New Courses
The Port Townsend School of Woodworking is delighted to have Steve Brown join our faculty. Steve brings a wealth of experience in Traditional NW Carving. In the 1980's Steve worked with the Tlingit nation is Southern Alaska to restore and replace many totem poles and more recently he worked as the Assistant Curator for the Native American collection at the Seattle Art Museum.
Steve will be teaching two classes in successive weekend in September so that you can make the tools and then learn how to use them:
Making Traditional NW Carving Tools:
Tool making is an art that goes hand in hand with creating things in wood. The many diverse carving and sculpture traditions of the world are reflected in the kinds of tools that are used to produce them.
NW Coast-style carving tools are adapted to the kinds of sculptural shapes that are characteristic of the woodwork from this area: Many objects are composed of rounded hollows and graceful curves, both convex and concave. The tools employed to create these forms, adzes and curved knives, need to be shaped so that they work with these sculptural forms, not against them.
In this class we will use the techniques of the blacksmith: Forging, grinding, bending, hardening, tempering, etc., to create comfortable hand tools that can be used to carve a large variety of sculptural forms, some typical of Northwest Coast woodwork, or others that range from free-form sculpture to boatbuilding. These tools are widely adaptable, and their ease of handling and effective cutting power can be applied to many different kinds of woodwork.
Carving adzes are the foundation of this kind of work, and we will begin by making blades for two sizes of ‘elbow’ adze, one for larger wood removal jobs and one for smaller more detailed shaping. These same tools are also used to produce the characteristic marks known as ‘finish adzing’, a traditional tool-made pattern of chip-marks arranged in rows on the surface of a carved form.
The handles of these adzes will be made from tree branches, or elbows, either of alder or maple, both of which are excellent woods for this application. The blades are fastened to the handles with strong seine twine, in a modern version of the simple but highly effective aboriginal technique.
The second project for the class will be making straight and/or curved carving knives, using material from commercial mill-type bandsaw blades made of Swedish steel. The blades will be ground, then heated and bent to shape, and then hardened and tempered to give them a hard cutting edge that is also not too difficult to sharpen.
These blades can be mounted in any variety of harder wood for a handle, including some of the more highly figured or beautifully colored species. Bring your own material for this if you have some appropriate pieces on hand! [Handle blanks should be about 1” x 1 ½” x 8” (or more) in length.]
Students should bring:
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Personal eye and ear protection. Shop apron/overalls. Heavy shoes or boots, not sneakers. Plus work gloves if desired.
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Knife Handle blank material (Optional) See above for specs. Basic handle blanks will be provided. Bring your favorite small block plane for shaping and smoothing these out.
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Adze Handle Blanks Alder, maple, or (cherry, any fruitwood, yew, locust, etc.) tree branches with close to a 45 degree angle between a handle-sized arm (at least 15 inches long x 1 inch diameter) and the blade-side arm (at least 8 inches long x 1.5 inch diameter), if you can get them. Both arms need to be straight and ‘in line’ with one another. Usable examples will be provided for those without access to handle stock.
Note: You do not need prior metalworking experience to take this course.
Class size 8 - Minimum enrollment 5 students by September 5th
Cost $290
Materials Charge: $60
Traditional NW Carving Techniques
In this class Steve will show you the techniques for efficient carving of sculptural forms using the traditional NW Carving Tools - the adzes and knives you'll have made in the first class.
(More details to come)
Prerequisites:
Class size 8 - Minimum enrollment 5 students by September 12th
Cost $290
Materials Charge: $15
