Education

As I mentioned in the introduction, I don't have a formal education in woodworking. My father is a tool user and has always had a rudimentary shop. It wasn't a hobby for him, just a way of Getting Things Done. When I was young he made some furniture, a fancy dog house, stuff like that, but mostly we fixed up the houses we lived in.

He didn't have any training either. In fact, he hadn't even attended High School, much less finished it. He just figured them out. I definitely gained that attitude from him. If something is broke now, me trying to fix it will either work, or it won't. Same with making things. I'll give it a shot.

For woodworking proper, I started out the popular PBS series: The New Yankee Workshop. Norm Abrams took a lot of heat from purists for his approach to furniture building, but they miss the point. His goal was exactly what the effect he had on me: it was a gateway.

The projects were approachable and avoided the requirement of expensive and specialized tools. The show's introduction quickly became my favorite part of the show. Norm would travel to a museum and with a curator, examine a piece, pointing out the important details. This set the piece in context and showed what the actual antique furniture looked like. Then it was off to the shop to build a reproduction. In most cases, this was not a faithful reproduction as such. It was simplified for the aforementioned reasonable tool kit and skillset of his viewers.

Norm's other show, This Old House, was another favorite. As the owner of an older house, learning about renovations sometimes on a pretty massive scale, was educational.

Magazines

From there it was books and magazines. You can find a list of my favorite books in the bibliography section. Most of the magazines have died in the Internet age and live on as gigabytes of PDF scans on my hard drives. My favorites:

• Fine Woodworking - When I started getting this one, it was pretty much over my head. But I liked the Gallery of user projects, the Tips and Hints and dreamed of tackling some of the serious projects. Now, I can make most of the stuff in there if I want, but there's a lot of modern art crap type stuff.
• Popular Woodworking - For years I avoided this one because it sounded like Popular Mechanics which was (and is) a total rag and thought they might be by the same company. But I was very wrong. It was a great magazine, especially during the tenure of Chris Schwarz as Editor. Sadly, things have gone steeply downhill of late and I've dropped my subscription. Though they still send my issues hoping I will renew. But, it's down to 64 pages and I expect it to sail into the sunset before too long.
• ShopNotes - Grew out of Woodsmith (see below). Focused on tools, tips and techniques. I think it was quarterly? Not sure, I don't subscribe to this anymore either. I'll pick up a copy now and again while at Lowes just for fun.
• WoodSmith - It has a journal format (no advertising) and had one big project and a couple of supporting projects per issue. Some good stuff in there, but mostly modern stuff or modern riffs on older stuff.
• Woodwork - I caught this at the end of its life. It was pretty good as well. More on the artsy side, lots of interviews with what is now called makers.
• Woodworking Magazine - A quarterly that only ran a few years. It was the brainchild of Chris Schwarz when he was the editor at Popular Woodworking. It was a journal, no advertising, and focused on hand tool woodworking. It was awesome while it lasted.

Woodworking in the 18th Century

Around 2005, I discovered an annual conference that was close by and affordable. Colonial Williamsburg hosts Woodworking in the 18th Century. It is a 3-1/2 day conference with speaker/demonstrators from the Historic Trades and invited guests from the furniture-making world.

Each year there's a theme. This year (2020) it was "Back Country Furniture". In this context (Colonial America), Backcountry meant west of the coastal plain, so, the Piedmont and the Shenandoah Valley. This isn't the "frontier" exactly, but it wasn't the well-settled coast either. So the lower availability of high-end materials (e.g., mahogany) and the slower penetration of the latest styles.

There were also several different before conference activities, for an additional fee. I signed up for a session with the furniture conservator at the DeWitt-Wallace. He (and 2 assistants) took about 10 of us through their exhibit of backcountry furniture over about an hour and a half. That was really nice. Also, there were "companion programs". Things for the wives to do. I signed Jess up for a couple of them. One was a 2-hour session with the weavers and dyers. She got to weave a dish towel sized piece of cloth, it was pretty cool.

It starts off with an evening lecture on the theme of that year's event, usually by the furniture curator of the Williamsburg collection or another notable museum. Often this includes some of the antiques trotted out on stage. Some of which will be reproduced over the next 2-1/2 days.

of rotating speakers demostrating the building of various pieces.

Anyway, that's a sample of one of these conferences. Each year has a different theme. We've gone each year since 2006 and it's been well worth it. Williamsburg is nice and in January it's usually in the 50s and EMPTY. Shops and restaurants are SO HAPPY to see you, it's great.