Summer 2024
August 5 - 9

We will start our week by asking ourselves what makes a stool useful and beautiful. We will talk about balancing form, function, and the technical consideration of working in wood while designing for purpose and comfort. Through diving into seat patterns & sightlines we can make informed changes in leg angles, stool height, and seat configuration which dramatically change the feel and function of a stool. Seat patterns will be provided as a starting point or for folks not wanting to design a new seat from scratch.

After working through the design of our stool we will begin turning chair parts on a lathe- a fundamental skill in chair & stool making. During the first few days of class, we will aim for comfort on the lathe and building skills with roughing gouges, spindle gouges, parting tools, and honing our ability to turn and taper parts to dimension. We will learn how to produce straight and tapered tenons traditional to windsor joinery and cover the production of angled joints on curved parts.

Seat carving and shaping will be done by hand using scorps, enshaves, travishers, and a drawknife. This process will bring dimension and comfort to our stool seats. During stool assembly and glue up we will cover working with hide glues, locking joinery, and surface preparation. 

Time allowing we will discuss alternative methods for leg and stretcher production including shaping parts by hand and the use of a drawknife and spokeshave on a shave horse.

Tools:

All tooling will be provided for this course, however, if you have any chair-making tools, please feel free to bring them along:

 Recommended:

• Drawknife

• Spokeshave 

• Travishers

• Reamer

• Layout tools 

• Preferred PPE (school provides basic face shields for turning) 

Prerequisites

Open to all.

Class Information and Registration

Class is 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday in Building 304 at Fort Worden. Map
Please read our What to Expect page for general information about the School.
Please also read our Registration Policy.
Please sign up for the waitlist if the course is full.

Class size: 10
Cost: $895
Materials Charge: $125