Summer 2007
at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking
for more information &
registration details regarding all the followig classes go to:
www.marcadams.com

June 4–8 (Monday–Friday}
and September 17–21 (Monday–Friday)
Furniture by Design: Whatever your level of woodworking skill, you need to know how to make sure that what you make will work, that it is constructed appropriately for its intended use, and that it looks good, not only on its own but also in its intended surroundings.
This is design!
Design for Woodworkers is a five-day course in which you’ll cover the whole gamut of design essentials:
• How to get your ideas down on paper — how to make a meaningful three-dimensional sketch; how to produce ‘working drawings’ — plans, elevations, and sections — and how to figure dimensions and cutting lists. Bring a drawing pad, pencil, and ruler!
• We’ll consider the essential functional requirements of various classes of furniture: how high any given table should be, how wide are seats, how much backs should slope, what size drawers work, etc., — all the things that must be understood for a piece to ‘work’.
• There are many ways to join two pieces of wood together, but choosing the appropriate construction for any given piece of furniture requires an understanding of its function and its needs for strength. We’ll make a simple piece various ways to discover the principles of designing for structural integrity. Bring a saw, chisel, hammer, and plane!
• Apart from function and structure, design is concerned with how things look.
We’ll examine why one shape looks better than another and how to design the constituent parts so they not only function structurally but also look well together.
Every successful piece relies on certain underlying design paradigms — systems that ensure balance and pleasing proportions. You’ll learn how to analyse and apply the Golden Mean, classical architectural proportions, and even basic geometric paradigms to a variety of pieces. Bring a rule, compass, and tape measure!
• Finally, we’ll explore design characteristics from the Gothic oak period through classic European and American periods, to contemporary models, so that you will gain the ability to design a piece that will fit with any given period. You’ll design and construct models of a given piece appropriate to a period of your choice.

June 9 (Saturday)
A Linenfold Panel: In the days before sheetrock, better houses were paneled in wood with gorgeously carved panels. One of the commonest forms was linenfold paneling — an especially impressive form of carving that can also be used in much furniture.
The process is surprisingly simple and requires nothing more than a few simple handtools and easily-made templates. One of the chief attractions of linenfold carving is the almost infinite number of patterns that can be created with the smallest number of carving tools.
Let Graham Blackburn show you how to make templates, develop the ‘folds’, plane the undulations, and carve the over- and under-cut ends that create the apparently impossible plastic three-dimensionality of this stunning and absorbing technique..

July 19–13 (Monday–Friday)
Treasure Chest: Building a Treasure Chest — large or small, the choice is yours — entails traditional, solid-case chest construction with a variety of hand-cut dovetails. Layout, proper wood selection, milling, joint preparation, and assembly will be covered in detail, along with various lid and edge edge treatments including handplaned mouldings, and plinth construction.
Whatever your level of skill, this piece will improve and increase your woodworking skills, as well as providing you with an heirloom chest to be proud of.
Preparing stock and gluing up solid boards without the use of clamps is just one of the traditional methods that professional furnituremakers use to gain more control and choice. Graham will show you how easy many of these methods are with the right techniques.
Similarly, cutting dovetails by hand can offer more choices in terms of design and construction, and can be both surprisingly easy and fast when done the way Graham was taught years ago in England by a British cabinetmaker of the old school.
This is by no means an exclusive handtools class, but if you bring along a couple of planes and a couple of western-style saws, and learn how easily the experts tune them up and use them with the appropriate jigs, your woodworking vocabulary will be dramatically increased.

July 14–15 (Saturday–Sunday)
Tuning & Using Handtools: Regardless of the kind of woodworking you prefer, certain handtools will always be essential. Others will add immeasurably to your experience, both by giving you more options as well as often making possible a better job — but only if you know how to tune them up and use them proficiently.
This Tune-up and Use course will proceed from marking and layout tools, through common bench saws — crosscut, rip, back, and dovetail — on to jointing tools such as chisels and match planes, to the ultimate finishing tool — the bench plane. Each type will be taken apart, examined, reassembled, tuned, and sharpened and its correct use with appropriate jigs demonstrated.
Bring an example of each type of any or all of the above tools that you may have so that you can work along with Graham through the tuning and sharpening process.
You will most likely need a small hammer, a mallet, a screwdriver, and a regular mill file.
For saw tune-ups you’ll also need a short (60°) triangular file and a saw set.
For sharpening purposes a diamond stone is a great help — there are many different types, the bigger the better, but even a small one is very useful. The school has grindstones, but if you have a favorite sharpening system of different stones, feel free to bring them. Graham will demonstrate the use of waterstones (primarily because they are among the easiest stones to keep flat) — the end being more important than the means.
You probably won’t be able to recondition every tool you bring, but we’ll cover the major varieties so that you’ll know how to approach the rest of your toolkit with confidence. Expect to be surprised at the results!

September 17–21 (Monday–Friday)
Furniture by Design: (for details see above)

September 22 (Saturday)
A Sharpening Intensive: No matter how many tools you may have, if they are not sharp your woodworking will be a frustrating experience. Don’t waste time trying to cut, measure, mark, plane, or carve with blunt tools. Let Graham Blackburn show you how to prepare your edges so that they do what they are supposed to do.
Learn what ‘sharp’ means, understand what a ‘cutting edge’ is supposed to do, and discover various ways to make sharpening easy — it doesn’t have to be a time-consuming chore.
Graham will discuss various sharpening systems and explain the mysteries behind different man-made and natural waterstones, composite stones, and even oilstones. Learn how to use glass, abrasive paper, grinding wheels, dremel tools, files, and diamond stones to shape the proper edge. Learn why some cutting angles are better than others and experience the difference between grits and hardness.
Bring a selection a cutting edges to work on — plane irons, chisels, gouges, marking knives, cutting gauges, spokeshaves, scrapers, etc. — and whatever stones you may have been using. You’ll learn how to maintain your equipment and become efficient sharpeners — the first prerequisite fort any successful woodworker.

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