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Woodwright’s School Day Two: Steam Bending

Day two is all about the bow. We started with a White Oak log then split and rived it into rough blanks. From there it was all about the drawknife to create a blank of perfectly straight grain that would bend without running out.

A while ago I wrote about repetition building hand skills, this is the perfect example. After shaving spindles for 8 hours yesterday then moving on to a wider piece like this bow, I felt I had a pretty good grasp of how to use a drawknife and how to read the wood. About 1 hour into working today, the light bulb went off and all the muscle memory kicked in from yesterday and I was suddenly shaving like a pro with confidence of which direction I was heading in the plane of the grain and where wood needed to be removed. It was pretty dang exciting and proof that the best way to learn is to just put blade to wood for a while.

The late afternoon was spent at Roy’s mill and home. What a treat! From steam bending to beer and hard cider on the creek shared with good company and stories. What a day!

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Jamie Bacon

Great stuff on day 2 Shannon. Thanks for the video peak at Roy’s mill and the steam bending. Looks like your chairs coming along nicely. Oh, and how cool is it to have Roy Underhill shooting video for your blog?! Unreal. 🙂

Mitch Wilson

It’s great to see that a young’un like Elia (previously seen on an episode of the Woodwright’s Shop) can teach us oldsters a thing or three. Just watching him in episode one doing some sharpening of the drawknife was highly instructional for me.

    Bruce

    once roy teaches you how to sharpen a drawknife suddenly all the drawknives in the collection are sharp. it is ridiculous easy to keep the edge sharp.

Tim

Great footage. Shows a great and relaxing time. Enjoy the rest.