I spent this last weekend in the lovely town of Port Townsend,Wa.  It’s one of my wife’s and my favorite places to go, for a weekend getaway.  Now that they have a woodworking school there, we (me) have even more of a reason to go there.

This was the first class I had taken at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking.  In a previous blog, I wrote about stopping by the school earlier this year, while in Port Townsend for one of those getaways.

This first class was with Darrell Peart, a Greene and Greene inspired woodworker in West Seattle.  This class was his Greene and Greene Details II class.  We learned how he makes and incorporates these details into his furniture designs.  As an FYI, I’ll be taking his Details I class in Dec.

To be able to complete all of the work in the 2 days, some of the cutting was done for us.  Anything that was done for us, was demonstrated to us and was well within the skills of most woodworker.  An example of this was the finger joints, on a couple of the samples we worked on.

So the finger joints were cut for us, but we had to shape and “pillow” the ends.  We also learned how to pillow the ends of the Ebony pegs.  It’s sometimes hard to see in photos, but the exposed joinery and pegs are not flat on their tops.  It’s much more than just rounding over the edges.  It’s a delicate process to get the pillowing just right.

This first corner sample is only partially completed.  We finished up the other details on the second day.

We then moved onto a drawer sample.  This drawer pull isn’t really seen on Greene and Greene furniture.  Darrell was inspired by a similar pull made by James Krenov.  When seen on his furniture and it really does work well with Greene and Greene.

In this sample we learned how the finger joints are made for a drawer.  You only see the pillowing on the front.  Because the drawer has to fit tight, you can’t have the exposed fingers on the sides.  The Ebony pens here are purely decorative, as are most in Greene and Greene.  To give the drawer strength, we pegged the sides with wooden dowels.

We didn’t quite finish this drawer sample the first day.  We finished it up the next day, and started on the next drawer sample.  This next drawer pull is an inlayed cloud lift motif.

To create the inlay, we used templates and a router.  It’s a pretty easy process if you have the templates.  Luckily Darrell has these templates made for him, and we were able to pick up a set for $15.  Well worth the money, seeing how much time you might have to spend making your own.

Next was to shape the knob.  The rough shaping was done with a router and large belt sander.

The finial shaping, was always is done by hand.  Again, notice that the top is not flat it is also pillowed.  When it’s all put together, it is a very striking design.

The only thing I really did wrong on this pull is that I didn’t pillow the horizontal Ebony pieces enough.  I think you can see from the photo they are pretty flat, on their tops.  I should have looked at Darrell’s example a little closer.

In the afternoon, we started on the last detail, which was going to be applied to the first piece we started on the first day.  This detail is supposed to simulate a leather strap.  The rough shaping again was done using several router templates and couple different bits.

This corner sample is a sample of what Darrell uses on his Aurora Desk.  You can see an example here.  You will also see how he uses the Krenov inspired drawer pulls.

All in all, I had a great time.  Everyone in the class was friendly and hepled others if they needed help.  I’m really looking forward to the next class in December.