I am wondering if anyone has any experience with the 3-month intensive furniture-making courses at the North Bennet Street School or the Center for Furniture Craftsmen. I am considering enrolling in one of these and would love to hear from someone who has attended.
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I was in the first three month program at North Bennett Street. Do you have any specific Questions? What do you expect from taking the course? What is your background in woodworking?
My goal is to gain enough experience to obtain some kind of entry level/apprentice type position with someone that does fine woodworking. At first I was thinking about trying to enroll full time some where like the NBSS or taking the 9-month course at the Center for Furniture Craftsman. After thinking about it for a while and talking to some people that have huge student loans. I began to think about more affordable options like some of the community colleges that have good woodworking programs. I have been looking at red rocks cc in denver and it seems like they have a really good program, but after looking a the scheduling of the programs I noticed that the amount of class room hours I would get in a year of community college would be equivalent to that of one of the 3- month intensive courses. Since I would need to take out some kind of student loan to live on while in school it seems like 3 months is a better choice than 12. I would love to hear what you thought of the course. Were satisfied with what you learned? Maybe why you took it? Did it help you to achieve your goals? Would you recommend it to someone with similar goals as mine? thanks
I am retired and I live and worked in the Boston area. Just before I retired I took a Introduction to Fine Woodworking at NBSS which lasted 10 Saturdays. From there I took an introduction to Machine woodworking for another 8 Saturdays. At that time many of the more advanced type workshops being taught at NBSS required that you take one or both of these courses prior to enrolling. I then began taking several other workshops offered at NBSS. It was during this time that the school decided to offer a three month intensive program.
Rather then require the Introduction to Fine Woodworking and Introduction to Machine Woodworking as a pre-requisite they decided to roll the basic part of these courses into the three month program to enable more people to qualify. In my case and, for several other students in the first classes, this was a repetition of what we had already covered. We were able to use the time allotted to this to further tune up our hand tools and learn a few other things so I don't feel the time was wasted. I do feel while this material was adequately covered but the level of detail in the stand alone version of these courses was significantly greater.
The purpose of this course was to teach about making furniture and to this end a 18th century style writing desk was designed as a the major project. The desk was designed to use several different types of joinery you might encounter and to learn about full scale drawings parts list and procedures. There were a few other projects leading up to the desk which have since changed from when I took the course so I really can't comment on the usefulness of the newer projects.
My purpose in taking the course was purely personnel as I never intend to seek employment in this field. I do feel this course is a great benefit to anyone who does think they might desire to seek employment in this field. It is a great opportunity to gain an understanding of the requirement for furniture making and to determine if you really do like it before committing to either a longer course or to seek a entry level type of position.
You should be aware that much of the available work is with what I would call a cabinetmaking level and while this experience would be valuable it may not translate directly to the type of work or machinery that you may start out working with.
I am very satisfied with the instruction I received and I have pretty well exhausted the workshop courses available at NBSS. I am now continuing the take courses at Phil Lowes Furniture Institute of Massachusetts which is located just north of Boston in Beverly Massachusetts. You might check out his Web site also:
http://www.furnituremakingclasses.com/
Phil does not offer a three month program but you might get some further information about the field from his site.
I did have an opportunity to talk with some people from the Center for Furniture Craftsman. It sounds like they have a very good program and technically you would probably learn many of the same type techniques as NBSS. They seemed to be more contemporary oriented which I am not interested in but they do have some courses which I may investigate further.
based on your information I would suggest that you also check out the following school:
http://www.nesaw.com/
They offer a 37 week program in Architectural Woodworking which may be something more suited to your immediate goals.
There are also a few schools which teach timber framing and you might find that an interesting field to investigate
Good luck with your search I'm sure whatever you decide on you will enjoy
Edited 2/4/2008 6:21 pm ET by RonK
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