Furniture making

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 2 hours / session

Students will look at slides of furniture, and attend lectures on the following topics: Furniture Making, Ancient Chinese Construction, the Ise Shrine of Japan, Colonial American Construction, Shaker Furniture, the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Bauhaus, the architects Saarinan, Alto, and Reitveld. They will also take a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, Decorative Arts Collection.

Two projects are undertaken in the class, after a general overview of shop safety and tools, furniture making, joints, furniture making techniques, and hand tools. The first project is a small dovetailed box, built using only hand tools.

For the term project, students design an original piece of furniture that will support 185 lbs. at least 12 inches off ground. Students produce a sketch that is evaluated by the teacher and classmates, and then design, build and finish the piece.

Class time is primarily taken up with students building their furniture individually. However, once a week, usually Wednesdays, a tool demo or discussion about a technique will be held, especially as it comes up around a student's project. Also, we take field trips to a residential construction site with S&H construction, and a local furniture making shop/factory.

Lecture demonstrations include the following: properties of wood, power tool demonstration, machinery demonstration, jig-making, wood bending, table saw introduction, joinery, turning, routing, morticing, shaping, sanding, and finishing.

The completion date is approximately mid-May with an end of semester Furniture "BBQ" and Exhibition.

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