Ernie Conover Hand-Cut Dovetails Class

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a one day hand-cut dovetails class with Erie Conover at his shop in Ohio.

The class was excellent, and I met some interesting people.  I will take more classes from Ernie in the future.  He has a great classroom/shop with a teacher's bench for him and 8 full benches for the students (one each).  Lots of natural light.  A great environment.

His website is here: http://www.conoverworkshops.com/

I will post more later about the class, but one of the side-items  that I took away from the class is that I REALLY liked using a workbench with a tool tray after-all (or hamster run as Chris Schwarz calls it).   I've never worked for any period of time on a bench with a tray, and I had no intention of building one into my workbench project...but now I am reconsidering.  Having a place to put my tools where they will not roll onto the floor was very nice.

If I do install one in the bench, it will have a removable bottom.  At the end of only one day of class at Ernie's, mine was full of shavings.  So, Chris was right...but it may be worth it anyway.

By the way, Ernie let slip that he is in the final stages of writing a book on dovetails (including the history of their use and styles).   He says that it may be out by late 2008 or early 2009.