George and I are both taking the Fundamentals of Woodworking class offered at Palomar College. It is part of Palomar's Cabinet & Furniture Technology program which is apparently a highly regarded program in the woodworking industry. I'm sure George and I will both be master craftspeople in no time!

Class Project

Everyone builds a clock in the beginning woodworking class (or at least attempts to). George chose the traditional wall clock shown below on the left, and I chose the Shaker clock on the right. (Don't get too excited... those are just the models, not the ones we made!). Click here to check out these and other woodworking projects.

George is making his out of walnut and I'm using oak. I really, really, really wanted to use sycamore (which is what's used on the clock in the picture), but the sycamore they had for sale was all cupped and bowed and scary looking and I just figured I didn't need the extra stress of dealing with that, so I went with something safe (and boring).

Here's some miscellaneous photos from demostrations given in our class. Unfortunately, I didn't even think to bring my camera until about 6 weeks into the class, so I don't have any of the beginning demos.

Glue

The teacher, Russ Filbeck, demonstrates gluing up the clock. [Oh that I were anywhere near the stage where I was going to put my clock together!]

Clamps

What would a glue job be without half a dozen clamps or so? Russ demonstrates clamping on two different clock carcasses... then we all stand around and watch the glue dry for a while.

More demos

Russ demonstrates how to square up the miter guage on the table saw and gives us a quick demo on the router table. Our classes usually consist of a couple hours of lecture and demo followed by 4 or 5 hours of lab time.