Description
Build a beautifully proportioned heirloom jewelry box entirely with hand tools. Students will start with rough lumber and learn to process, join, shape, and assemble a finely crafted box using traditional techniques. Throughout the week, you’ll gain confidence with hand planes, saws, and chisels as you master dovetails, mortise-and-tenon joinery, raised-panel construction, grooves, and delicate mitered moldings. This is a skill-building class wrapped inside a rewarding project.
In this immersive, hands-on six day class, Frank will guide you through the process of building this attractive jewelry box using only hand tools. Beginning with rough boards, you will learn how to true, plane, and dimension lumber entirely by hand — an essential foundation for all precision joinery and fine work.
With the stock prepared, get set to dive into a series of traditional joints and techniques that appear in fine furniture, scaled down into a project you can complete in a week but enjoy for a lifetime.
We will cover in depth:
Hand-Cutting Dovetails: Layout, sawing, paring, and fitting tight dovetails for the box corners.
- Mortise & Tenon Joinery: Build the lid frame with crisp, accurate joinery shaped entirely at the bench.
- Raised Panel by Hand: Shape a traditional raised panel using planes to achieve elegant bevels without machines.
- Plowing Grooves: Learn to plow grooves for the panel and bottom using plow planes and specialty tools.
- Mitered Trim Base: Create a refined mitered molding around the bottom of the box, including shooting miters for a perfect fit.
- Full Hand-Tool Workflow: From rough stock to surface prep, you’ll experience the complete rhythm of traditional furniture making.
By the end of the class, each student will leave with a finished (or very nearly finished) jewelry box that reflects not only the beauty of the materials, but also your growing confidence and skill with traditional woodworking tools. This class is ideal for anyone looking to deepen their hand-tool mastery while building an heirloom piece that will be treasured for generations.
Choice of materials is limited to Walnut, tiger maple, cherry or mahogany.
In addition to the standard tool list, you should bring along the following tools if you have them.
Plow plane
Router plane
Rabbet plane
The school also has some of these tools that you are welcome to use in class.
Sign up today- This is a great opportunity to learn from a leading craftsman and spend a week learning skills that you can use for a lifetime.
Tuition: $1295.00 plus materials: $89.00 plus tax