Aug. 4, 2010

Drew's article on carving a serving ladle

Download our 2010 bulletin

Country Workshops Has a
New Monthly E-Newsletter
Typical contents include stories about recent students and our guest instructors, practical information (on sharpening, making your own travisher, or a bowl blank holding fixture called "Bull Dog," shown at right), and news about new tools from the Country Workshops Store. Each newsletter also has an update on forthcoming classes. Click here for more information, and to see past issues.

Click here to read Drew's Japan Journal
and see photos of the tour.

Click here to see a slideshow of students making a shoji screen during our summer 2008 Japanese Woodworking workshop.

It's Back!
Drew Langsner's chairmaking book is back in print.
Click here for more details about this new edition of The Chairmaker's Workshop.

Visit Drew Langsner's new Web site, and take a look at the carved bowls he has been producing. Click the photo below to be taken to DrewLangsner.com.

Tools, books & videos for traditional woodworkers

Download our latest bulletin

How to contact
Country Workshops
E-mail:
Drew Langsner
Phone:
828-656-2280 (Daily, 9-6 Eastern time)
Postal mail:
990 Black Pine Ridge Road
Marshall, NC 28753

COUNTRY WORKSHOPS ...The woodworking school that focuses on traditional craftsmanship with hand tools. Started in 1978 by Drew Langsner. Country Workshops is located just off the Appalachian Trail in the mountains of western North Carolina, about one hour's drive north of Asheville.

Learn Green Woodworking
at Country Workshops
At our woodworking school hands-on experience and theory are combined in courses built around the making of carefully selected projects. Project work is often done with a drawknife and spokeshave while seated at a shaving horse. Our woodworking seminars also teach the skills of wood turning, wood bending, carving and hewing.  Japanese woodworking is another course that we have offered since 1983. Use of our high-quality specialty tools is included for most of our woodworking courses. We typically provide each student with a shaving horse, drawknife, Windsor chair inshave, Windsor chair adze, bowl adze, sloyd knife, travisher, splitting froe and other tools as needed for each project. We sell many of these tools through the Country Workshops Store.

In a Country Workshops green woodworking class, instruction often begins by using a froe to rive out project parts from a freshly felled hardwood log. In other courses, air-dried lumber is used when appropriate. Our well-known chair school includes  the traditional ladderback chair class (also called a “post-and-rung chair”),  a post and rung rocking chair class, the classic American Windsor chair class and our special rustic Windsor chair class (these are sometimes known as a “Welsh stick chair”). Carving classes include both bowl carving and spoon carving.

The summer woodworking school is taught by Drew Langsner and our guest instructors. Our 2009 summer instructors will be: Hans Karlsson -Toolmaking for Woodworkers, Peter Follansbee -17th Century Carved Box, Carl Swensson - Japanese Woodworking, and Tom Donahey - post-and-rung rocking chair.  Fall-winter-spring woodworking classes -- which we call “tutorials” -- are all taught by Drew Langsner. These tutorials are limited to 4 students. Louise Langsner will also teach a spring weekend willow basket class.

The Country Workshops Store --  Specialty hand tools. Where you can purchase a high-quality froe, drawknife, Windsor inshave, hewing axe, bowl carvers/Windsor hollowing adze, and other tools. For carvers we offer a range of bowl and spoon carving tools, including our sloyd knife and hooked spoon knife selection from both Hans Karlsson and Svante Djarv, engraving and kolrossing knives from Del Stubbs, and Hans Karlsson’s carving gouges.  We also sell books  -- including Drew Langsner’s The Chairmaker’s Workshop -- and videos -- including John Alexander’s “Make a Chair From a Tree” DVD and Country Workshops’ “Swiss Cooperage” and “Carved Swedish Bowls” DVDs.

Japan Craft Tour: Gifu Prefecture and the Japanese Alps
We are pleased to announce our 4th Japan Craft Tour. For 2010 we will concentrate our itinerary in the area that spans Nagoya and Takayama in the Japanese Alps. We will be visiting traditional Japanese craft artists including woodworkers, paper makers, potters, basket makers and metal smiths. Masashi Kutsuwa and Osamu Shoji have agreed to share the duties of tour planners, guides and translators. Drew Langsner will be the tour host. Click here for further details.

To receive a printed bulletin, contact us by phone (828 656 2280) or e-mail Drew Langsner