Woodworking at Collegiate School in Richmond, VA: December 2011

Program Overview

As of February 2012, woodworking is offered at Collegiate School within the Middle School Activities program. The program in its current form has existed continuously at Collegiate for over a decade. It is open to both boys and girls. The focus of the class is on familiarizing students with traditional handtools - no large power tools are handled by students. While most of the students' time is spent doing what they love best - cutting, chisling, sawing, and shaping -- there is a concurrent effort made to develop student life skills of planning, patience, spatial awareness, design, and care. Our class mantra - the "wisdom of the hands."

Steve Hart is one of our co-instructors. Mr. Hart is the Director of Planned Giving at Collegiate.

Dick Erickson is our other instructor. Mr. Erickson had 2 children gradudate from Collegiate about 25 years ago.

Mr. Erickson produced this drawing for us. It shows exactly how our table leg set will be constructed, and it includes dimensions. Mr. Erickson gave us 10 minutes to learn how to read this drawing and then gave us a quiz! We passed!

Course Description

Woodworking
Begins September 26 for the fall class (5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders) and November 28 for the winter class (5th and 6th graders).

Have you ever been to a maritime museum and seen diving helmets, harpoons, ship figureheads, and other marine artifacts? This year’s woodworking classes will get to work first-hand on one of these nautical antiques. We will be refinishing a wooden hatch cover from a World War II naval ship. The owner of the hatch cover is a ’66 Collegiate alumnus, and he is eager for our students to help design and build a set of legs to allow the hatch cover to serve as a table ! The hatch is made of longleaf yellow pine (heart pine), a valuable but commercially-extinct cousin of our modern southern pine. With some luck, we will locate some of this rare wood for the new parts of our project. Generally, the only way to obtain true heart pine these days is to go through a firm which renovates century-old warehouses and removes/recycles the original heart pine support beams. We are fortunate to have such a firm right here in Richmond -- E.T. Moore Manufacturing, Inc. on Hopkins Road. David Jackson helped us pick some ideal heart pine for this project. Come learn how to use traditional hand tools: bronze planes, bench chisels, Japanese saws, rasps, squares and marking gauges. Each session is limited to 8 students and will include a field trip to a fully equipped woodworking shop. Steve Hart, Collegiate Director of Planned Giving, and Dick Erickson, past parent, are the instructors. Woodworking meets Mondays and Tuesdays during Activity Period. There is a $30 fee for this class.

Pages

Program Overview

Coffee table leg design days - September 2011

Our trestle leg design