School of Woodworking Newsletter

Table of Contents:

Letter from Paul
Benchmaking Workshop (scheduled for June 24-29)
Our New Homestead
Machines Verses Hand Tools:  A Question of Personal Preference
Directions to school

Letter from Paul

Dear Friends,

So much has happened this year already that it’s hard to decide where to begin updating you. Our craft and homesteading seminars and workshops continue to generate new interest, with students traveling in from various states for our combination classes, workshops and symposiums. As you know from my previous newsletter, our woodworking courses and classes are now available year around. This year’s summer program promises to provide many new and exciting workshops that do not require having completed prerequisite classes from our foundational curriculum. So we invite you to register for these workshops with whatever level of woodworking experience you now have. These summer workshops are specifically designed as beginning level courses in particular aspects of woodworking— workbench making, chip carving, general carving, fine box making, inlaying, chair making and so on.

Several of you suggested that we teach a course on establishing a small home shop for those who want to enter into a more serious level of woodworking or even a home-based business. This August we will hold a week long course to cover all areas of this topic. The course will be a combination of extensive hands-on workshops, lectures and discussion sessions as well as informal evening study and slide presentations. You will visit our Heritage Barns and Restorations Mill to see how we restore the massive timber-framed barns and log cabins and also to see how we mill trees into dimensioned stock, ready for drying in the kiln.

Another exciting development at the craft village is our new Homestead Farm. Butch Tindell, Kurt Truax and several helpers from the community have established a flourishing array of organic garden beds, a vineyard, chicken coops and stock pens and so on. Heritage Barns erected the 240-year-old timber-framed barn together with a log cabin that we use as a teaching facility for the homestead workshops. If you have the opportunity, please come by for a visit. The craft village and farm are open on Monday though Saturday, 10am—6pm . We are closed on Sunday.

I would particularly like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the continuing support you have given to us over the past few years. Your letters of encouragement are always welcome, as are the many other ways you have strengthened our endeavor. Once again, thank you for everything. We hope to see you in the near future.

Yours sincerely,                                       

Paul Sellers                                             

Benchmaking Workshop

Some of you used one of our joiner’s workbenches during one of your workshops here at the school. I have used this type of workbench throughout my woodworking life, and though I have used many different types of workbench, I have never found one that equals this one in terms of its practical usefulness and simplicity of design and construction. Most people are suprised to learn that European craftsmen joiners and furniture makers have used this type of bench for centuries.

Many of you requested that we provide a workshop to make this workbench, which we now have scheduled for June 24-29. We offer this six-day workshop with no prerequisite classes necessary. Though students will use primarily hand tool woodworking techniques, they also will learn about basic machine safety and procedure, in addition to wood laminating techniques, mortise and tenon and dovetail joinery, how to develop a project, design and layout, assembly methods and much more.

For those who are unable to attend or prefer to work from home on their own, we now have plans and a step-by-step instruction booklet available from the woodworking school at a cost of $8.

Our New Homestead

The Center for Essential Education is developing a 3.2-acre homestead to serve as a teaching facility for a wide range of self-sufficiency skills and to provide a working homestead for others to visit and learn from.

We began building last fall with the restoration of a nineteenth century timber-framed barn and a log cabin. We prepared the foundation for the 30 x 35 barn prior to our Fall Homestead Craft and Children’s Fair. Visitors participated in a genuine barn-raising event.We completed the two-story cabin in time for the fair and recently completed the barn. To help us prepare the deep beds for our spring gardens, we organized teaching workshops for community members and friends who wanted to learn about the benefits of this type of intensive gardening.

Developing the homestead is a community endeavor. Butch Tindell and Kurt Truax not only oversee the day-to-day operation of the farm but also teach many of the homesteading skills workshops.

The new facility will also enable us to expand our educational courses and tours as we continue to host several thousand public and private school children as well as university and college students, teachers and so on who want to learn more about the traditional self-sufficiency skills.

This year our plans include two homesteading symposiums and hands-on workshops covering 13 different homesteading topics, including organic gardening, beekeeping, homestead carpentry, raising chickens, horse-farming, canning and preserving garden produce and so on.

The Heritage Farm is open for self-guided tours on Monday though Saturday, 10am—6pm. We are closed on Sunday. You are invited to come visit our new Homestead Farm.

Future Information    

Many of you prefer to receive e-mail information on future workshops and events here at the woodworking school. To help us update our e-mail address list, please e-mail your current information to: info@homesteadheritage.com

Machines Verses Hand Tools:

      Students regularly ask me how I decide when to use power machines and when to use hand tools. I know it’s a serious question, yet the answer for me is easy. One thing I know is that I don’t consciously think about when to use which. The main difference between those who have been trained to use hand tools and those who only use machines is that hand tool woodworkers have a choice. It takes consistent practice to establish hand tool skills, but it takes only a few days to gain the basics. On the other hand, learning machine woodworking takes only a few hours, sometimes less. Often this question about when to use hand- or power-tools presupposes that the basic difference between the two methods is that one method is faster and more efficient while the other is slower but more rewarding, yet that’s not the essence of the difference for a craftsman. As many of you know, I use machines for some aspects of my work, mostly dimensioning my wood to finished size. Working wood by machine requires an incredible safety support system, if you are to do it responsibly. To use any machine, such as a band saw, planer, router or table saw, requires that you have ear, eye, and breathing protection, to say nothing of dust extraction equipment from each machine in use. Even with these forms of protection and collection, the shop still requires substantial clean up, even after minimal use of machines.

      By using machines primarily for dimensioning the stock, I can mill all my material at one time. Any other work can be accomplished very efficiently by hand. Simple, basic woodworking practices, such as crosscutting wood, planing and joinery, can be executed in minutes and seconds, but even here I want to emphasize that it’s still not a question of efficiency versus time and money. There are many disadvantages associated with the machine, aside from those I gave above. The main problem I see is that they unavoidably inhibit my work, as well as inhibit the development of the true and substantive skills of a functioning craftsman. I find much less fulfillment from my work when the machine does everything for me and I do little more than push the button, hold the wood and guide it through the machine. Another problem I see with machines is that they inevitably require a support system to maintain the cutting edges of the blades, or replacement blades must be available. Yet, another significant consideration is that you must have somewhere to house all the equipment and machines. Machine woodworking must be carried out in a fairly substantive building. Handwork, on the other hand, can be accommodated in a small area, indoors or out, with all the tools you need contained in one small toolchest.

      I find that using hand tools stimulates all the five senses in very positive ways. You begin to truly understand the wood, the tools and your own abilities as these senses constantly transmit information to the brain via taste, sound, touch, smell, and sight. With all the senses functioning, you find yourself fully and actively engaged with the wood and the tools. The signals they send help direct you as you make minute-by-minute decisions that keep you constantly in touch with your work. Such influences then increase your sense of awareness and the sensitivity you need for every aspect of the work you are engaged in.

      Most woodworkers today depend entirely on machines, having no hand skills to complement their work. Though they never intended to become so industrialized, they found that there was, in fact, nowhere to learn the essential hand skills they needed. Making a small project, one that at one time would have been accomplished easily by hand, became a major consideration and an even greater investment in terms of equipment, space, buildings and so on. All they really wanted in the beginning was to make a small chair or a dining table, perhaps a bed, any of which can be accomplished easily by hand. By now you may feel that I am advocating a no-machine woodworking policy. I’m not. I’m simply trying to bring more balance to your perspective so that you will discover new levels of fulfillment as you follow after your woodworking craft.