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Introducing Hand Tool School Orientation!

Hand Tool School Orientation is the Perfect Starting Point

The started The Hand Tool School more than 7 years ago. In that time I’ve learned a lot about how woodworkers learn. I’ve learned a lot about the concerns and questions they ask when first getting started with hand tools. And I’ve learned a lot about which tools are good to start with and which only confuse and hold back the skill development.

So about a year ago when I looked at my Semester 1 curriculum I realized I need to go back and create a prequel semester that hit on some fundamentals and did everything to get the woodworker over the analysis paralysis and building stuff. Stuff they really want and need for your new shop.

beginning workbenchLike…a WORKBENCH!!! My god woodworkers just can’t get enough about workbenches so I gave in and built another one. But then I went on to build several more projects for the bench and for the new tool collection. I then developed a series of 101 style lessons to supplement all of this and what I came up with is the perfect entry point to hand tool woodworking. An orientation of sorts to a lifelong journey of plane shavings and chisel scars.

Welcome Hand Tool School Orientation.

Check Out Hand Tool School Orientation

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Jonas Ericson

Hi Shannon,

Thanks for yet an interesting video. Also if I’m currently not intending to join your Hand Tool Schoool, I appreciate the work you do to keep this tradition alive and I think we share the curiosity and the enthusiasm for the field.

You might be interested in two short Swedish films from 1923 I’ve just came across, showing coppicing with very simple methods for home use and the other showing “home sloyd” i.e. home production for sale at markets etc, of clogs, spoons, chairs as a way to get cash into the often rather small farms with just a few acres of farmland, but vast areas of wood available.

You can learn a lot from how they handle their simple and rather clumsy tools, using very little fastening, often working in their lap, on a chair or a chopping block, using only meat clamps, and also how they find the balance between effort and finish. Most of these products was intended for hard daily use and would anyway be worn and torn, so it had to be durable, and too elaborate a finish would just be wasted effort – but at the same time you had your pride as a craftsman, and you also needed to satisfy your customers.

If you’re interested send me an email. They are about 300 MB each, so I guess we need to use something like Sprend or an ftp to transfer them.