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When I teach a class on sawing and making a sawbench, it is usually a one- or two-day event. One of the nice things about teaching at The Woodwright’s School in Pittsboro, N.C., is that it’s a three-day class.
That makes the pace of the class quite relaxed, and we have plenty of time to indulge in sidebars, explore wacky historical facts and details about sawbenches.
There is a problem, however, when we combine a good crop of students with a casual pace: We were done at lunchtime on the third day.
So we got to do some extra stuff. I did a workshop on through-dovetails (which went much better than my class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking last week). And then Roy Underhill showed off his puzzle mallet, which is a tool where the head and handle are joined by seemingly impossible joints.
Roy taught a class on this mallet on Thursday (today!), and had to prepare the material and a sample mallet for his class as I was teaching my class. I shot a little video of the action – note that no alcohol was actually consumed during this filming. Honest.
Today I headed back home to Kentucky – dog-tired and ready to get back to editing a lot of very important (to me) books on our craft. More details this weekend.
— Christopher Schwarz
Meet St. Roy: Roy Underhill’s best book “The Woodwright’s Guide,” is available in our store. If you like hand tools, this book is a must-have reference.
