Review-Krenov Wall Cabinet class with D. Finck
bill tindall
>Saturday I took David Finck's class on "Making a Krenov Cabinet", held in his shop near Boone, NC(DAVIDFINCK.COM). For those that have used his book to make a Krenov plane, it will come as no surprise that David, in person, is a skilled teacher.
In contemplating this review I came to realize that successful classes can have greatly different objectives- making a finished product, practicing a skill, watching techniques performed, listening to a discussion of design, etc. The successful student will match their needs to that of the class objectives. The objectives of this class were watch how a student of the Krenov and College of the Redwoods style approaches designing and building a wall cabinet. I found it the next best thing to doing a semester at the college.
Before the class I had no idea we were actually going to watch a cabinet designed and built. That was more optimistic than I imagined, but especially effective at teaching the skills involved in the class objective. The problem with actually building a cabinet is that there is some "wasted" time doing simple or repetitive operations, like doing dowels on the other three cabinet corners. However, in this class these kinds of time were never "wasted" for me because they provide a time to catch up on notes, take pictures, ask questions and I can't remember what all else other than to say I never felt that any time was "wasted", nor did I feel that any part was rushed. I expect this pace was not accidental but rather a result of thoughtful planning and the fact that David is an exceptional teacher.
I have been woodworking at least at an intermediate level for many years and recently built a Krenov-style wall cabinet. One might reasonably ask, what is left to learn about this apparently simple task. The answer is the design and construction tricks of the trade that Krenov and the college have developed over many years. I have often stated that I would like to just sit in a professional's shop and watch them work to see how they approached tasks. This class met this dream.
The Krenov style entails design and construction techniques that are poorly described in his philosophy(woodworking) books and not to my knowledge adequately described elsewhere. From a quick review of my many pages of notes, and photographs, I came up with 28 tips I will use in future work. They span the range from learning the Krenov doweling technique, how to turn a metal twist drill into a woodcutting spur bit, installing knife hinges, to making and installing the clever Krenov rub catches. And, along the way I found myself catching a bit of the Krenov philosophy, especially the part about construction standards and design flexibility.
I can highly recommend this class to anyone wanting to build things in the Krenov style who can't afford to spend a semester at the college.