Skills Week - Sharpening & Essential Cabinet Making Hand Skills
About the course
The Cabinetmaking Skills Week is the course you’ve been waiting for. If you’re a complete beginner this will give you the perfect grounding; if you’ve been woodworking for a while, this will be a great tune-up, sorting out any bad habits and reinforcing fundamental skills.
Everything in Woodwork is based on Sharpening so this is the initial focus. You MUST have a sharpening system at your fingertips that works for you, we will look at angles, the exotic and not so exotic steels used for blades, high speed grinders, water cooled grinders and bench stones. You will learn a method of sharpening freehand, but you will also learn how to use honing guides – it’s quite OK if freehand honing remains an aspiration for the moment. Western dovetailing and cross-cut saws are great to use, but they also need to be super-sharp, so we’ll look at sharpening these too.
Planing, Sawing and Chiselling are the three critical elements needed for shaping and jointing bits of wood together so you will be given some good solid technique and exercises to help you practice and conquer these vital skills. Setting up a plane to take gossamer-thin shavings, planing strategies to deal with misshapen pieces of timber, chopping and paring to a knife line with a chisel and bringing a bit of Zen into sawing to make it a focussed, precise process.
To see how things are progressing you will prepare and join several pieces of wood together to make a cheese-board, this will give you a chance to get some calm, composed gluing under your belt, adding some tapered chamfers with a wonderful ‘finesse tool’, the spoke-shave, will complete this little project.
Jointing pieces of wood together is what woodwork is all about so we’ll cut some Through Dovetails and through, wedged Mortice & Tenons. Cutting a groove and inserting a veneered bottom will complete an elegant ‘Water Biscuit Box’ to perfectly compliment your board.
What You Will Learn
Sharpening
- SHARPENING – Cutting angles, Bevel Angles and fool-proof systems that produce razor-sharp blades
- PREPARING A PLANE – fettling and setting up for gossamer-thin shavings
- PLANING STRATEGIES – producing super flat, square, wood with a mirror surface
- CHISELLING – techniques for safe, accurate chopping and paring
- SAWING – Japanese and Western saws need different techniques to get the best out of them – (includes looking at sharpening a Western Dovetail Saw)
- CHEESEBOARD EXERCISE – Planing and gluing with some simple cramping tactics and a hand-cut, curved chamfer
- MAKING FRIENDS WITH A ‘FINESSE’ TOOL – cutting a tapered chamfer with a Spokeshave
- A VITAL JOINT – THROUGH DOVETAILS – sawing and chiselling practice to make this hugely important, elegant joint.
- ANOTHER VITAL JOINT – THROUGH, WEDGED MORTCE & TENON – another classic joint, the perfect joint for a frame, or in this case, a box divider.
- BOX EXERCISE – Combining all the tools and techniques – this dovetailed box exercise is the perfect way to check progress.
Read what our recent students say about the Skills Week Course
“John unlocks the little details that are never quite answered when being self taught by YouTube. Learning ‘the knack’ of doing things properly is so much easier and faster face to face.”
“I found the course very informative and educational. The tuition was broken down into manageable sections and all bought together in the making of a small tray which I thoroughly enjoyed.”
“An excellent course. An excellent teacher. Wasn’t taken too seriously, but equally we learnt a lot.”
“The course was comprehensive, thorough and well structured. John has a very methodical and clear approach when explaining and instructing. I think the course had a good balance of theory and practical application.”
“I had a great time on the course. The tuition is really good and I came way understanding how to do the tasks we looked at. I will need. Lot more practice to become proficient but that is part of the learning process.”
“Perfect combination of hand plane, chisel, and dovetail saw skill building. Exactly what I was looking for.”
“From the outset we were made to feel welcome and the course was delivered in a no pressure environment.”
“As a complete beginner I was a bit apprehensive at the start of this course but John’s enthusiasm, knowledge and clear teaching skills meant I need not have worried. It was an excellent course in a beautiful setting with delicious afternoon cake. What else could we ask for?!”
“I Particularly liked John’s concise methods and tips and tricks.”
“There were clear explanations and demonstrations and time to practice.”
“Spacious workshop, ability to use tools of a greater quality than my own. John’s ability to show us how to do the various tasks.”
“John was very patient, had a great sense of humour and the was amazing, I was very surprised that i managed to turn out a half decent cheeseboard and cracker box – definitely the result of good teaching as I had little woodworking experience beforehand.”
“Small numbers and personalized tuition”
“I would just like to say a big thank you for the fantastic course that you ran last week, i can honestly say i haven’t learnt that much in years and along with that had such fun.
“You truly have an exceptional environment to learn and the camaraderie is second to none. Again many, many thanks and hopefully i will get myself along to the long course in the not to distant future.”
“It was excellent, I liked everything. Really. The people, the equipment, the course content, John’s expertise, Sara-Jane’s cake. It was all Brilliant.”
“The course was taught at the right pace and the tuition was very good.”
“Well thought out. A good pace. Excellent venue. Beautifully laid out classroom. Good workbench. Very good explanations about tools and the different brands.”
“Lovely atmosphere, beautiful surroundings, great teacher and fantastic cake!”
“Very good clear and staged instructions to allow skills to develop. The content was challenging but never to the extent that it’s outcomes could not be achieved.”
“Thanks for another great week. I’ve been fettling my box today and it’s starting to look like something I can be just a little but proud of. Only another ten years and I’ll be able to make the perfect dovetail (and win Wimbledon).”
“I also want to say thanks again for such a fantastic week, I learned more than I thought I was capable of and feel much more confident about taking my first steps into a career in carpentry. I know I’ve still got a long way to go but I feel much better about the future now. Hopefully, I’ll be back again next summer, if not before!”
“Absolutely enjoyed every minute. Went to the tool sharpening and beginners cabinet making course. Looked forward to every morning and hated leaving lol. Worst part of the course was its too short!!! Thanks ever so much to John and his patience with my caffeine fuelled jitteriness! Hope to be back as soon as possible!”
“The knowledge and the way information was put across by John standout but the all round atmosphere was excellent. Please move to Carlisle so you are closer. To be honest it is the best week I have had.”
“Even with the bar set so high for beginners, the instruction was presented in such well organised and digestible bite size chunks, one was able to absorb and implement the information without feeling overwhelmed or too confused. The course and instruction far exceeded anything I could have reasonably expected.”
“John is a great teacher and the course content was spot on. Its also a great location for me and the home made cakes are a very nice plus!”
“Very informative and we gradually progressed through important stages. Informal and relaxed with good interaction between tutor and all participants.”
“John is a very good teacher. I really liked the attention to detail, the focus on technique, and the comprehensive approach to understanding the tools and how they worked. The projects were well-judged, with the right balance of challenge and achievability.”
“Well paced, comprehensive and built skills through practical experiencing. I enjoyed the teaching style.”
“The course was structured – everything we did led into another activity. It was almost like someone had thought about it. Although we didn’t necessarily create anything for the first few days there were ‘goals’ along the way. The methods were taught in a way that was easy to follow (though not always to put into practise!). Tools provided were great, and we got the opportunity to try other variants. Nice cakes as well.”
Structured and good pace. Very thorough build up of the fundamental skills. Feel like I could completed the projects independently now using the skills covered.”
“Well explained and always there to help.”
“A Professional level of instruction.”
“I would recommend the course to anyone seeking to improve their basic skills in cabinet Making,in particular the dovetail saw.”
“I liked the practice of dovetail marking & cut outs, nice to have an early piece finished ( cheese board) recommend YES.”
“Skills Week is well-designed, well-organised, well- resourced and great fun – I learned a lot!”
“This was an excellent choice of course for me as I work with hand tools, and I felt that my skills levels and knowledge had really been raised enormously after the week with John.”
“Excellent instruction in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. The quality of the tools was top notch which made a huge difference.”
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