Mike Korsak & Libby Schrum
August 28 – September 8

This course is an excellent follow up for those who have taken Basic Woodworking. Each student designs and builds a hardwood side table with tapered legs and a single drawer in order to consolidate previous skills and develop new ones. During the design process, participants consider aesthetic details such as the proportion of a tapered leg and the overhang of a table top, as well as functionality, joinery, and wood selection.

Throughout the making process, Mike and Libby emphasize precision and efficiency. They review hand-cut joinery, sharpening, and tuning and use of hand tools such as planes and scrapers, before introducing standard machine joinery techniques applicable to tables and drawers. These include drop-in dovetails, mortise and tenons, and inserted tenons made with the tablesaw, router, Domino, and other power tools. In addition, the instructors teach hand and machine methods for tapering legs, as well as joining and fitting traditional, hand-dovetailed, inset drawers.

Mike Korsak is an award-winning furniture maker in Orford, NH, whose work has been exhibited widely in galleries and museums, including the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA, the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, PA, and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, PA. He is a Contributing Editor to Fine Woodworking and his work has been featured in the Journal of the Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers. For more information, visit mikekorsak.com.

Libby Schrum is a professional furniture maker in Camden, ME. A 2001 graduate of our Furniture Intensive, she subsequently earned a Masters of Fine Arts in furniture design from Rhode Island School of Design, in 2005. Libby has exhibited at top venues such as the International Contemporary Furniture Fair and the Architectural Digest Design Show in New York, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, Fine Woodworking, and 500 Chairs (Lark Books, 2008). In 2010, Libby was awarded the prestigious John D. Mineck Furniture Fellowship by Boston’s Society of Arts & Crafts. Her website is libbyschrum.com.

Open to intermediate woodworkers, including anyone who has taken Basic Woodworking.

Tuition: $1,800

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Students learn to design and build tables with tapered legs and drawers.
Students learn to design and build tables with tapered legs and drawers.
Shaker Mama by Mike Korsak, cherry and Bolivian rosewood (14”x42”x32”), 2011
Shaker Mama by Mike Korsak, cherry and Bolivian rosewood (14”x42”x32”), 2011
Detail of drawer by Libby Schrum.
Detail of drawer by Libby Schrum.