Our last day of class had a twist: everyone split into two groups, with all of us working together to glue up everyone’s tables. A brief view of some of the early tables, while Shaun (and Gibbs) look on.
In class today, we applied a finish for all our pieces. Note the extra bit of stain that Liz brought with, in case we needed to do touch-ups.
I have to say: Liz was the star student tonight, as several other folks wandered over to ask about her process and what she did. Lots of interest and questions, and Liz was just in her element – talking about everything she’s learned about staining. Quite cool to watch.
I ended up needing to miss a woodworking class last week (and needed to go in on the weekend, to do a makeup class). Liz decided she needed the night off as well, and decided that we’d both miss… and go in together, today. Our makeup work: sanding. We were encouraged to bring headphones. I…
Today, we fitted all our pieces together, so that we could measure and fit the bottom shelf and tabletop. We’re actually ahead of schedule today, and ended up having a more laid back pace.
During our woodworking class, I paused momentarily to snap of photo of several other classes’ projects: pieces that were in progress. While our class has everyone’s work stored on shelves (we haven’t yet assembled things together yet), these were all here in a group.
Our class today focused on working with our legs, and getting mortises set up. I’ve had some slight exposure to drill presses, but using them for mortises was a new experience (but so much better than doing them by hand).
During one of the slower moments, near the end – I took some photos. We haven’t been in the classroom itself much, as the last classes have had us out on the main floor with our various pieces.
Here though, we ended class by gluing up our tops and lower shelves.
First class tonight, for another session at the Chicago School of Woodworking. We arrived a bit late, and hurriedly got all our materials into the classroom while the rest of the students were out on the floor.
Paused to take this photo, which had a lot of nice light coming in the windows.
At the end of class, with our cabinets ready to be transported to the car. L to R it’s me, our instructor Nick, and Liz.
Today, our instructor Nick gave us two pieces of plywood that we would join via screws to make the cabinet tops. We counter-sunk the screw holes, joined the pieces together with screws, and cleaned up the sides using a router.
A pretty low-key kind of day. We did a lot of work with hinges, installing the main doors for each of our cabinets. Liz and I opted to reverse the hinge placement on our drawers, with the idea that they might end up in our basement/shop next to one another.
Our instructor, Nick, talking through how the newly installed drawer should function.
Checking to make sure things are level and lined up. Small note: we used splines for the corner joints.
A nice thing about our class time: oftentimes, there aren’t a lot of other people, using the table saws. This is a view of the main area, where we do most of our cuts.
On seeing this, I have two thoughts. First: that’s a lot of clamps. Second: you can never have too many clamps.