About

• how to sharpen the chisels and plane blades, by hand on water stones.
• how to dress the wooden plane bodies with a scraper plane and set the blades with an octagon hammer.
• how to flatten and square the wood and give it a beveled edge with hand planes.
• how to design joints that take advantage of the characteristics of wood, and how to lay out the joinery using Japanese squares.
• how to create and fit the joints, using pull-to-cut saws and chisels that that have a different feel than Western-style chisels.
  

• This class is open to beginners 14+ years old, but it is also designed for seasoned woodworkers who want to explore these tools and methods.
• BARN will supply all of the necessary tools, but you are also welcome to bring and use your own tools. If you wish to purchase your own tools, you can use this form to contact the instructor for recommendations. Note that Japanese-style chisels and planes are not sold ready to use. To use them in this class, you will need to set them up beforehand. To learn how, enroll in BARN's Setting up Japanese Tools class; click here to learn more about it.
• A materials fee of $26 to cover the wood and shop supplies will be added to the class fee when you register and pay.
  

Instructor: Gary Bella  grew up in western Pennsylvania. After college and art school, he moved to the Bay Area in California and began working in Marin County with several firms in residential construction. Later, he specialized in finish carpentry while developing a design/build business. He took classes with traditional Japanese teahouse carpenter Makoto Imai and later worked primarily with Makoto building traditional houses and tea houses in California, New York and Washington. After he moved to Bainbridge in 2003, he continued to build Japanese-inspired projects for private clients. He was among the craftsmen who restored the Japanese guest house at the Bloedel Reserve.