Dunbarhamlin at Wilton

[thebloke]

It was a real pleasure to welcome Steve Hamlin to Wilton a couple of weekends ago for a training course. Steve wanted to get to grips with much of the basic bench hand skills such as:



marking out and the use of all the different gauges:



chopping mortises and cutting tenons:





as well as marking out and cutting a through dovetail:



Steve also wanted to learn about horizontal and vertical paring, here's something that I picked up very early...Steve is right handed:





Here's a few shots of Steve planing a piece of rough sawn Americn Oak to a finished dimension, using only the woodie jack and my A1 Norris panel plane...no scrub plane (not needed)





and checking for wind:



During the course of the weekend, Steve also had a chance to use the LN shoulder plane:



After an excellent day on Saturday, we had a pheasant casserole with vino and then settled back in the lounge for some serious woody talk:





Today Steve made a small panel in American Cherry and had some further practice in techniques learnt yesterday:



Chopping shoulders with the 25mm LN:



and all under the constant Woodbloke eyeball!





Here's Steve at the gluing stage of the panel construction:



and having cleaned it up with the LV BU smoother, he's putting a small chamfer on the edges with the LN block:



At the end of the course, this is what Steve achieved:



A through dovetail joint in elm
A haunched tenon
A exposed and wedged through mortice and tenon ( :-k I wonder why I got Steve to do one of those)
Planing a lump of rough sawn AO to a smooth exactly dimensioned finish, straight true and out of wind.
A cross halving joint
A small panel in American Cherry, all joints cut by hand and the panel material planed to size from rough stock.
I have to take my hat off to Steve because he worked really hard and absorbed everything that got thrown at him...which was a huge amout! A thoroughly nice bloke and a fantastic weekend... I know that Steve gained a lot from it - Rob

[jfc]

You wanna tidy up your workshop mate ! ;D
Ive had a few forum members nip over to my workshop but they always leave the place in a mess ;D

[dunbarhamlin]

Dammit, couldn't you airbrush over the grey bits ;D

Having been a professional woodwork teacher and cabinet maker, Rob created a detailed lesson plan based on my perceived shortcomings, and delivered improvement far beyond what I might have hoped.
I asked to cover all of the basics, from layout to chisel/plane/saw usage, as I was sure I was making work more difficult than it need be.

Chuffed to bits with my progress - one on one made so much difference, ensuring all of my mislearned techniques were picked up on and corrected, along with an introduction to new techniques and weird questions answered.

I can heartily recommend it, whether to trouble shoot your existing techniques or to explore new areas.

Cheers
Steve

[paulchapman]

Nov 7, 2008 20:05:00 GMT dunbarhamlin said:

Having been a professional woodwork teacher

Pity they ever stopped teaching woodwork in schools. Once you've learnt the basics it gives you the ability and confidence to go on to make far greater things.

Excellent stuff, Rob and Steve.

Cheers

Paul

[jfc]

Pity they ever stopped teaching woodwork in schools.

No way Why

[dunbarhamlin]

Nov 7, 2008 20:35:14 GMT jfc said:

Pity they ever stopped teaching woodwork in schools.

No way Why

Probably because HMG BFs don't like anything which might differentiate kids by ability and don't appreciate the value of developing creativity in a vocational context, whether little Johnny's going to be Whitehall statistician or a Whitehall statistic.
Also, since the damnfools are letting us become as fond of legal action the 'murricans, probably worried about scratched fingers too.

[edit] I do wonder whether it is my brain, fingers or keyboard which skips words when I'm typing. [/edit]

[paulchapman]

Nov 7, 2008 20:35:14 GMT jfc said:

Pity they ever stopped teaching woodwork in schools.

No way Why

If they still taught woodworking in schools, you wouldn't get so many people wandering around B&Q looking bewildered ;D

[jfc]

Amazing !!!!

Rob , is this a paid course you provide or just people nipping over ?

[thebloke]

Nov 7, 2008 22:17:01 GMT jfc said:

Amazing !!!!

Rob , is this a paid course you provide or just people nipping over ?

This was a full paying weekend course, content determined by the student, accomodation included. I structured the weekend on areas of work that Steve was interested in and we covered a lot of ground, including some sections (like veneering) that weren't originally included. We started off the day with a big cooked brekky, and went into the shop at around 0815 and didn't finish till around 5.30ish so I kept Steve pretty busy (as I said I would) - Rob

[mel]

[/quote]
If they still taught woodworking in schools, you wouldn't get so many people wandering around B&Q looking bewildered ;D[/quote]

ROFLMAO ;D ;D

The bloke . karma point headed your way for two reasons
1, boots on in the front room , {my kinda house }
2, good wallet massageing skills {getting paid for sommat we all enjoy }

[Dave S]

Hehe - I noticed the boots in the front room, too!

Rob, is that Elm Cabinet 1 next to the sofa? If so, it is far smaller than I realised.

Woodwork was still taught when I was at school, but they contrived a completely different timetable structure for vocational/craft subjects to academic subjects, so you had to do one or the other. I'd have loved to do woodwork, but it was impossible.

I'm sure there are many of us hobby woodworkers who have never had any tuition and who feel we lack the same basic skills that Steve was looking to get to grips with. I know I do. I have considered doing an evening class before now, but they are not very convenient for me timewise, and I'm not sure how much I would benefit in a classroom environment. This kind of intensive, one-on-one tuition looks well worthy of consideration.

These days I'm more likely to wander around B&Q looking bewildered.... but that's more because they don't seem to do much related to woodworking or diy anymore!!

Dave

[jfc]

I agree and think its a great idea . The guy who taught me to play bass was a friend and i learnt far more with him than any other methods i had tried .

[thebloke]

Nov 8, 2008 10:01:11 GMT Dave S said:

Hehe - I noticed the boots in the front room, too!

Rob, is that Elm Cabinet 1 next to the sofa? If so, it is far smaller than I realised.


I'm sure there are many of us hobby woodworkers who have never had any tuition and who feel we lack the same basic skills that Steve was looking to get to grips with. I know I do. I have considered doing an evening class before now, but they are not very convenient for me timewise, and I'm not sure how much I would benefit in a classroom environment. This kind of intensive, one-on-one tuition looks well worthy of consideration.

Dave

Dave - yup, that's the first cabinet I did in elm and you're right, it's not very big!
I was talking to Paul Chapman over the summer when he was in my 'shop and we both realised that there was a place for something like this, ie an intensive one-on-one course tailor made for the individual, as many keen woodies may not have had the opportunity to have tuition, or may have started to do woodwork much later in life. I tried evening classes years ago (in fact I used to run one at school) with limited success as they are not personal enough...you can carry one making the same mistakes for weeks at a time without the teacher picking it up. The basics of bench work (or indeed anything else) are pretty straight forward to learn and once learned the skills can be taken away for further practice at home in the students 'shop - Rob

[paulchapman]

Nov 8, 2008 10:38:41 GMT thebloke said:

I was talking to Paul Chapman over the summer when he was in my 'shop and we both realised that there was a place for something like this

I spent a couple of hours with Rob, brushing up my dovetail-cutting technique.



It's amazing how much you can pick up during a one-to-one session with a good tutor. Thoroughly recommended.

Cheers

Paul

[smudger]

Nov 7, 2008 20:29:41 GMT paulchapman said:

Nov 7, 2008 20:05:00 GMT dunbarhamlin said:

Having been a professional woodwork teacher

Pity they ever stopped teaching woodwork in schools. Once you've learnt the basics it gives you the ability and confidence to go on to make far greater things.


Paul

We taught all KS3 kids woodwork, and had two carpentry and joinery classes in Years 10 and 11, as well as Design Technology in KS4 and 6th form. We had a number of Arkwright Scholars over a period of 10 years. We had exhibitions of furniture and lighting. One of the most successful 6th form A level projects was a boat.

So we sort of taught woodwork...

[jake]

I keep getting mixed up between this thread and the one below! ;D