-7 & Sept 28-29, 2013
In this two day course you learn the fundamentals of face plate turning through
the turning of some green wood bowls and a dry wood platter . The course will explore lathes, tools,
techniques and wood. Starting off with an explanation of wood technology and how to
select the proper wood for bowls the group goes on to properly sharpen all of the face plate tools. You leave with the knowledge and ability to keep these tools
sharp for this is the biggest stumbling block to face plate proficiency. In the process of learning technique
you will turn a few open form bowls from nice hardwoods such as cherry and maple.
Skills learned
- Wood technology and the selection of proper wood
- Safe and proper chucking with both simple home made and commercial chucks
- Proper sharpening of all face plate tools
- Home made scrapers that out perform expensive commercial models.
- Proper turning techniques that yield fast and pleasing results
- Safety
- Proper sanding techniques
Waiting List Only For April Class
Tool List for Basic Bowl Turning
If you do not own tools we have several rental sets which can be reserved during the enrollment process. If you rented tools for the week long you do not need to do so again for this course.
Enroll in Basic Bowl Turning Now!
Woodturning Tools & Techniques
Two days of spindle and three days of bowl turning.
Instructor: Ernie Conover & Patrick Brown Prerequisites: None. (DVD: Disk I & Disk II Recommended) Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $795 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Monday-Friday) April 8-12 & Sept 23-27, 2013
This course represents the best value for anyone wanting to learn to turn, or simply turn better. No prior turning experience is necessary and the leisurely five day format allows you to build sound technique through constantly coaching.
You will take home some useful objects to include bowls, salad tongues, a tray, a rolling pin and various furniture components. Most importantly you will take away the knowledge to produce most any turning.
Things covered in Woodturning Tools & Techniques are:
- Lathe operation, selection and tuning.
- Sharpening and conditioning of all your turning tools.
- Spindle tuning of common objects ranging from knobs to table and chair legs.
- Wood selection, preparation and the use of green wood to turn bowls.
- Turning of bowls form green and seasoned wood.
- Faceplate turning of flat surfaces such as tea tables through the making of a serving tray.
- Chucking methods from shop built to commercial chucks
You do a lot of turning in this week, always under the watchful eyes of Ernie and his assistant. You have time to really practice newly learned skills thereby having them become habit. You leave with some nice projects to wow the folks at home, but most importantly you will be able to tackle furniture parts and to turn bowls that will please all. View Tool List for Woodturning Tools & Techniques.
If you do not own tools we have several rental sets which can be reserved during the enrollment process.
Enroll in Woodturning Tools & Techniques Now!
Hollow Forms and Lidded Boxes
A
two day course to expand your turning skills
into these intriguing and fun
areas.
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: None; however, Sharpening DVD-I & DVD-II are suggested Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $375 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Saturday & Sunday) April 13-14, 2013
Note: For those here the previous week (November 5 - 10) for Woodturning Tools & Techniques, it makes sense for you to stay for individual instruction on advanced spindleturning techniques that is to say Hollow Forms & Lidded Boxes
Every turner with some turning proficiency, particularly in bowls, has ogled the many extraordinary closed forms and lidded boxes that are pictured regularly in woodturning magazines. Have you asked yourself, ‘how difficult are they Could I actually learn to do some of these techniques?” If you have, we have the course for you!
Indeed, these techniques are not essentially more difficult than any other area of woodturning, just different. They do require a few specialized tools and learning to do some interior work "blind" by feel and touch. However, all are within everyone's ability. In fact, with a bit of practice lovely and striking pieces can be made. No lasers or expensive hollow form guides are required or used in this course. It emphasizes simple procedures and home made tools that get results.
Likewise boxes are as much proper procedure as skill. Boxes delight young and old alike and are perfect for storing treasures—be they a set of diamond earrings or a child’s Cracker Jack’s Surprise. You will have a chance to turn a wide variety of boxes and learn how to make boxes in such forms that conceal their purpose such as acorns and balls.
If you have a special piece of wood you were saving for something like this bring it along. It will be your "graduation exercise". View Tool List for Hollow Forms and Boxes.
The following are some of the techniques you will learn and projects that you will finish to take home with you:
Hollow forms :
- Appropriate wood selection for closed forms.
- Design considerations.
- Where standard lathe tools start to fail and special tools take over.
- Chucking and pre-hollowing.
- The step sequence for developing a hollow form.
- Making a modest 7" tall vase form through a small aperture.
- Can you really sand interiors?! How and when.
- Decorating and texturing hollow forms.
Lidded Boxes:
- Wood selection.
- Design considerations.
- Chucking considerations.
- Basic rules or ABC's of box turning.
- Chatter work, inlays and carving.
- Specialized box tools: The ring tool, the hook tool, the Berger box tool, very thin cutoff tool, etc.
- Create a lidded box, 2" to 3" diameter by 3" to 4" tall.
Enroll in Hollow Forms and Boxes Now!
May
Bowls from A to Z
Everything you wanted to know about bowls but were afraid to ask
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: None; however, Sharpening DVD-I & DVD-II are suggested Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $795 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Monday -Friday) May 6-10, 2013
Bowl turning is fun and easy and they make great gifts. This class is a based on Ernie Conover’s book Turn
a Bowl with Ernie Conover—Getting great results the first time around. Like the book the class covers all
aspects of bowl turning from tools, equipment and wood gathering, to the actual turning. Ernie
will share years of knowledge and experience.
You will learn how to turn dry and green wood as well as how to glue small blocks of wood together (often of contrasting colors) in a process called tiling. A variety of turning methods will be taught with both home made and commercial chucks. You will learn how to correctly sharpen your tools and how to keep them sharp once home. You will also learn to make many home made tools that that are better than commercial examples, how to build your own grinding jig for pennies, how to make a tool that judges wall thickness for no money at all and how to build you own depth gage from scrap wood.
Sanding to a mirror surface and application of a variety of finishes will be demystified. The class will explore a variety of interesting advanced techniques such as natural edge bowls, carving and texturing. Finally there will be a demonstration of pewter spinning by Ernie Conover. A complete set of turning tools is available for rental at a fee of $45 per course. View Tool List for this course.
Enroll in Bowls from A to Z Now!
July
Hand Cutting Dovetails
The Epitome of Craftsmanship
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: None. (DVD: Disk I & Disk II Recommended) Max Enrollment: 8 Price: $165 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Sunday) July 14, 2013
Hand cut dovetails are considered the epitome of craftsmanship because they can take forms and spacing
impossible with a router. Many fear tackling dovetails, but they are really fun (even relaxing) to cut. After
taking this one day class, the ease at which you will be able to layout and cut dovetails will amaze you.
In this hands-on one -day workshop, Ernie Conover will lead you through the pitfalls and details in hand cutting through and half-blind dovetails. This will allow you to make carcasses, drawers and jewelry boxes that invite close inspection. Ernie believes that layout and technique are the keys to speed and efficiency and gives you fool proof methods for both.
Enroll in Hand Cutting Dovetails Now!
Handtool Joinery
The equivalent of an old style European apprenticeship in one week.
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: Handplane Basics and Hand Cut Dovetails or equivalent experience (DVD:Disk I Recommended) Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $795 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Monday-Friday) July 15-19, 2013
In this course you will learn authentic joinery from the time when furniture
was built to last. The good news is that this joinery is just just as
applicable today as it was in the 18th century. In Handtool Joinery
participants receive a thorough grounding in hand tools by making a
small cupboard out of sassafras (measuring 12” wide x 31” high x 6” deep).
Sassafras is a beautiful wood that is easy to plane and chisel and smells heavily in the working. The cupboard has one drawer below the panel door. In the building
process you will learn to hand cut dovetails, mortise and tenons, grooves
and dadoes.
The proper use of hand planes will be demystified and these indispensable tools will be stalwart old friends by the time you leave for home. Carcass construction (the main body and drawer) is taught employing two types of dovetail joints, through and half-blind. Mortise and tenon joints will be employed in the face frame and haunched tenons in the panel door. The two shelves for the cabinet are adjustable via a time honored, all wood set of notched racks.
These construction details will give you complete familiarity and confidence in the back saw, bevel chisels and mortise chisels. This foundation course is a must for any aspiring woodworker. No prior experience is necessary but it is strongly recommended that participants view the Bench Planes DVD and attend the Hand Cutting Dovetails seminar offered the Sunday prior to the course.
View Tool List for this class.
Enroll in Handtool Joinery Now!
Carving Linenfold Panels
A great introduction to carving that adds art to cabinet doors
An Exciting New Course
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: None. (DVD: Disk I & Disk II Recommended) Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $350 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Sunday) July 20-21, 2013
If you always wanted to try carving linenfold panels are a great place to start. Linenfold date back to Elizabethan and Tudor times and were called lignum undulatum, Latin for undulating wood. Historians applied the name linenfold in the Nineteenth Century.
In this hands-on two-day workshop, you will learn to plane and carve one of these eye-appealing panels that will add grandeur to a cabinet or panel walls. We will use sassafras which is beautiful and easy to plane or carve. The wavy cloth effect is achieved with hollow and round planes. The carving is only at the top and bottom of the panel and creates the illusion of folded linen. The techniques are simple, straightforward and easy to learn. Only a few gouges are required. If you lack hollow and round planes we have loaners for the course at no additional fee.
If you are here for the Handtool Joinery Class ending on Friday, you can stay and add this detail to the door. You can make a panel for the door of your cabinet if your are taking the Machine Tool Course in August.
Enroll in Carving Linenfold Panels Now!
September
Fundamentals of Spindle Turning
Nothing dresses up a piece of furniture like a turning or two
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: None; however, Sharpening DVD-I & DVD-II are suggested Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $380 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Saturday & Sunday) Sept 21-22, 2013
This is a hands-on course which
emphasizes turning furniture
parts with speed and
confidence. You will actually
turn a variety of common
furniture parts under the
tutelage of Ernie Conover, who
is author of the book and
companion video entitled
Turning for Furniture. The
course will begin with a primer
on spindle turning with special
attention on how to duplicate
parts quickly and easily. You will
learn furniture turning skills by
actually turning two different
chair stretchers, some Windsor
chair legs (dry and green), table
legs and grain matching knobs
that will really set your furniture
off from the pack. Ernie gives
frequent demonstrations of advanced techniques such as converging axis cabriole legs, hollow forms and
chatter work. Mixed with all this will be a plethora of tricks, such as how to make form scrapers, how to use
both a commercial and home made steady rest for long turning, power and hand sanding techniques, how
to finish in the lathe and a host of nifty chucks. A complete set of turning tools is available for rent at a fee of
$45. View Tool List for this class course.
Enroll in Fundamentals of Spindle Turning Now!
Woodturning Tools & Techniques
Two days of spindle and three days of bowl turning.
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: None. (DVD: Disk I & Disk II Recommended) Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $795 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Monday-Friday) April 8-12 & Sept 23-27, 2013
This course represents the best value for anyone wanting to learn to turn, or simply turn better. No prior turning experience is necessary and the leisurely five day format allows you to build sound technique through constantly coaching.
You will take home some useful objects to include bowls, salad tongues, a tray, a rolling pin and various furniture components. Most importantly you will take away the knowledge to produce most any turning.
Things covered in Woodturning Tools & Techniques are:
- Lathe operation, selection and tuning.
- Sharpening and conditioning of all your turning tools.
- Spindle tuning of common objects ranging from knobs to table and chair legs.
- Wood selection, preparation and the use of green wood to turn bowls.
- Turning of bowls form green and seasoned wood.
- Faceplate turning of flat surfaces such as tea tables through the making of a serving tray.
- Chucking methods from shop built to commercial chucks
You do a lot of turning in this week, always under the watchful eyes of Ernie and his assistant. You have time to really practice newly learned skills thereby having them become habit. You leave with some nice projects to wow the folks at home, but most importantly you will be able to tackle furniture parts and to turn bowls that will please all. View Tool List for Woodturning Tools & Techniques.
If you do not own tools we have several rental sets which can be reserved during the enrollment process.
Enroll in Woodturning Tools & Techniques Now!
Basic Bowl Turning
Learn Face Plate Turning and come away with some nice bowls.
Instructor: Ernie Conover Prerequisites: None. (DVD: Disk I & Disk II Recommended) Max Enrollment: 5 Price: $375 (includes all instruction time, materials & lunch) Date Offered: (Saturday & Sunday) April 6-7 & Sept 28-29, 2013
In this two day course you learn the fundamentals of face plate turning through
the turning of some green wood bowls and a dry wood platter . The course will explore lathes, tools,
techniques and wood. Starting off with an explanation of wood technology and how to
select the proper wood for bowls the group goes on to properly sharpen all of the face plate tools. You leave with the knowledge and ability to keep these tools
sharp for this is the biggest stumbling block to face plate proficiency. In the process of learning technique
you will turn a few open form bowls from nice hardwoods such as cherry and maple.
Skills learned
- Wood technology and the selection of proper wood
- Safe and proper chucking with both simple home made and commercial chucks
- Proper sharpening of all face plate tools
- Home made scrapers that out perform expensive commercial models.
- Proper turning techniques that yield fast and pleasing results
- Safety
- Proper sanding techniques
Tool List for Basic Bowl Turning
If you do not own tools we have several rental sets which can be reserved during the enrollment process. If you rented tools for the week long you do not need to do so again for this course.
Enroll in Basic Bowl Turning Now!