Popular Woodworking Editors' Blog

If you’ve been following my blog about the class at Marc Adams School of Woodworking (MASW), you’re waiting for photos from the last day of class. I will tell you that many of the projects look as they did when the class ended on Thursday. But the progress accomplished on Friday was outstanding.

Most class participants vetoed drawer dovetails in order to gain additional time to shape their drawer fronts. However, a couple took to dovetails and Thomas Older (shown in the photo at left), who is the intern at MASW this year, installed his base mouldings and feet while sculpting only one drawer front. The photos taken Friday certainly don’t look like those I snapped on Sunday evening as I arrived at the school. (You can see those photos by clicking the appropriate link below.)

In the Thursday entry, I mentioned the pranksters in class. During the discussion about drawers someone asked about installing metal drawer slides in this project. Needless to say, he heard a chorus of boos, but we did discuss why I would never attempt such an act and how the drawer building would need to change if someone were to install slides. The Questioner has broad shoulders and sustained the admonishment from the crowd.

Two of the guys in the class took a road trip to the Indianapolis Woodcraft store and I guess the entire drawer-slide episode was still fresh in their minds. They decided to purchase a pair of full-extension slides to add to my case. Upon arrival the next day, the slides were installed with double-stick tape and we all got a good chuckle. That looked very different from what I’m used to seeing.

In addition, I mentioned a use for blue painter’s tape that The Wood Whisperer would never have thought about. Marc Spagnuolo’s first article for Popular Woodworking (in August 2008) was "The Magic of Masking Tape" (issue #170). Marc uses painter’s tape for quick clamps and veneer clamps, just to name a couple.

In class when the time arrived to shape the drawer fronts, one woodworker decided that working without a glove was not going to cut it. However, the file was cutting his hands. To offset the mild abrasions, he covered his hand with blue tape. I must admit this was a first for me, although I have seen use of tape on fingertips when working large jobs of hand sanding. It worked in this case too. Before the class wrapped up, this guy had the drawer fronts shaped and was ready for dovetails. I heard from more than one participant that this was a great class.

If you have a minute, please leave a comment about any school experience that stands out in your mind. I’m not looking to bust any schools, so please don’t mention names. I’m interested in what separates a good experience from a bad experience. And given that experience, would you return?

My job lets me see a lot of cool woodshops, but even I'm jealous of an amazing journey that's going on right now by British woodworker Stuart Page.

Page recently graduated from a furniture-making course in Scotland and has received a grant from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to research "Traditional Crafts, Furniture Making and Sustainable Rural Living" in North America.

What that really means is that Page is driving around the United States and Canada this summer and visiting the shops you've read about in the magazines and books and seen on television. He's getting to sit down and talk to the woodworkers who run those shops. And he's writing about his travels on his blog.

The blog, cryptically titled "One Hairy Arm Goes West" is a travelogue of his journey, which began is Los Angeles and will wind his way through the Midwest, Canada and the East Coast. All the while, he's visiting woodworkers at every stop and writing about them on his blog.

So far, he's posted several entries about his travels, including one on his visit to Sam Maloof's establishment and a more recent one on the College of the Redwoods, shown in the photo above from our piece last year on the college.

We recommend you visit Page's blog and bookmark it so you can follow his travels. We know some of the visits that are coming up, but we don't want to spoil the surprise.

— Christopher Schwarz

P.S. I've also added the site to our Blogroll at left in case you forget this link.

As promised, the guys in class had the early part of the day to complete mouldings and work on the sculpted bracket feet. Each woodworker laid out the feet from the provided pattern and drilled the holes forming the spurs and with the help of Doug and Zane, our shop advisors. Everyone had their feet mitered and the spline recesses were cut, too (Doug used a method for cutting the recesses that is rather interesting and I’ll talk more on that later).

Most everyone in the class decided to take the feet and moulding back to their shops to complete the work because most did not want to glue up the cases before final sanding. Nor did they want to use valuable time when the drawer fronts awaited.

At 1 p.m. we began discussions about the drawer fronts and I demonstrated how to transfer the shape to the drawer front and make the cuts at a band saw. Everyone took to the drawer fronts with ease. I explained that shaping the fronts was as simple as a close and accurate band saw cut, proper technique and a sharp blade.

I worked with each student one on one to demonstrate the exact steps needed as they began work to shape their drawer front. To begin, lay out the flat blocked portion at the end of the drawer front, establish a line that delineates the flat sections from the beginning of the rounded fronts, then peel away excess stock to smooth the transition while leaving a distinct line.

Next, they used low-angle block planes to carefully round the curved fronts. The secret is to rub the surface with your hands and smooth any uneven spots you feel. If it feels smooth, the eye will never see different. That’s a big part of the entire shaping process. Slowly and methodically each woodworker shaped the first drawer front. As you can see from the photo below, some in the class chose to cut all their drawer fronts before beginning any shaping.

Today we’ll complete at least one drawer front and talk about how to tweak the fit and dial in perfect alignment with precise reveals. And we’ll begin the half-blind dovetails used to connect the drawer fronts to the drawer sides. The through dovetails used at the back of each drawer are the same as the dovetails they did when they joined the case sides to the bottom. Discussions on how to cut and fit the drawer bottoms will be interesting due the shaped interiors of those drawer fronts.

Because it’s Friday and class is over at 3 p.m., you’ll have to sit tight for the weekend. Come Monday I’ll post the final photos. In addition, I’ll have a couple funny stories to relate. Here’s a hint: There is always a prankster in the group. And, I’ll show you a use for blue painter’s tape that our very own Marc Spagnuolo, The Wood Whisperer, might never have thought of.

— Glen Huey

p.s. Click here to read “Teaching at Marc Adams – Day One,” here for “Day Two,” here for “Day Three” and here for “Day Four.”