Description

This exciting new class features a small walnut Federal Style Hepplewhite side table with a whole lot of challenges and a boatload of new skills to be learned. The focus of this class will be efficiency in joinery, ornamentation, and design. Efficiency in joinery means completing as much joinery as possible in as few operations as practical, along with cutting joints that fit right off the machines. The ornamentation is simple, classic Federal style. String inlay on the legs, a patterned waist banding setting off the aprons, and a veneered & cockbeaded dovetailed drawer.  This project also features techniques that may be new to some of you. Planing a spring joint when making the top, book-matching the crotch walnut or walnut burl veneer for the drawer front, making dovetails efficiently and accurately, and learning to cut twin tenons on the drawer blade are all skills that make what is basically a simple table into an heirloom piece you can be proud of. This traditional Federal table will fit with just about any home décor and is small enough at 22” wide X 17” inches deep to fit just about anywhere. These are skills you will use over and over.

Federal Style Hepplewhite Side Table

Because of the complexity and time required to execute the inlay, along with the myriad other operations required in this little Federal style Hepplewhite side table, you should not expect to finish the whole project in class. All machining operations will be complete, and you will learn all the skills necessary, but the glue-up will most likely happen in your own shop after you have finished the inlay work. Please make sure you are on board with this before signing up.

Bob will demonstrate all the operations needed to finish up the table.

This is a class that assumes a decent amount of experience with the main machines & handtools in the shop. Feel free to email Bob at bob@schoolofwoodworking.com if you are unsure if you are ready for it.

This fast-paced class will open your eyes to a unique approach to efficiency and a whole new world of historic American-style inlay.

 

Some of the skills learned in the Federal Style Hepplewhite Side Table class are:

• How to create joints that fit directly off the machines
• Bookmatching veneer for dramatic effect
• Making spring joints using a hand plane

 

Materials are included in the class fee. Drawer pulls are not included.

Each student should supply his, or her, own:

• Safety glasses and hearing protection
• Combination or machinist square
• Bevel gauge
• Bench chisels
• Carvers mallet
• Dovetail saw
• Marking gauge
• Smooth plane or jack plane
• Block plane
• Tape measure or folding rule

If you do not have the tools on the list, don’t panic; there are plenty of tools for your use in class.

Course Dates:

• August 23 – 28, 2026

 

The shop opens at 8:30 am. Class begins at 9:00 am.  A delicious lunch, snacks, and soft drinks are provided. Class ends at 4:30 pm – the shop remains open until 5:30 pm.

The class is limited to a maximum of 4 students.

Call or email to be placed on the waiting list if this class sells out.