Saratoga Joinery

Saratoga Joinery is very excited to welcome instructor Gabe Strand to our shop this March!

This workshop uses a fun project to introduce the concepts and techniques behind staked joinery while imparting key hand tool skills, working mostly on a shave horse with drawknives and drilling accurately with hand drills. Students will build folding 3-legged stools using hand tools, then on the final day, weave seats using either shaker tape, reed, or used climbing rope (students will get this choice prior to arriving). 

Every skill covered in this class is related to greenwood chair-making on a smaller scale: splitting parts from a log, shaping parts with a drawknife, making round mortise and tenon joints and using wedges to secure them, drilling compound angles by eye, and weaving a seat. This course is well-suited to beginners looking for an introduction to working this way, without a full week-long commitment to building a chair.

About Gabe:
Gabe Strand is a woodworker and educator with an interest in vernacular furniture. His classes introduce students to the possibilities woodworking offers for building confidence and creativity, collaborative communities, and a deeper knowledge of history and craft. Along with teaching woodcraft, Gabe builds chairs and furniture as a Resident Artisan at North House Folk School in Grand Marais, MN.