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.

1. Palomar College Cabinet

and Furniture Technology

Palomar College in San Marcos,

California, has the largest

woodworking program on the

planet — okay, in the U.S. —

and consists of over 40 differ-

ent classes in eight certificate

programs.

In Greg Wease’s The Art &

Craft of Planemaking students

learn design and construction

of woodworking tools four

hours weekly for 16 weeks dur-

ing the fall semester.

Projects include construction

and use of grooving planes,

router planes, shoulder planes,

chamfer planes, spokeshaves and adjusting hammers with additional in-

struction on restoration and

tuning of commercial planes.

2. Allied Woodshop

Laura Zahn founded Allied

Woodshop after attending

the Fine Furniture program at

College of the Redwoods in Fort

Bragg, California. So, you can

be sure that handmade wooden

handplanes in the Krenov tradi-

tion are not only a strong suit

of Laura’s, they are a way of

work.

According to Laura, “the hand

plane is one of the most

reached-for tools in the shop.

It’s used to remove material,

flatten and square boards,

Left: At Palomar College Cabinet and Furniture Tech-

nology program, Greg Wease provides individualized

instruction on the nuances of building a shoulder

plane. Students begin with construction of a Krenov-

style bench plane and then choose additional pro-

jects covering specialty planes and accessories for

their particular areas of interest.

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

Allied Woodshop student working on his new Kren-

ov-styled wooden handplane.

A student made jack plane

built during Gary Rogowski’s

Make a Wooden Hand Plane

at The Northwest Woodwork-

ing Studio in Portland, Ore-

gon.

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

for wooden hand planes.

4. David Fleming, Cabinetmaker

After David Fleming completed 4 years in the

Air Force in 1976, he lived as a subsistence

hunter, dog musher and bush pilot on the

Kobuk River in the Arctic region of Northwest-

ern Alaska. While living in the wild, David

learned elemental woodworking by necessity,

building boats and dog sleds, as well as basic

furniture.

Eight years after moving to Alaska, David was

accepted to the College of the Redwoods Fine

Woodworking Program where he studied for

Two classic Krenov-style wooden handplanes from

The Northwest Woodworking Studio’s Make a Wooden

Hand Plane workshop.

two years with renowned cab-

inetmaker James Krenov.

Today David Fleming makes

furniture in his shop in

Scottsdale, Arizona. As the

master woodworker he’s be-

come, David also offers work-

shops to woodworkers who

aspire to improve and in-

crease their own woodwork-

ing craft.

Teaching handplanes is a per-

sonal and important course

for David, who says, “one of

the classes I enjoy teaching

the most is making wooden

hand planes. At their best, these tools are truly

fine instruments capable of incredibly sensitive

work. Yet they are inexpensive and simply made

from a good piece of tool steel and woods both

plain and precious. Each plane is a personal

statement, and each has a unique personality in

use. Students learn the basic construction, as

well as proper tuning and setup of the tool — skills that last a lifetime and

are adaptable to many types of planes.”

5. The Philadelphia Furniture Workshop

Alan Turner will soon teach Build

Two Asian Influenced Stools

(October 22), a course that uses

Hock Tools Marking Knives. That

bit of shill said, you might want

From the Philadelphia Furniture Work-

shop: the shape, and to some extent

the size, of your personal bench plane

is up to you, the student. Make it com-

fortable for you own hands.

A suite of wooden handplanes in the Krenov style, each

one fitted with a Hock Tools Plane Iron Assembly.

“The plane is one of the essential tools of fine wood-

working, used for fitting parts precisely and working

surfaces to a shimmering, polished finish. The wooden

plane excels at this work, and becoming sensitive to

the subtleties of using them is one of the great joys of

woodworking. Nothing pleases me more than helping

people discover the wonder of planes.” - David Fleming

to keep posted for a

springtime course enti-

tled Building a Smooth-

ing Plane at the Phila-

delphia Furniture

Woodshop’s. In this

popular course instruc-

tor Mario Rodrigues will

teach you all about

building and maintain-

ing your own distinc-

tive tool, designed to

suit your personal style and your work — meaning,

of course, a streamlined and beautifully functioning

benchplane.

Building a Smoothing Plane is structured to give

you a unique and valuable perspective on the de-

sign, construction, and use of handplanes.

Also, The Philadelphia Furniture Workshop has in-

troduced an innovative “mouth piece” to the plane

design it teaches. The idea here is that the critical

fitting of the mouth is accomplished in the final

stages of construction. This last step keeps the

mouth small, which is essential to achieving a fine

finish on difficult woods. When the plane body is

done, it’s fitted with a premium 1 ¾” Hock Tools

blade; which is easily set and adjusted with a gen-

tle tap.

Furthermore, some good news if attaching a tote is your idea of the best

good time. At The Philadelphia Furniture Workshop, you will be encouraged

and taught to do just that. So, whether you choose to install a tote or to

keep your planes plain and low-slung, once you’ve completed this course

you’ll have crafted a unique and special tool you’ll use and be proud of.

A bench plane with a tote from Build a Smoothing Plane at the

Philadelphia Furniture Workshop.

Above: one of The Philadel-

phia Woodshop’s playful

student’s mouth inserts. In

this course you will inves-

tigate how a tight mouth

on a smoothing plane can

limit the thickness of the

shaving and reduce tear-

out.

6. The Unplugged Woodshop Toronto

Tom Fidgen, founder of

Toronto based The Un-

plugged Woodshop,

has a background in

set design and building

wooden boats. He is

the author of The Un-

plugged Workshop and

Made by Hand. Tom

writes for several

woodworking maga-

zines on top of his full

schedule teaching at

The Unplugged Wood-

shop Toronto.

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

edges of stock, as well as fine smoothing.

With a custom fit tote ( handle ) per-

fectly formed to fit your hand, and sol-

id brass accents, these planes will fill

many needs around your woodshop.

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