Foundational Hand Skills

In this immersive class, students will gain a strong foundation in traditional hand-tool woodworking, learning core joinery techniques that have stood the test of time. Led by Frank Strazza, who brings over 30 years of experience and knowledge from his own traditional apprenticeship, this class is an ideal opportunity to build lasting skills. Instead of focusing on completing a project, students will practice fundamental techniques, developing a deeper understanding of woodworking essentials that can be applied to future projects with confidence and precision.  

You’ll learn to work with essential hand tools—saws, planes, chisels, and scrapers—while discovering the methods to keep them sharp and effective. You’ll hand-cut a variety of classic joints, including dados, dovetails, and mortise and tenon joints, each skill building upon the last. By starting with a rough board, you’ll also learn to four-square it entirely by hand, gaining hands-on experience in planing and working the wood from its raw state. Toward the end of the week, you’ll have the chance to use your new skills to begin creating a simple dovetailed box, blending all of the techniques you’ve learned. The emphasis is on technique rather than rushing to finish a project, giving you a solid grasp of joinery fundamentals.

 Key Techniques Covered

Joinery Fundamentals:

• Hand-cut dados
• Dovetails (through and half-blind)
• Mortise and tenons, including through mortises

Tool Mastery:

• Adjusting and using essential hand tools, including saws, planes, chisels, and scrapers
• Sharpening chisels, saws, scrapers, and planes to keep them at peak performance
• Four-Squaring a Board:
• Learning to plane a rough board to a fully four-squared state 

Course Takeaways By the end of the class, you’ll have the confidence to hand-cut various joinery types, tune and use hand planes to their fullest, and apply sharpening techniques to keep your tools in top condition. This course gives you a solid foundation in joinery, allowing you to approach future woodworking projects with skill and confidence.

Class fee: $965

Material fee: $50

Frank Strazza bio