Woodworking Education: Making Samples vs. Making Projects?

What is the best way to teach Joinery, Tool Use, and other Fabrication Processes to students studying furniture design that have to make prototypes of their designs?

When I started to teach furniture design to students with no prior woodworking or fabrication experience I took them around to all the main power tools and had them process a scrap board through whatever machine we were at.  When it came time to start designing projects I had students make samples of a few common woodworking joints. What I thought the students should learn from the samples and scraps didn't seem to stick. When they finally made projects that needed joinery they needed more specific information about how to choose and size and orient the joints for their specific design.  It turns out that samples of joints made are no more effective than photos of joinery in a book or on the web or in drawings of just joints.  The samples (or photos) do serve as a reference to show students what type of joint they could use for such a connection, but learning how to make the joinery sample out of context to choosing and sizing that joint type for a project is abstract, incomplete information, and easily forgotten.  Same for making scraps with all the machines. While that teaches the student hopefully how to turn the machine on and use it, it doesn't explain and demonstrate the logical order of steps for processing from a rough board to finished project parts for an actual project.  

The students in a class need to learn the reasoning for choosing and sizing the joinery used for a project.  Small projects that require many process steps, joinery, and tools to learn about are educationally effective and efficient.  The Joinery Box project is a great example. Plus the students now have a goal to end up with a nice project rather than a set of joint samples and scraps they'll likely abandon or throw away.  They also learn the machines used and that logical order talked about above.  All at the same time. 

Basic Box. Much Learned

For typical table joinery a small table that all the students make is a thorough teaching opportunity. The Tiny Table project (links below) teaches mortise and tenon joinery in context, half lap joinery in context, processing and gluing up wood for the table top in context, using the CNC to make the top more interesting than a simple square or rectangle, and a few different methods for attaching a table base to a table top.  Showing them the hardware for attaching a top to a table base is a good place to explain wood expansion and contraction.  

The Tiny Table project is also about learning detail continuity throughout a design. When all students are done with the project it should be obvious which base belongs with each table top.   To get them started it pays to shown them good examples from past semesters as a reference to what level of creativity and detail continuity they should meet or exceed. Keeping the project small keeps the costs low, the materials and time used down, yet gets you farther educationally than spending time and money making abstract samples or scraps that end up in the trash bin. 

While possible, it has never been efficient or logical to have beginning students make their own furniture designs before they have learned a broad array of processes and joinery in the context of a project.  When you have students jump right into designing their own furniture projects it takes considerably more time and input from the teacher to help them choose and make appropriate functional joinery in the fabrication of their designs.  Their understanding of what is possible is limited. Use small projects to teach them a broad array of processes and joinery in context and generally the students can easily scale up for furniture projects with little need for more input from the teacher. This project based teaching strategy has been known about for a few centuries, and my personal teaching experience over the last 45 years has proven over and over again that it works.  This method and these projects evolved from annual iterative collaboration between 3 furniture design professors with a combined 100+ years of teaching experience. The projects help transition students from knowing nothing or little about fabrication to designing and building original and award winning furniture designs.  The broad knowledge students end up with helps them design with a deep assurance that what they've designed can be built. They know how it can be built and can describe the tools and processes that it will require. Creative students better armed create far more original, interesting, and functional projects with less need for help from their teacher or fabrication lab assistants.   

Related educational design and fabrication projects:

Joinery Box.  Not about a box.

The Lathe

The Value of Sample Blocks.

Tool names and their functions.

Calculating the actual costs of their projects.

Tiny Table 1

Tiny Table 2

Tiny Table 3

Tiny Table 4

Woodworking Education: Tiny Table 2

Creative variation opportunities. 

Design students usually strive to be and are encouraged to be unique.   Making the same exact thing as your classmates, just to learn a bit of woodworking, is potentially boring.  With permission to make this final beginning workshop project an expression of their own creativity, a few requirements have to be set so they don't get carried away and miss what they should be learning. 

Tiny Table 2 is simply an aesthetic alternative to Tiny Table 1. Another example for the final beginning workshop project.  All parts differ, but both tables use the same joinery connections between legs and stretchers. Table 2 won't have leg top tenons piercing the top, but instead use one of two standard hardware strategies to attach table tops.  Students are also encouraged to "sign" their work, and the 4DT initials (below) shows one way/place to sign it. Fill the engraved initials with tinted resin then sand flat to the table top. Any scratches that appear in the resin from sanding will disappear once a finish is applied to the top.  

Top Profile

Underside 3D Shape

The stretchers in Table 2 run around from leg to leg rather than cross in the middle.  They attach near the top of the legs, but then have stretchers attached in their middle that cross (half lap) under the table top.  This is where connections to the top are made. These middle stretchers may French dovetail into the side stretchers. When connected to the top they transfer load to the side stretchers.  The legs take the load from the side stretchers to the floor. 

This table is another example of detail continuity throughout the design. The leg profiles visually extend the corner shape of the top down to the floor.  More specific details can be realized and added after the table parts are rough assembled. How the feet meet the floor is one area for consideration. 

Leg cross section.

The outer stretchers have a shallow cove that matches the inward curve of the table top sides.  Bottom and top edges of the outer stretchers are rounded like the underside edge of the top. 

Bottom and Top Edge Curves

Face Contour Matches Top Edge

Even though the assembled dimensions of all tables will be the same, and all will include mortise and tenon joinery, half lap joinery, and potentially more depending on their design, the range of solutions is practically infinite.  Both also demonstrate how to glue up material for their tops, and process the glued up blank down to a finished table top.  The final step for all tables is to sand parts smooth and apply a durable finish. This is best done before assembly but requires taping off any area that is part of the joints between parts.  Then comes glue-up/assembly.  It is the continuity of details that adds to the story you can tell about this table.  That story is what makes the design memorable and desirable.    

Some related educational projects:

Tiny Table 1.

Tiny Table 3.

Tiny Table 4.

Making Samples vs Making Projects

The Joinery Box.  Not About a Box.

The Lathe.

Material Sample Blocks.

Tool Names and Functions.

Determining Actual Project Costs

 

Woodworking Education: Tiny Table 4

Tiny Table 4 is another example for the final beginning workshop class project.  This charging table example is also 24 inches tall with a 9" diameter decagon (ten sided) top. It is also another example of detail continuity throughout the design.  These four Tiny Table projects are made as initial diverse examples to show and inspire the students. The creative projects designed and built by students of this class will become the new examples to show and inspire and challenge the next class of students. Rather than have the next class start from scratch with this project each class year sees a new baseline to challenge them to improve upon.  

Top face of decagon top.

The top started out 1.157" thick.  The top side has a 45 degree chamfer around the edge to help the edge look thinner.  The chamfer also catches light differently than the top, adding visual complexity/interest to the simple top. 

Decagon Top. Bottom view.

The bottom face of the top is carved to emphasize the ten sides as well as reduce the visual thickness of the wood slab. 

This project teaches how to chamfer the perimeter edge of the table top.  It also teaches a simple way to make an interesting 3D shape on the bottom face of the table top using the CNC software.   With the CNC software installed in the college computer lab, students are assigned to design their own 9" maximum table top, then save the toolpaths for it to cut on the small CNCs.    

There are 5 legs. Five legs provide the most efficient and stable footprint for the nearly circular top. All legs start at 3/4" thick.  The legs taper inward to just a bit thicker than .5" at the top inside corner. 

Beveled Edge and Tapered Thickness

The outer edge of the legs has a double chamfer that matches the corners of the top above them. The top edge of the legs is shaped to echo the carved underside of the top above them.

Top End Profile

The leg elevation view tapers down to 1.25" wide at the bottom. 

One of 5 legs.

The legs are a complex shape and require several processes to produce. This project teaches the logical sequence and tools used for the steps needed to produce it:

 

1. While the board is still a rectangle, cut double bevels on the straight outer edges of the legs. Use the table saw with blade tilted 18 degrees.

2. Cut out duplicate parts (5 legs) using a template. Use double sided tape or a few spots of hot melt glue to attach the template to the leg board.  Rough cut within 1/16" or so with the bandsaw and use a flush cut pattern bit on the router table to trim flush to the template.

3. Layout and cut mortises.  Use the mortising machine or the drill press with a Forstner bit followed by chisels to clean out the mortise. Or potentially start with a slot cut using an end mill in the router table followed by some chisel work to square the mortise.  A CNC configured for clamping boards on edge could also be used.

4. Taper both sides of the leg thickness from outside to inside edges.  Use a sled with shims to tilt the leg slightly (2.7 degrees) and run through a planer or the horizontal drum sander. Repeat on the other side but shim the board 5.4 degrees. Shims can be cut using the bandsaw. The digital angle gauge can check the shimmed angle. Hot glue in place before running through either machine. 

 

Short 1/2" thick stretchers are mortised into the inside edge of the legs.  The inner end of the stretchers dovetail into one face of the 5 sided center hub sections. Top and bottom edges of the stretchers have a small double 18 degree bevel to perpetuate the table top corner angle detail.

Top Stretcher Dovetail End

Top Stretcher Tenon End

There are two center 5 sided hub sections.  One is 2" tall underneath and connected to the top. The second is 3" tall and roughly halfway down the legs. The hubs connect all the legs together. Stretchers from the legs dovetail into these hubs.  Exposed ends of the hub sections are shaped to a shallow peak to contribute to the overall design aesthetic. This project teaches how to make a 5 sided block, and how to cut dovetail slots perfectly centered on the sides of a 5 sided block.

Top center hub.

There are 3 other Tiny Table examples that along with this one will show students the level of detail and range of creativity they are expected to achieve. The continuity of details in this project add to the story that can be told about it. It is the story about the table details more than a quick glance at it that make it memorable and more desirable.   

More related educational projects are here:

Tiny Table 1.

Tiny Table 2.

Tiny Table 3.

The Lathe.

The Joinery Box.

Tool names and Functions.

Material Sample Blocks

Making Samples vs Making Projects.

Learning Actual Project Costs.

Calculating