The Furnituremaking Workshops @ J. Miller Handcrafted Furniture offer a wide range of hands-on workshops and classes in the craft of making furniture. There are three basic types of classes: Furniture Workshops, Skill Workshops, and 'Essentials' classes - lecture/demonstrations on mastery of individual tools or on making certain types of furniture.

In the furniture workshops, everyone in the class works on a piece of furniture - typically a table or chair - learning skills in context, but also getting a sense of the complete furnituremaking process. These workshops are a great introduction to the shop for beginners, and are also a great way for more experienced woodworkers to step up to a higher level of craftsmanship. The skill workshops concentrate on a particular woodworking skill (such as cutting a specific joint) in depth, for those who want to improve their work that way. The Essentials classes are lecture/demonstrations, which focus on mastering the tools used in making furniture, or on the things you need to know for building certain types of furniture.

Classes are small in size - 6 to 8 in a hands-on workshop, and up to 12 in a lecture demonstration - and can accommodate a wide range of skill levels, from novices to professionals looking to refine their craft or explore a new area of furnituremaking. Workshops range from a single weekend afternoon to a full forty-hour week.

For more general information about the workshops, the shop itself, and a brief bio of Jeff Miller, click here.

Private lessons are also available, where you can work with Jeff one-on-one on the topic or project of your choice. Please call for more information.

We also offer an apprenticeship program for the woodworker with a demonstrated commitment to furniture making.

Winter/Spring 2007/2008

Furniture Workshops

Table Making Workshop In the Table Making Workshop, you'll build a Shaker style side table, coffee table, or hall table ­ the choice is yours. You'll take home your table at the end of the class (you will need to do the finishing at home). Even more importantly, you will come away with refined skills you can apply to numerous other woodworking projects, and a sense of what it takes to make a piece of fine furniture. This is a great class for beginners, since it exposes you to so much. But more advanced students will find that they pick up on more of the subleties and refinements.
Tuition.......... $525.00 (coffee table additional $40, or hall table, additional $30.00); includes material Friday, May 9, 9 AM - 5 PM, Saturday, May 10, 12 - 5 PM, and Saturday, May 17, 9 AM - 5 PM

Chair Design Workshop NEW   Designing a chair is one of the most rewarding things a woodworker can do, but it is also a task that can easily overwhelm. We'll start with the issue of comfort, then you can work up your ideas for your perfect chair. We'll build a prototype of your chair in class. Then we'll discuss how to go about building the real thing, covering appropriate structure, the proper use of joinery on a chair, and the jigs you'll need to build your piece.
Tuition.......... $1100.00; includes materials Chair Design Workshop: Monday - Friday, April 14 - 18, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm

Make a Stool with Hand Tools NEW   This is hand tool fun all the way. And a very different way to do woodworking. We'll start with milled blanks for the legs and the seat, and do all of the shaping and joinery by hand (it's easier than you think). You'll come away with a good deal more confidence in your ability to get things done with hand tools, a pile of new skills, and a bunch of useful woodworking tips and techniques.
Tuition.......... $575.00; includes materials Make a Stool with Hand Tools: Thursday Evenings, 6 - 9 PM, January 10, 17, 24, 31, and February 7, 14, and 21

Make Your Bed and Sleep in it Too! I'll be teaching this hands-on class at the Marc Adams School of Woodworking in Indiana, from April 21 - 25, 2008. Please see their web site (www.marcadams.com) for details!

Skill Workshops

Dovetail Workshop In our Dovetail Workshop, you'll learn to cut dovetails two ways: by hand, and using the tablesaw and bandsaw (with a simple, terrifically versatile jig that you can easily make at home). A one-day, hands-on workshop devoted to this functional and sometimes frustrating joint. Why settle for the mechanical look of routed dovetails when you can learn to cut beautiful dovetails with these methods? Work on the key skills for hand-cut joints, and see how these skills can be applied elsewhere in your woodworking.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Dovetail Workshop: Saturday, January 5, 12:00 - 5:00 pm

Hand Tools 1 Workshop If the mere thought of using hand tools to do fine work makes you nervous, you should take this class. Hand tools offer incredibly precise control, can speed up your work, and are a delight to use. We'll look at a variety of planes and chisels, and work on sharpening, tuning, and the basic skills for hand tool use
Tuition.......... $100.00 Hand Tools 1 Workshop: Tuesday Evenings, March 4th and 11th, 6:00 - 8:30 pm

Hand Tools 2 Workshop A follow-up class to our Hand Tools Workshop, which will concentrate on a variety of more advanced chisel and hand plane skills. Through a series of exercises, you'll work on improving your command of these tools. All of these exercises directly apply to actual use of hand tools in common woodworking situations. You will need to bring tools that are sharp and well-tuned. Our Hand Tools Workshop covers this, and you should either have taken this class, or be certain that your tools are at their best.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Hand Tools 2 Workshop: Tuesday Evenings, March 18th and 25th, 6:00 - 8:30 pm

Inlay Workshop Inlay can be the perfect, virtuostic touch on a project. This class will cover cutting the grooves both with a router and by hand with a scratch stock, cutting and sizing stringing, inlaying irregular shapes, hot sand shading and more. Taught by Buck Johnson, our inlay expert.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Inlay Workshop: Saturday, March 1, 12 - 5 PM

Furniture Design Fundamentals Moving from the idea of a piece of furniture to an actual piece requires skills and techniques. There are also tools available that can help. This workshop introduces the fundamental skills, techniqes and tools that you need to work up your ideas and turn them into successful designs. We'll also go through a number of exercises that can help explore your design ideas, including creation of a small model.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Furniture Design Fundamentals Workshop: Saturday, March 15, 12 - 5 PM

Mortise and Tenon Workshop The most important and widely-used joint in furniture making is one that many people spend much time and effort trying to avoid. In the Mortise and Tenon Workshop, we'll show you a wide range of options for cutting the joints, including some very simple and versatile jigs you can use for accurate results.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Mortise and Tenon Workshop: Saturday, April 5, 12:00 - 5:00 pm

Finishing Workshop The essentials of great finishing with methods that work well at home, or in a pro shop (like ours) without full set-up for spraying. We'll cover everything from surface preparation, coloring wood, and a variety of topcoats, to methods for application. Appropriate finishes for different types of projects will be discussed, along with the pros and cons of different products and methods.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Finishing Workshop: Saturday, May 3, 12 - 5 pm

Shaping and Bending Curves Mastering curves can open up a whole range of projects, and help bring your woodworking to a new level. We'll discuss layout, cutting, smoothing, and refining curves, including three dimensional curves. Then we'll move on to bending curves by laminating thin layers together. A variety of tools and jigs for doing curved work will be covered. We'll also do some hot pipe bending.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Shaping and Bending Curves: Saturday, May 31, 12 - 5 pm

Essentials

Tablesaw Essentials If you're using your table saw just for cutting wood to size, you're not getting all you can out of it. In this class, we'll cover a wide variety of jigs for turning your saw into a safer and more versatile tool. Included will be a wide variety of joints, duplication of parts, panel-raising, and much more. We'll also cover the critical topics of tablesaw safety, and basic tune-ups and improvements you can make to your saw.
Tuition.......... $100.00 Tablesaw Essentials: Saturday, January 26, 1 - 5 PM

Essentials of Cabinetmaking There are so many types of cabinets and so many methods for building them it can get very confusing. Buck Johnson will help you to sort through the possibilities, and help you to choose the best and the fastest methods for building case pieces, and then fitting them with various types of moldings, feet, and other decorative and functional elements. Taught by Buck Johnson
Tuition.......... $100.00 Essentials of Cabinetmaking: Saturday, February 23, 12 - 5 PM