Intro to Joinery: Build a Stepstool

Practice your hand tool skills and find out how to make basic wood joints through building your own stepstool. You will learn how to make half-lap joints, mortise and tenon, and stop tenons, with each joint used to maximize the full strength of wood. Using joinery instead of fasteners ensures your piece will be high quality, solid, and long-lasting.

You will practice skills that can be applied to many fields of woodworking: design, layout, marking, hand tool use, bandsaw, and assembly.

This class is designed for students who have either taken our Foundations of Woodworking course, which gives you a basic familiarity with and practice using hand tools and power tools, or who can demonstrate a basic use of them. It's not necessary to have a lot of experience, just a basic knowledge.

Dates: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 22-23, 9 AM to 4 PM
Instructor: Max Smith
Class size (max.): 6
Attendance (min.): 3*
Skill level: beginner/intermediate
Prerequisites: Foundations of Woodworking course, or equivalent shop experience

Registration (per person)
Household Member & Above: $355**
Individual Member: $375**
General Public: $410
Register By: Feb. 16

Materials: $45 (price at checkout will include tuition and material cost)

*Classes that do not meet the minimum attendance number may be cancelled or rescheduled. If so, you will receive a full refund, or class credit, regardless of the cancellation date.

**We encourage students to become members (for as little as $30/year) to receive 10-15% off class tuition. You must be a current member on the date of registering to receive your discount. Please login to activate your member discount. To become a new member, please sign up here, or call 845-338-0071.

Instructor: Max Smith is a multidisciplinary craftsman with ten years of experience in woodworking in various forms, stringed instrument repair and making, piano tuning and repair, boatbuilding, cabinetmaking, and as Maintenance Coordinator for the Beacon Sloop Club. He is a full time instructor at HRMM and has participated as a skills demonstrator at the Eric Sloane Museum in Kent, CT. Max frequently sails his 15' Goat Island Skiff, inviting friends and teaching them the basics of sailing.