This is the answer. This is a short intensive course of total emersion woodworking. You will spend your whole time here learning, practicing perfecting how to control hand tools. How to get that cutting edge doing what you want and doing it in the quiet and peace of a hand tool workshop.
This ten week course is based upon the first ten weeks of the famous one year training course that David Savage has been developing for over thirty years. This is what will be covered:
Weeks One to Two: Your introduction to hand tools and how to master them.
People make a big fuss about sharpening, it is an important doorway towards allowing you control of the cutting edge. Less push and shove, more control. So we will show you professional methods without honing guides . By the end of the week some if not all your hand tools should be sharp and you should have a good idea of how to use them
Woodworking Tools: These are special, these are extensions of your hands and need to be good quality without becoming involved with "woodworking tool fetishism".You will need a new No6 bench plane a good set of chisels marking knife engineers squares, a dovetail saw, and a block plane. You can borrow tools until yours arrive but the sooner you have "yours", the sooner you can get to know them.
Using a bench plane and chisels. These are quite correctly called hand tools so how your hand and body relate to them is critical to their use. You will learn to hold them properly, how to stand properly at the bench and work with your whole body not just your fore arms. Bench planes are used to get timber flat. I will teach you how to create a dead flat surface, plane an adjacent flat surface at right angles and create a dimensioned component with this simple tool.
You will learn to be responsive to the material, to this particular bit of wood, you will learn to cut it the way it wants to be cut and why that is important. You will gain control of the process of removing fine shavings a tenth of a millimetre of wood at a time. In this way, you will have in your hands access to creating quality through this very process.
This is a doorway to Quality Woodworking. In this week you will make a simple joint to exact dimensions, entirely by hand, your aim will be perfect fit, one piece exactly inside another, with clean oil polished surfaces and chamfered shiny corners. Depending upon the amount of work needed on your tools you would also have sharpened some if not all your tools and set a plane up to work correctly learning why planes may not have worked for you in the past. Hand tools like these are the way into quality work and this is the first step towards that goal. From here with this knowledge you will be able to practice alone to take these skills to the next stage.
What John Lewis has to say about us
"A brief note of thanks for what proved to be an invaluable week with you and the team at Rowden Farm. It is difficult to capture the breadth and depth of what I personally got out of the time spent in your company; inspirational, educational and undoubtedly practical - the five days far exceeded my expectations. There is no question that my enthusiasm for pursuing the excellent standards in both design and workmanship that you espouse, has been fired. I would not have believed it possible to work to the tolerances you demand and am looking forward to the challenge of honing some of the skills I started to learn with you.
I thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual stimulus the workshops provided, both in terms of the inspirational design and cutting edge techniques being employed. Equally the stimulus of some of our lunchtime chats provided me much food for thought across a broad panoply of subject matter. I was interested to find we share many of the same core values and similar philosophy where life is concerned. I have not forgotten that I owe you some words on artistic and sporting adrenaline and hopefully will get something to you electronically in the next 10 days or so. Similarly the American rifle shooter whose name I could not recall is Lanny Basham. I’m trying to get his DVDs copied for you so that you can hear for yourself what he has to say about visualisation and the use of conscious and unconscious thought processes to achieve exceptional performance and outcomes.
Once again thank you so much for providing the environment in which I could achieve so much at so many different levels. I can hardly wait for the next opportunity to immerse myself in the rich experience your workshops have to offer, when I come across in September for the Intermediate course - hopefully in the interim I will be able to refine my skills a little and be in a position to make a box to the exacting standards sought! In the meantime have a rewarding, creative and ultimately happy summer"
With kindest regards
John Lewis kpmandjkl@talktalk.net
Weeks Three to Seven: Intermediate Skills Develop and Enhance bench exercises
This is for students who have already mastered sharpening and the basic skills with planes and chisels. In this section you will make from pre-prepared materials a set of small objects, winding sticks, hexagonal cheese boards, dovetailed book ends, a hand pared mallet. These are exercises we have developed that will teach you to use bench planes, marking guages and chisels and saws with confidence.
You will build upon the knowledge gained at "Basics." Here you build on that understanding step at a time You will be gaining more confidence and understanding of the materials and how to handle them. Joining timber together with an invisible glue line will be no problem after this week. Accuracy to a tenth of a millimetre will be no problem after these weeks. During these weeks you follow the syllabus of our famed one year course and get the same results.
Joinery:You will learn to make a perfect long grain to long grain joint, no glue line . You will learn to "shoot" edges true and square and use cramps correctly. You will learn how to inlay one wood into another and the challenges to over come with contrasting woods and conflicting grain direction.
Accuracy: Now you will be able to "hit that line." Your tools will be working for you and you will start to listen to what they say to you. You will in this way learn to feel your material, you will learn about wood .
Polishing. Those jobs you finish, you finish. You may do em all, you may not. The main thing is to get them right. Polish will be workshop systems either oil wax or shellac we can play with all of them.
Quality. The key is get it dead right then move on. If you make a mistake, and we all do that its a part of being human take a step back, do it again. Then move on with confidence. Do not rush ahead just to get to the next project, to get abit faster than the next guy, to make space at the end to make a laminated wingbat. Quality is NOW, what you get as right as you can now.
Weeks Seven to Ten: Box Making
In this period you be using some of those quality skills you have got to make a lovely piece of work. You, yes you, will be able make from pre-prepared materials a small very beautiful dovetailed jewellery box. You will learn to use marking guages and cutting guages to mark out joints. Once marked out you will learn to use and to set up and sharpen a small European dovetail saw. This is the most commonly used bench saw in Fine Furniture making. The skills, as ever are cumulative they build upon one another.
Sawing straight requires understanding and skill that is almost impossible to acquire without training. David Daren or Steve will show you how to master that damn saw! Once cut out you will learn how to pare back with small sharp bench chisels and fit pins to tails.
You will learn to use Block Planes, Shoulder planes, and Side Rebate Planes. The box lid will be made with a “raise and fielding” to fit the box sides and a cedar bottom fitted with a simple rebate. All will be worked with hand tools including shoulder planes and side rebate planes. This will lead to polishing with shellac polish and finishing with wire wool and wax to a fine lustre before assembly. The lid of the box and box bottom will be then fitted and the job assembled.
Veneering and Cross banding: There is an option here to make the lid with a veneered panel with an inlaid line and figured crossbanding. This will be shellac polished to bring out the figuring of a burr panel.
Assembly and Polishing Once assembled you will hand plane all the outside surfaces then sand and polish and separate the lid from the body of the box. The box lid will be fitted with brass butts and will close onto mitred dry liners inside the box. The aim is for a “Rolls Royce door ” sound to the closing box lid , Woomph! not Whack !!!! . If you have time you can go on and fit feet to the box and a small handle to the lid. If you are really good you may get to fit a small tray inside the box .
This is Al Shaver from Ontario It is because of Al that we are able to offer this course. People often ask if I can do a course longer than a week but not a full year, Al just asked at the right time . Al came over for seven weeks before Christmas 2008 and largely followed the sylabus of one year students. He wanted to learn about making using his hand tools and making them work for him. Our year course is not really aimed at amateur woodworkers but Al convinced me that many of you out there could take up the challenge of learning skills with hand tools in a relatively short time.
And this is the box that Al made whilst he was with us .
Nicely made to professional workshop standard in Black walnut with sycamore dry liners and with a sliding tray. The lid of the box can be made in solid with a raised and fielded detail , al chose to have a veneered lid with a burr walny centre surrounded with cross banding and with an ebony string. All finished off with a shellac polish.
Join for ten weeks the Woodworking Community that is Rowden workshops.
- Enjoy the tea break seminars that can cover subjects ranging from laminating or website design
- Be a part of our student workshop.
- Set up your own website put up photos and text whilst you are here.
- See other students build work much more advanced than your own pieces
- See inspirational pieces being made for davids clients
COURSE AVAILABILITY AND COURSE FEES.
We plan to offer only four places each year on this ten week course. You will be starting with two or three others probably they will be on the one year course. Course start dates will be in September November February and June . The fee for the Ten week course is £7,500 inclusive of all materials abrasives and polishes. A deposit of £2,500 is payable in advance and is only returnable should you cancel the course twelve weeks prior to the course starting date. Contact David Savage’s assistant Margaret Hassett on INT+0044 [0]1409 281579 for details of up to date availability or contact me by email
Courses are planned for Febrary 2009 and June 2009. Contact Margaret Hassett on INT+0044 [0]1409 281579 for details of up to date availability or email NOW
I have started doing a few, a very few Masterclass Courses. More or
less as a way to "keep my hand in" and meet people who are not
necessarily able to do the year course. I am always looking to find
ways to set up products for those of you who cannot come here for a
year but want to get the full Rowen experience.The "Basics" course is most popular. However I do an "Intermediate" week where I insist people have at least learnt to sharpen tools
and have a few basics learnt either with me or at another decent workshop.
Then you can come here and make a lovely dovetailed box. Most
people are amazed at what can be done in a week given hard work and
a bit of encouragement. This is Derrick Wilkinson
"Hi David,
As promised a quick note to let you know what I thought
of the week I spent at your workshop. Overall, I think that the
week was a great success. I came away rather humbled by the high
standards that you demand, and greatly appreciative of your humour
and your patience with me when I made my all too many mistakes.
The friendliness and professionalism that imbues your workshop was
a great pleasure, and your philosphy of craftsmanship an
inspiration. Oh yes, and then there is the little box that I took
away as a reminder of what we achieved and how very much remains to
be done. Thank you.
Best wishes,
Derrick"
COURSE AVAILABILITY
The fee for the Ten week course is £7,500 inclusive of all materials abrasives and polishes. A deposit of £2,500 is payable in advance and is only returnable should you cancel the course twelve weeks prior to the course starting date. Contact David Savage’s assistant Margaret Hassett on INT+0044 [0]1409 281579 for details of up to date availability or contact me by email
Course Brochure
