By request in another thread, I'll tell a little about my experience at Roy Underhill's Woodwright's School.

 

The class that I took was the two-day Introduction to Hand Tool Woodworking, the first weekend in March, 2018. You can see the description here:

https://www.woodwrightschool.com/classes/introduction-to-hand-tool-woodworking-w-roy-underhill-2019

This is one of the most popular classes and is already sold out for the five offerings in 2019. In late 2017 I kept checking his web site almost every day, and managed to catch it the first day that enrollment opened up for 2018, but before he had sent out the email announcing that fact.

 

I'll start by saying that he's great as a teacher, at least for my inclinations and my (low) level of expertise with hand tools. He's just as entertaining as he is on television.

 

We flew to North Carolina from Michigan. My wife found stuff to do in and around Pittsboro for the two days I was in class, and then we spent most of the rest of the week visiting Asheville and other spots.

 

I think there were twelve in the class, with each of us getting our own bench. The ages skewed older, as you would expect, but encouragingly there were a few younger guys and two women as well. Roy provides all the tools, but you're free to bring your own, and a couple of people did. I was flying with only carry-on luggage, and I didn't think chisels, saws, etc. would make it past TSA so I left mine at home.

 

However, I did bring a saw handle with me. The floor above the school is occupied by an amazing vintage tool store run by Ed Lebetkin. I had a vintage Spear and Jackson backsaw from an estate sale that was missing two of its split nuts and had two broken bolts. I was hoping Ed would have some parts to make it whole again.

 

I'll continue this later, but end for now with two photos. From the first morning, I'm splitting some green wood with a froe on the sidewalk in front of the school, destined to later become bench hooks. From the second afternoon, I'm resawing with a frame saw to create the bottom for a small box. Both of these were among a number of "firsts" for me during the weekend.

WOW! Very Cool!!!!!

Sweet!  On one of his shows he made the statement-----"wood split from a log is what quarter sawn wood wishes it was".  That statement has stuck with me for a lot of years.  Love watching him. 

The resawing on day two was not a scheduled part of the class. Roy had most of the pine stock for our dovetailed boxes precut to thickness and width. When he started showing us how we were going to make the bottom and top for the box, he found that the precut stock for that purpose was too narrow for the boxes, which were already made by then. The only other stock he had at hand was too thick so he decided to do the resawing. He got what he called his Roubo frame saw from its spot hanging in the storefront window of the school and gave us a lesson in resawing. There was only one saw, so he let each of us who wanted to take turns with it. (I was surprised that a few students passed on trying it.) For me, using that saw was one of the highlights of the class. In this photo of the shopfront you can see the lower part of the frame saw in the top of the photo just left of center.

Edited January 12, 20197 yr by Curly

Thanks Curly for starting the thread. Awesome opportunity you experienced.

Love the pictures and seeing inside (& outside) the school.

Appreciate you sharing it with us. Looking forward to seeing & reading more.

Super cool, hope you have a few more pics to share...