Our mission is to inspire a lifelong respect for craftsmanship and a passion for creating by providing a diverse, safe, and excellent woodworking education for all.

We’re A Community Like No Other

We range in age from 18 to 85. At first glance you might wonder what brings us together. The answer is a shared love for woodworking. We’re serious about technique, maintain a tireless work ethic, thrive on helping each other solve problems. We believe the only failure is not trying. Our passions include hand tools, joinery, fine furniture, indigenous arts, woodturning, and creating a diverse and supportive fine woodworking community.

The first thing you’ll notice stepping into our bench rooms is how quiet it is.  That’s intentional. Don’t ask to turn up the stereo. We’re listening. We’re attuning our ears to recognize the sound of sharp tools on wood. However if you visit on a Friday afternoon we’ll be anything but quiet: we’ll be having a potluck and if the weather’s warm, you’ll find us outside in the sun, our mismatched dogs tethered close by. 

Some of us are training for our first careers, some are retraining, some are retired and pursuing a lifelong passion, some of us are novices and unsure where this adventure will lead us. Welcome.

Learn From The Best

We’re committed to offering students small class sizes, and the opportunity to study with an array of woodworking professionals who bring a wide breadth of specialties and master craftsmanship.

 As professional educators they are able to recognize individual learning styles, employ excellent communication skills, and are always generous with their patience and good humor. We’re fortunate to draw on our wealth of local woodworkers as faculty, including master craftspeople from around the world.  This pool of over 30 educators allows us to offer a combination of 12-week courses  and a diverse selection of shorter courses for woodworkers at various skill levels. If you have a specific interest not included in our current offerings please contact us at info@ptwoodschool.org.

Sustainability: keeping an eye towards the future.

The craft of traditional woodworking is sustainable by nature, as the techniques employed here endure the test of time. Glue only lasts 200 years: you want your joinery to be good! Whether you’re building heirloom furniture or framing your future wood shop, the goal is for the product to far outlive its creator.

Our commitment to responsible stewardship and sustainable practices is woven throughout our curriculum, in which we discuss and promote the use of non-toxic products and solid wood construction. This commitment inspires course offerings such as Timber Framing, Japanese Carpentry, Coopering, and others.

Port Townsend

We’re located at Fort Worden State Park in Port Townsend, Washington on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.  The fort is home to educational organizations such as Centrum Foundation, Northwind Arts, Port Townsend Marine Science Center, Madrona MindBody Institute, Goddard and Peninsula Colleges, and two history museums. Our students have the opportunity to attend music performances, marvel at an Orca skeleton, take a yoga class, get a massage, learn about the history of the fort or visit with students in other programs over a beer in one of the three on-site eateries. If you’re looking for a little quiet time, take hike on the beach or on the trails that span the 434-acre park. 

It’s not just about extracurricular activities. The buildings at the park provide students and interns the opportunity to apply and further hone their skills. In previous years our students retrofitted windows on two historic fort buildings and constructed porch furniture for officers’ row housing.  

Beyond the gates of the park, you’ll be welcomed by the historic Victorian port community of Port Townsend. In addition to bookstores, coffeehouses, restaurants and one of the most highly acclaimed movie theaters in the region, you’ll discover a community rich in traditional and skilled trades. Visit Boat Haven Marina and see the renovation of the Western Flyer, the boat John Steinbeck chartered for his tour on the Sea of Cortes; or enjoy the historic buildings downtown and local neighborhoods filled with Victorian architecture.  

Our story

For over 25 years, the idea of a woodworking school lingered in the imagination of Port Townsend.  We lived with it, talked about it, agreed that it was a part of the essence of our community, but it always seemed to dissipate before anyone could organize the idea into a solid reality. Nonetheless, the enthusiasm for woodworking was undeniable and occasionally surfaced in organized events. Jim Tolpin and John Marckworth founded a woodworkers’ guild, which hosted a woodworking show in 1984, and for a number of years, a Woodworker’s Ball ⎯ a fundraiser for the high school wood-shop.

Then, in 2004, there was a neighborhood party.  Tim Lawson, likely en route to grab a beer, crossed paths with Jim.  Tim was new to town.  He’d made his way here from the UK via a career in the high-tech industry and The Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine.

These two passionate woodworkers needed no help starting a conversation and eventually found themselves discussing the similarities between Rockport and Port Townsend and the fact that Port Townsend was ripe for a woodworking school. Jim later phoned Tim and announced, “It’s time to do this!”  And our three founders started meeting for morning coffee on a regular basis.  

In late summer of 2007, eighty-six students enrolled in what the founders called “Sawdust Free Education”--seven courses with an emphasis on design offered in classrooms at Fort Worden State Park.  This was a chance to experiment with curriculum, location, and community interest.  The experiment drew the attention of Kate Burke, then Fort Worden’s Manager. Kate recognized the good fortune of having a school of fine craftsman as a resident organization, and suggested the addition of Preservation Trades to our name and mission. 

Our home

Finding a space at Fort Worden was harder than imagined.  There are over 50 buildings and the Woodworking School ended up in the only one made of concrete: The Powerhouse.  To say it was used as storage glorifies what was actually housed there: 3000 gallons of lead paint, old radiators stacked floor to ceiling, and pianos ⎯more abandoned pianos than anyone can rationally imagine in one place.

Converting the Powerhouse into home of the Port Townsend School of Woodworking and Preservation Trades was a heroic effort on the part of the community. In addition to our three intrepid founders, Park staff and local volunteers (many of them avocational woodworkers) clocked countless hours to clean, paint and outfit our new home. We also received support from the larger woodworking community. Lee Valley Tools offered a generous discount on tools and Ron Hall at Woodcraft made a special delivery of our new workbenches using his horse trailer.  After all those years of imagining a woodworking school in Port Townsend, it came to life when we opened our doors on March 8, 2008.

Our First Courses

Our first year of programming was primarily one-day courses, open shop time, and an evening lecture series that included Stump the Stooges, where Jim and John answered questions in the style of Click and Clack from CarTalk. Design courses were popular including, Quick Furniture Design that boasted the tagline: “Unleash the Inner Furniture Worker!”  We offered three one-week courses, Building a Tool Tote, Basic Homeshop Cabinet Making, and Building a Shaker Bench.

2008 was also our chance to tiptoe into historic preservation through funding from the Washington State Veterans Conservation Corps. The students’ enthusiasm and engagement in the first workshop was met with additional funding and the opportunity to try out their new skills on the restoration of Building 365. The success of these workshops demonstrated the quality of our coursework and faculty and the School was identified to be a beneficiary of a Department of Commerce grant in partnership with State Parks and Peninsula College. Students, primarily veterans and conservation corps participants, earned college credit for training in historic preservation, and work experience on the window retrofit of Building 310, home of the Madrona MindBody Institute.

Ever-evolving

Since our doors opened, we’ve seen an increase in younger students training for careers in woodworking, the next generation of skilled craftsmen.  This includes an increase in women who now comprise over 20% of our enrollment.  Students have come from as far as India and France and as close as across the street. 

The success of our 12-Week Foundations of Woodworking Intensive Course, and student demand for another course of equal depth and focus on hand tool woodworking, inspired the creation of a 12-week Furniture Making Course to be launched in Winter of 2017 as well as the development of a second shop facility. Thanks to our outstanding local faculty members who are the heart and soul of the school's community and continue to hold the bar high for education in traditional woodworking. 

The School’s success has also gained us a national reputation and the ability to attract renowned craftspeople such as Peter Follansbee, Garrett Hack, and Northwest Coast Arts Master Carver, Steve Brown to teach shorter courses. We are proud to have hosted over 30 visiting instructors from all over the country who are specialists and masters of their craft. We continue to connect with a network of makers through partnerships with our educational partners and hosting the 2014 Furniture Society Conference.

As our alumni community grows, more and more graduates are adopting the ethos of fine craftsmanship, discovering their passion for woodworking, and carrying on the work of preserving the tradition. 

PTSW Founders