Teaching at Marc Adams – Day Four

Ches in Nichols, N.Y. asked me via e-mail to post a photo of the project piece so readers could see what the project looks like when finished. That way he could track the progress of the class. You ask, we respond. Not only that, I think that’s a great idea.

Also, I promised photos of assembled cases and here they are as well. I’m mighty impressed with the work going on in this class. I’m especially impressed with the caliber of students that the Marc Adams School of Woodworking (MASW) draws through the door. The woodworker pictured at the top of the Day Two entry completes his Master program with this class. Others in the class are well on their way to that goal. And the first-timers attending the school , at least one class participant is here building only his second piece of furniture – are all doing great work, as evidenced by the cases that are assembled after only three days of work.

A couple things happened today. From the class instructor’s point of view, today was hectic. The work on the chests rounded the corner and headed toward detail-oriented work. I made my way to each workbench more than a few times to answer questions (some on how to fix minor problems and some to get a quick affirmation of the steps that are needed to get the case assembled).

From a woodworking perspective, we set off the SawStop yesterday morning. Easy , it wasn’t an injury avoided ,MASW shop advisors don’t let students get into an injury-causing set-up. This was something totally different. One student positioned his dado for the large sliding dovetail used to join the case top to the case sides in the wrong location, then painfully (you could see in his eyes he was frustrated) fit a patch in place. The patch worked and his case is assembled, but the patch caused the problem.

After letting the glue dry for a couple hours, he returned to the saw to cut new dados. The shop advisors didn’t realize the patch was in place, so they didn’t know to set the saw in bypass mode , where you knowingly turn off the safety feature. The wet glue inside the patch was enough to complete the circuit and the cartridge blew. There was a bit of down time before we were back in action at that saw, but with three others in our classroom, that simply meant no dado stack for a short time and another lesson learned.

So here’s what’s on tap for today. Most of the attendees are interested in the sculpting of the drawer fronts and building a drawer with traditional 18th-century techniques. From the opening bell through 1 p.m., we’ll stick with finishing the case work pertaining to the feet, which some guys began work on late in the day, and base mouldings. At 1 p.m., we begin on the drawer fronts, no matter what. That means there are four hours today and nearly six hours tomorrow for this most-important phase of construction.

You know you have to check back to see how things go!

– Glen Huey

p.s. Click here to read “Teaching at Marc Adams – Day One,” here for “Day Two” and here for “Day Three.”