Sharp & to the Point The Hock Tools Newsletter More Schools Teach Plane Making #6 / 2016 T ypically, woodworkers who make their own handplanes find using them an extremely satisfying experience. They feel pride in having built a tool for themselves and discover that their wooden handplanes are more imme- diate and to-the-touch than metal planes. Of course metal planes have their many uses, but they are differ- ent. Wooden handplanes — espe- cially those molded to your own hands – are unlike generic manufac- tured metal planes. These planes help a woodworker become facile, both at one with the tool and the work at hand. If you are interested in taking a class in making wooden handplanes, keep your eyes on the Internet. Some schools or teaching-woodworkers teach plane making as part of a 2-day, one week or several month program. It ’ s worth your time to go online and look around for a school that suits your needs. This is our second list, our first came out in Spring 2016. Like the last one, this list is not a complete list, nor is it timely. It is meant on- ly as a sampling of various schools in the U.S. and Canada that offer courses in making wooden planes. — Linda at Hock Tools The Art & Craft of Plane Making student made Kanna, Pal- omar College Cabinet & Furniture Technology program. An inspiring handmade plane pic from wood- worker Laura Zahn, founder of Allied Woodshop in Los Angeles, CA.
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Sharp & to the Point The Hock Tools Newsletter T · Sharp & to the Point The Hock Tools Newsletter ... The Unplugged Woodshop Toronto Tom Fidgen, founder of Toronto based The Un-plugged
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Sharp & to the Point The Hock Tools Newsletter
More Schools Teach Plane Making #6 / 2016
T ypically, woodworkers who make their own handplanes find using them an extremely satisfying experience. They
feel pride in having built a tool for themselves and discover that their wooden handplanes are more imme-diate and to-the-touch than metal planes. Of course metal planes have their many uses, but they are differ-ent. Wooden handplanes — espe-cially those molded to your own hands – are unlike generic manufac-tured metal planes. These planes help a woodworker become facile, both at one with the tool and the work at hand.
If you are interested in taking a class in making wooden handplanes, keep your eyes on the Internet. Some schools or teaching-woodworkers teach plane making as part of a 2-day, one week or several month program. It’s worth your time to go online and look around for a school that suits your needs. This is our second list, our first came out in Spring 2016. Like the last one, this list is not a complete list, nor is it timely. It is meant on-ly as a sampling of various schools in the U.S. and Canada that offer courses in making wooden planes. — Linda at Hock Tools
The Art & Craft of Plane Making student made Kanna, Pal-
omar College Cabinet & Furniture Technology program.
clean-up joinery, and profile an edge. This tool, more than any other, has
become synonymous with fine craftsmanship.”
Limited to 10 students only, Allied Woodshop’s plane making workshop
includes all necessary supplies (including a Hock Tools blade!). Here you
are instructed on how to build
your own hand planes using
hardwoods for the body and
sole. You will mill the wood,
create the pin and the wedge,
glue-up the plane, and then
shape it using the bandsaw and
rasps. In addition to building
the plane, you will learn how to
sharpen the iron and tune your
plane to keep it singing.
Allied Woodshop’s goal is to
be a resource and physical
gathering space for the wood-
working community in Los An-
geles. Actually begun with the
name Off the Saw, Allied Woodshop is now, along with other maker en-
terprises, located in downtown L.A. in the 10 story Allied Crafts Building,
which is one of seven industrial arts buildings built between 1924 and 1928
designed by L.A. architect William Douglas Lee under visionary developer
Florence C. Casler.
Allied Woodshop will be featured in Fine Woodworking’s gallery section of
its upcoming Tools & Shops issue.
3. Northwest Woodworking Studio; A School for Woodworkers
One spring day in 1997, master furniture builder Gary Rogowski opened his furniture shop to a very small group of students. After 20 years, The Northwest Woodworking Studio in Portland, Oregon, now sees an annual
student body of at least 500 woodworkers attending many workshops, in-cluding three different mastery programs.
Over these many years, Gary authored The Complete Illus-trated Guide to Joinery, Router Joinery, and Taunton’s Com-plete Illustrated Guide to Woodworking. He continues to write frequently for Fine Woodworking and Popular Woodworking magazines, pro-duces instructional videos — accomplishments that contin-ues to continue.
And, like so many master woodworkers, Gary believes that it is a revelation to make your own hand planes, and that a whole new world will open up to you when you do, “there is nothing cooler in the shop than grabbing the wood hand plane that you made to take a shaving down the length of a board. It is astonishing and miraculous!”
Make a Wooden Hand Plane at The Northwest Woodworking Studio is typi-
cally held as a Spring workshop. You can expect a two-day class in design-
ing, building, tuning and using your own wood hand plane, including a
smoothing or jack plane using Hock Tools plane irons designed specifically
As is fitting, Tom follows in the tradition of many writing-teaching woodworkers — the masters who admire the many uses and inherent qualities of the self-made wooden handplane.
As far as Tom is concerned, “the response you get from a wood plane is altogether different from when you are working with metal handplanes. The tactile feeling ab-sorbed through the sole of a perfectly flat-tened and polished wooden hand tool you made yourself is a satisfying and liberating experience.
Simply put, wood-on-wood just feels good. And, using a handtool you made yourself, is a wonderful experience.”
At The Unplugged Woodshop, Tom Fidgen instructs students
to build both a jack and smoothing plane. Two of the most
useful tools in the woodshop, they are capable of taking
heavy cuts when dimensioning rough lumber, jointing the