PRECISION WITH HAND TOOLS
Garrett Hack laying out a hinge mortise with a cutting gauge in his workshop
Inlaid details on demilune table by Garrett Hack, 2000
Garrett Hack
August 6 – 10
Hand tools open up new vistas of efficiency, accuracy, and enjoyment for woodworkers, even those with modest skills. In this course, Garrett leads participants through a series of exercises, based on typical furniture making techniques, which expand and refine their hand tool skills. These include flattening boards to polished smoothness, fairing curves, fitting drawer faces, making moldings, chamfering edges, making inlay, and cutting joinery, among others.
Discussion covers tuning and use of a wide variety of planes, marking tools, chisels and saws. Participants are encouraged to work with several different kinds of wood to feel the way each responds to the tools. More experienced students may choose more complex challenges such as shaping a bowed drawer face, joining and smoothing a coopered panel, or tapering a leg and then fitting an angled joint to it.
Garrett Hack builds contemporary interpretations of Federal and other classic American styles on his farm in Thetford Center, Vermont. A furniture maker for 32 years, Garrett originally trained at Boston University’s Program in Artisanry. He is the author of The Handplane Book (Taunton Press, 1997) and Classic Hand Tools (Taunton Press, 1999). His articles appear frequently in Fine Woodworking, to which he is a Contributing Editor. Currently, Garrett is President of the New Hampshire Furniture Masters Association.