Comprehensive Woodworking

We’ve programmed Comprehensive Woodworking to be a wholistic one-week over-view of the craft of woodwork. This is the core information that every woodworker needs. It’s the vital information that we teach our apprentices at the beginning of their training.

So many woodworkers pick up their knowledge in a piecemeal way. They learn misinformation, pickup bad habits and follow out-of-date practices. All too often, wood workers reach for a bad tool or struggle with a flawed piece of wood without understand what’s wrong or knowing how to improve.

For many, it’s simply a lack of access from a young age. Perhaps your school didn’t teach woodwork? Perhaps you haven’t picked up a chisel in 30 years? Perhaps you were once discouraged from working with your hands? No matter! We’re here to provide you with a complete over-view of the craft and to point you in the right direction.

Many of you’ll consider yourselves to be “good” woodworkers. You’ll think “I don’t need this course”. You’ll wait for a course that offers something exciting to make. The thing is, you don’t know what it is that you don’t know. In a world of Youtube, wood shows and podcasts, there’s so much conflicting advice and so many people trying to sell you an expensive piece of unnecessary kit. We just want you to enjoy the creative process of woodwork.

Day One

All about timber

We share our deep love of timber. We talk about hard wood, soft wood, long grain, end grain and “difficult” grain. We look at colour matching, grain matching, sliced and sawn veneer as well as common substrates. We experiment with figured timber, burls and knots. We look at some of the common cabinet species, we discuss commercial timber sizes and we talk about how to buy and store wood. We pay special attention to timber movement, grain direction and moisture content.

Day Two

All about hand tools

We go through all the basic hand tools and how they cut. We look at saws, chisels, hand planes, marking-out tools, scrapers, carving tools, sharpening and the importance of good steel. We compare Western tools with their Japanese equivalents. We discuss what to look for in a tool and which tools are the most important to invest in first.

Day Three

All about hand-held electric and pneumatic tools.

We look at all the common woodworking hand-held power tools, including routers, Domino machines, biscuit jointers, drills, electric planes, angle grinders, jig saws, palm sanders and circular saws.

Day Four

All about machines.

We look at the surface planer, thicknesser, band saw, table saw, radial arm saw, router table, spindle moulder, re-saw, and linisher (sander). We discuss the importance of jigs, machine safety and general maintenance.

Day Five

Everything Else

We look at gluing-up, sanding, finishing, vacuum bags, clamping, steam bending and curved laminating. We also look at screws, nails and hinges.

We bring all this together by designing and building a safe, logical jig for the router table, using all the knowledge gained during the week.

Notes

Morning tea and lunch included.

Students must be 18 years or older.

You do not need to bring any tools. You are welcome to bring any non-power tools that you would like some advice on (such as a hand plane that needs tuning).

The total course fee is $2,500 incl. GST. We require an $300 deposit at the time of booking. You will be invoiced for the balance 2 weeks out from the commencement date. The deposit is fully re-fundable up to 2 weeks prior to the course commencing. If you are unable to attend due to illness (such as COVID 19) at the time of commencement, we will refund the deposit.