orepass

It’s clean and crisp this morning close to 32 degrees. I took a quick photograph of the lambs this morning before class began.

Todays’s focus was on hand cut dado joints as we worked to build shelves. All of the projects chosen step students through skill development and offer challenges at each step. Paul as always drew us around his bench several times over the day to demonstrate and reinforce techniques.

Practicing through dados, blind dados, and stepped dados, we learned and practiced our new techniques. As the class struggled we learned and Paul and his assistant Logan pushed and pulled us through differing techniques. One would think that the learning would be confined to what was in front of us, but the lessons continued around methods of work, differing wood types, repairs to the parts we damage. We also talked about stepping outside our comfort zones and this is always where real learning takes place.

Paul has a great sense of humor and is a natural teacher. He was even able to provide Snoopy with some techniques for repairing his Sopwith Camel.

Sharpening is a one of the critical skills of woodworking and the number of jigs and gizmos on the market are incredible. If you have a system that works use it and use it more frequently then you believe necessary. I have used water stones successfully for a long time. If you need a sharpening system Paul’s works extremely well, is simple and cost effective.

At the end of the day I had sides, shelves, top and bottom, all hand made and looking pretty good except for that one piece! Tomorrow we work on mortise and Tennons.