Clint planing oak

I ventured a long ways from home last week to teach a carved box class at Lost Art Press. 6 great students, some of whom were new to hand tools and almost all new to carving. They did great work. We started with a stack of quartersawn oak boards, planed them up a bit and dove into carving.

seeing patterns in addition to carving them

I brought my usual pile of sample carvings & photos. We spent a day doing practice patterns then on the 2nd afternoon they were carving their box fronts for keeps. Often there's a student who has their own ideas - unlike me, the copyist. Below is the box front by Peter from Boulder, CO. A little bit of everything.

I've never seen this before

When I first taught a carved box class many years ago I would not include the lidded till inside. Once I gave in & let them make tills all hell broke loose. Three little boards (bottom, side & lid) wreak such havoc with an assembly. This group aced them. Below Clint is chopping out the notches for his till.

till work

I told Gary the hardest part of using winding sticks is getting up & down. He did better than me, I didn't hear him groan once.

winding sticks

He & Pat were neck-and-neck trimming the pegs that secure the glued rabbet joints. Being by the large front windows gets them in lots of photos.

bevel down

All in all a nice stack of boxes - by the end of the 5th day we heard all the lids go "plunk" just as they should. This photo was a bit before the last couple were done, one student had a flight to catch...

6 excellent oak & pine boxes

I don't have any other classes planned yet for 2022 - might tuck something into the fall. May is for birding, summer's too hot. We'll see. I'll post anything that comes up here on the blog. Thanks to Chris & Megan for making it happen. "Such a a long, long time to be gone & a short time to be there..."