Working with Wood

Phil and I escaped NYC for President's Day weekend to learn some woodworking skills. We like to go to the Landis Valley Museum in Lancaster, PA because we're very fond of the Master Cabinetmaker who teaches their woodworking classes. His name is H. Clair Garman. Our first woodworking workshop we took at the Winter Institute in 2006. We made a Candle Stand that you can raise and lower. Unfortunately, both sit unfinished on our bedroom floor, collecting dust. We went again last June and this time did different projects. Phil made a corner shelf and I made a mail holder. We also worked on dovetailing, which is not easy to do, but that's another project for later

Here's a photo of our project, a chimney cabinet. It's only about 17 inches wide and 10 inches deep. But believe me, it's not easy for a beginner. When we get to class all the wood parts are already cut for us. There were two side pieces, 7 shelves, a frame made up of 5 pieces, the doors were 5 pieces, the back was 1 piece and the hinges and latches.




We had some trouble with the measurements of side pieces of our cabinet. They weren't measured right and thankfully, Clair had his right hand helper, Ian Beaumont, there. Ian was a great (read patient) help to us. He set the right measurements and sliced off extra and made it all fit right. As you can see from that description, I have no idea how he did it, but he did it. So by the end of the first day, Phil and I had a standing set of shelves.

An Interlude

That evening Phil and I went to an Amish home for dinner. Our bed and breakfast hosts, Dave and Gerry, suggested it and made the arrangements for it. I have to confess it was a strange experience. The Amish couple, Mary and Aaron were very nice and they had two charming boys, 4 and 2 years of age. We didn't feel any discomfort from them, but we weren't really comfortable with the other folks. Dinners like this usually include about 10 or 12 people and there were 5 other couples besides us. We kind of stuck out like sore thumbs as the only non-gay couple. But Phil had a great time playing with the 2 year-old and the food was good and there was plenty of it. So we left satisfied.
From there we went to a lecture back at the museum by an economics professor, Farley Grubb, from the University of Delaware. He gave an interesting lecture on how two men from Germany found their way to America.


We were in kind of a hurry the second day because we only had 3 hours to finish our piece so we didn't take too many pictures, but we were able to get the doors put together by putting three rails together sliding the panel between the three then adding the top rail. The rails were glued together and a wood pin inserted at the corners. The bottom door didn't fit exactly so we had to plane and sand it some to make it fit. Then we put the hinges and latches on and puttied the nail holes in the sides and we were done. The finished piece isn't sanded smooth or stained or painted, but sitting in our kitchen, it leaves a lovely wood smell that reminds us of the wood shop and it's a nice symbol of our teamwork to create a nice useful piece of furniture. We're using it to hold all our glass containers.