Watch Roy make two traditional tools by first felling a tree then shaping a maul and glut using period iron woodworking tools.
Learn how to make a shaving horse – one of the most important hand-tool shop fixtures for working with drawknives and spokeshaves.
Spend time with Roy as he shows you how to build one of his favorite projects: a hickory hay rake that is both strong and lightweight.
Join Roy on a tour of the history and development of human powered machines, including one of his favorites: the lathe.
Learn how to build a classic armless rocking chair using traditional tools and techniques. Then create a woven white oak seat for the rocker. Plus, watch as Roy’s guest Bryant Holsenbeck demonstrates how to weave a traditional basket.
Watch as Roy demonstrates the steps and hand-hewn joinery used in building traditional log cabins.
Watch and learn as Roy addresses the details of timber framing, including post-and-beam and mortise-and-tenon construction techniques.
Watch as Roy makes a pitchfork and a dough bowl, each from a single piece of wood.
Spend some time at the forge with Roy to learn basic blacksmithing techniques and discover how to create a spike dog (a tool used in timber framing).
Follow along as Roy discusses frame-and-panel construction for doors, and the basic steps for cutting a dovetailed joint.
Travel with Roy to Colonial Williamsburg to take a look at 18th-century craftsmanship including a visit with a wheelwright, a cooper and a blacksmith, as well as a look inside the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop.
Handles — Watch as Roy examines a number of tool handles, then creates an axe handle from a split of hickory and turns a chisel handle.
Candle Stand — Follow along as Roy walks you through the steps of creating a classic walnut candle stand.
Join Roy as he makes a hand-hewn, half-blind dovetailed drawer for his workbench, and discusses many of the techniques used in traditional drawer making.
See what Roy discovers at a scrap yard, antique store and flea market on his way to “The Woodwright’s Shop.”
It’s all about staying sharp, and in this episode Roy examines the dizzying array of saws available, from familiar panel saws to bowsaws and pit saws. Plus, as a special bonus Roy shows you how to sharpen a bowsaw.
Accompany Roy on a visit to Colonial Williamsburg to work with the living history museum’s blacksmiths as they make a froe, and forge a cant hook.
Observe as Roy looks at the mechanics of wood and how a trees’ growth affects how you work wood once you have it in your shop.
Watch as Roy handcrafts a grand, classic workbench using pegged and keyed mortise-and-tenon construction.
See how Roy and coopers from Colonial Williamsburg work together to make a cooper’s bucket.
Follow along as Roy builds a stunning nailed-together, six-board blanket chest with an interior till.
Watch and learn as Roy builds three simple gift projects, including a flapping duck toy, a small pine knock-down bench and a wooden egg beater.”
Join Roy as he walks you through the process for making a Gee Haw Wimmey Diddle, a quintessential mountain folk toy, along and a willow whistle.
Watch as Roy’s guest Colonial Williamsburg’s Wallace Gusler talks about the techniques and tools needed for carved furniture.
Take a trip with Roy through the geological history of whetstones, then head out on a hunt for rough materials to make your own whetstone for sharpening.
Spend time with Roy and Gunsmith Gary Brumfield of Colonial Williamsburg as they discuss the steps to making a handcrafted 18th-century-style rifle.
Discover details about some of the traditional wooden implements used by weavers, including spinning wheels, clock reels and niddy noddys; and watch as Roy makes a swift and a tape loom.
Join Roy in learning the techniques and processes used to create a violin in the 18th century.
Watch as Roy Black and Robert Watson show Roy how to make round-bottom and flat-bottom white oak baskets, starting from a log and using only hand tools.
Roy takes us on a tour the Dominy Shop at Winterthur Museum. The shop holds the tools and shop items used by three generations of craftsman from 1750-1850.
Roy walks us through the steps to create a simple, but accurate and functional spring pole lathe.
Roy welcomes Wallace Gusler from Colonial Williamsburg, and he shows the process to create a cabriole leg with a ball and claw foot.
Roy works with his daughter, Rachel, to create a child-size, 17th-century chair found in a book by Wallace Nutting.
Roy explores the contents of a recently purchased tool chest, trying to determine something of the original owner. He then shows how to recreate the chest itself.
Mack Headley from Colonial Williamsburg visits the shop and demonstrates the chip carving techniques used to decorate furniture.
Roy looks at the details of early-American fences, including lightweight and portable fences used for sheep herding, garden fences and more substantial post and rail “fences” used in forts built around 1620.
Roy shows you how to make some always-gift-appropriate and useful utensils for the kitchen including a rolling pin, heavy spoon, a collapsible drinking cup and more.
Roy pitches in with the raising of the frame-and-timber structure for Anderson’s Forge at Colonial Williamsburg.
After discussing how humidity affects different wood species, Roy makes a clever and simple late 18th-century hygrometer to measure the humidity in the shop.
Roy recreates a classic pine corner cupboard.
To celebrate his new nephew, Roy builds an 18th century baby’s high chair with rush seating.
Roy starts off the “Making Things From Nature” season by giving us some history of rustic furniture and walks through the steps necessary to make a Rustic Rocker.
To finish up the Rustic Rocker, Roy takes us into the woods to gather hickory bark, and then heads into the shop to create the woven bark seat for the rocker.
Roy takes us into the shop to finish up a pilgrim-style oak cradle that he started, but never finished, reviewing the “tricky” parts necessary to create the whole project.
We visit with a 14-year-old traditional woodworker who sells his wares (walking sticks, toys and more), to make more money to buy tools he can’t make for himself.
A collector of cast-iron, foot-powered woodworking lathes and fret saws visits with Roy and they try out a number of the machines.
In part one, Roy starts the base of a classic early-American project that serves as a tilt-top table, chair and storage unit.
In part two, Roy finishes the base and completes the top of the early-American tilt-top table. He also shows how to make a traditional milk paint finish for the piece.
Roy visits with David Harvey, a Blacksmith at Colonial Williamsburg, and learns how to turn bog ore into a woodworking chisel.
Roy shows how to create three projects that are created directly from trees and bark, with very little refinement.
We head back to Colonial Williamsburg where Roy visits with master wheelwright Dan Stebbins to discover the mysteries and realities of making wheels for early American wagons and carts.
Roy makes a six-note music mill from wine bottles that is powered by hand crank (but can also be powered by a water wheel).
Roy travels back to visit with master cabinetmaker Mack Headley at the Anthony Hay shop at Colonial Williamsburg. He shares some of the secrets that were standard fare for 18th century American woodworking.
Sash joinery, or making windows, is the ultimate test of organizational skills, and Roy takes us through the many steps and details that must align to make a good window.
Traditional woodworking required making much of your own tools and machinery, and the wooden screw is a major component in those. Roy looks at the making of wooden screws for use in the shop.
Roy visits with expert spoon carver Roger Sandstrom to talk technique, wood selection and more about carving spoons and treenware.
Roy tackles creating a classic Wooden Pliers whittled from a single piece of wood, and then expands the concept to a folding bookstand using similar joinery.
Roy shows how to build an 18th Century French lathe designed to fold up and store in the corner.
We learn how to create the traditional joinery for a Jacobean stool.
Roy finishes the Jacobean stool by adding the turning and carving to the frame.
We spend some quality time with Roy making small projects from scrap wood, including wooden ties, a pop gun, ado-nothing machine and a flying top.
Roy travels to the John Anderson Forge at Colonial Williamsburg to look at how nails, hinges and tools were made in Colonial America
Roy takes a look at 18th Century woodworking details found in furniture from the Colonial Williamsburg cabinet shop.
Build one of the classic 18th Century projects with Roy; a Shaker lap desk.
Roy walks through the steps required to build a wooden wagon for his daughters – but manages to have some fun himself.
Roy visits with Peter Ross at the Anderson Forge to look at 18th Century tool making, in particular, a gentlemen’s hatchet.
Only the best for Roy’s pooch, Grit: a brick and Tudor framed doghouse is this episode’s project.
Roy takes a look at the design and benefits of many traditional dovetails used in woodworking, then goes even further to look at some more unusual dovetails.
When you need a longer board (or rafter), then a traditional scarf joint may be the answer. Roy discusses the history, value and creation of this important joint.
Roy shows us the steps to create the perfect outdoor chair — the Adirondack.
After a look at a number foot-powered woodworking machines, Roy and his guest show how to use a few of the machines to make traditional Shaker oval boxes.
This episode is Roy’s version of waste-not, want not. He shows how to build a coffin-shaped bookcase so that the materials involved aren’t wasted, but used during life — and after.
Blending two traditional crafts, Roy builds an adjustable needlework stand or French design.
Whirligig expert Andy Lundy stops by the shop to talk about the history, design and construction details of a variety of whirligigs.
Traditional woodworking starts with the trees. Roy shares the traditional steps necessary to fell a tree and get the wood into the shop.
Roy gives us a look at rustic Bramble Work furniture. He then creates a small table in this style, working with twigs fastened in geometric patterns.
Roy works through the varied historical uses of lumber. For use in construction, furniture, heating on your own farm, and for sharing with others. No part of the tree is wasted.
On a trip back to the Underhill homestead, Roy takes us on visit of some of the construction details used in building the 1850’s house and outbuildings.
Roy shows us how to make a couple of classic board games: Fox and Geese; and a checkers (or chess) board.
We travel to the Book Binders Shop at Colonial Williamsburg to learn the history and reality of woodcutting for use in printing.
Roy shows us how to recreate an 18th-century folding library ladder that collapses into a simple pole shape
In the beginning of a three-part project, join Roy as he builds the frame for this early Colonial two-sided drop-leaf tavern table.
Roy continues the building process for the Butterfly Table by creating the top using a drop-leaf rule joint.
In the final part of Making A Butterfly Table, Roy makes the half-blind dovetailed drawer that fits underneath the top.
Roy makes three toys: a Limberjack dancing toy; an acrobat toy and a jointed toy.
This classic rustic chair is easily made by bending green twigs. Roy shows the steps to make your own.
Roy visits with 3rd generation tinsmith, Peter Blum, who shows how to make a candle holder, a heart-in-hand cookie cutter, a pie plate and a tin whistle.
Roy makes four boxes: a bamboo birdcage; a carved figure box with hidden valuables compartment; an exploding bank box and a snake box.
Roy visits the restoration site of the 18th-Century James City County Courthouse, in particular, the interior casework and millwork.
Roy visits Colonial Williamsburg to learn about the all-but-forgotten skill of creating bricks by hand.
In this first of three shows, Roy explains first steps in building a traditional log cabin. First the trees must be felled, debarked and notched.
In this episode, Roy creates the doorway for the cabin, frames the roof and lays the roofing boards in place…all without using any nails.
In the final log cabin episode, Roy shows how to chink and daub the gaps between the logs and adds a stick-and-mud chimney for the cabin. Lastly, he adds the door.
Roy welcomes Chris Lang to look at the traditional woodworking technique of marquetry, and how to create a shell medallion.
Roy welcomes his daughter Eleanor into the shop to help him build a rough-hewn rocking horse of traditional German design.
Guest Jonathan Kline visits the shop to show how to create a traditional Black Ash basket, stripping the material from the log, using the annual rings to their best advantage.
Build an early 19th-Century revolving bookcase that holds an amazing number of books.
Roy visits the Franconian Open-air Museum in Bavaria to look at Franconian woodworking, timber framing and craftsmanship, dating back to the middle ages.
Roy is again at the Franconian Open-air Museum to look at building and woodworking techniques form early German traditions.
Roy builds an open-frame garden gate.
One of Roy’s passions is walking sticks, and in this episode he shows how to make a walking stick that comes with its own built-in flute.
Build a charming wind-powered, bamboo music mill, recreating a design from the island of Bali.
Roy revisits an earlier tool chest project to show the value and importance of dovetailing in the interior trays and compartments.
Roy gives us an overview on turning and of three lathes: a spring-pole lathe, a folding spring-pole lathe and a foot-treadle flywheel lathe.
Rachel Underhill joins her dad in the shop to make a canvass and wood kayak.
Roy does some repair work on one of his 10-year-old rakes, taking the opportunity to highlight the strength of wood when using the grain correctly
Guest Bob Siegel visits the shop to share his unique knowledge of making wooden shoes using only four traditional tools
(Part 1) — Roy starts a classic post-and-rung rocking chair using traditional greenwood techniques.
(Part 2) — Work on the rocker continues; shaping the tenons, boring the mortises and creating the splats.
(Part 3) — Work on the rocker is completed with the creation of the rockers and adding a hickory bark seat.
Roy creates a traditional dough bowl from tulip poplar.
Eleanor Underhill joins Dad in the shop to turn a painted candle stand.
Roy welcomes a bowyer and a fletcher to the shop to make a woodland Indian’s bow and river cane arrows.
This may not be the four-poster bed you’re thinking of, as Roy builds a rustic version from rough, red cedar logs
Roy visits Colonial Williamsburg to watch the creation of a set of hardware for window shutters.
Continuing the Williamsburg theme, Roy visits the woodworker’s shop to watch frame-and-panel shutters made
Daughter Rachel joins Roy in the shop to make a marble track toy and Kick-Me machine.
Roy visits Monticello to look at some of the architectural creations and innovations of the former President..
Roy recreates stacking “book box” shelves built to Thomas Jefferson’s specifications, and still on display at Monticello.
Toshio Odate visits the shop to discuss and demonstrate Japanese woodworking tools, techniques and joinery.
Roy visits Gregg Blomberg and explores woodworking traditions of the Pacific Northwest.
Roy is joined by his wife, Jane, to build a traditional quilting frame.
Roy and his friend Robert Watson make a “man’s chair” using tools from the Ivory Coast of Africa.
Roy learns about northern New Mexico woodworking on the Santa Fe Trail.
Roy begins making a tiny tape loom, used for making decorative fabric.
Roy finishes the tape loom by making a beautiful box for it with dovetails and turned columns.
Roy makes a standing desk using mortise-and-tenon and tongue-and-groove joints.
Instrument maker Marcus Hanson makes inlay banding with Roy at the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop.
Roy returns to the Anthony Hay Cabinet Shop to learn finishing.
Roy restores the tools found in an antique chest.
Roy makes a Spanish pilgrim’s chest from New Mexico.
Returning to New Mexico once again, Roy explores religious carving and woodworking in the mountains north of Santa Fe.
Roy makes a Moravian chair that’s reinforced with dovetailed battens, which make this small piece extraordinarily strong.
Build a beautiful music stand that adjusts for height and angle to best suit the musician.
Roy works through the steps to turn a round log into a square timber, and then shows how to bore a square hole.
Through shaving, steaming and bending, Roy creates a pitchfork from a green hickory limb.
Learn to build a wooden canteen using stave construction.
Roy visits the foundry at Williamsburg to view the processes of pouring and finishing brass and silver for hardware and household items.
Roy uses the theme of string-powered toys to show us how to make a spinning top, pump drill and a simplified version of the mechanism for a flying ball clock.
Learn the basics of two simple and fun projects: carving a spiral and building a tongue drum.
Roy visits Lillehammer, Norway looking at traditional Norwegian folk architecture and building techniques.
Still enjoying his trip to Norway, Roy visits a Viking ship museum and the Norwegian Folk Museum.
Roy visits a recreated Celtic village in Wales, looking at Welsh woodworking including building construction, clog making and traditional carved Welsh love spoons.
Learn to build Roy’s iconic carpenter’s tool tote.
Roy looks at Irish woodworking, including houses, harps, caravans and traditional ship-building techniques.
Learn to build a sailor’s sea chest with beveled through dovetails.
Roy builds a stool starting with splitting and riving the green wood and ending with a woven-bark seat.
Learn the steps to build a standing embroidery hoop large enough to handle embroidery on a quilt.
Roy builds a scaled model of a Welsh cruck-frame barn, teaching the woodworking principals of timber framing.
Create a clever wood lock-and-key door set in the shop with Roy.
Roy builds a traditional single-drawer Shaker sewing stand.
Learn the benefits and uses of frame-and-panel construction and the joinery steps to create a frame-and-panel door.
Roy visits Colonial Williamsburg to view their exhibit of 1,500 eighteenth-century woodworking tools.
Watch a traditional woodworking tool –a drawknife –forged using historically accurate techniques.
Learn the steps used to smith a Suffolk door latch used during colonial times.
Roy builds a cedar box for an old sharpening stone while simultaneously teaching you the principles of sharpening and how to maintain the edges on the tools he uses. He also discusses the differences between various kinds of sharpening stones.
Roy shows you how to make a walking stick-chair – a walking stick that folds out to become a small chair – much like the one used by Thomas Jefferson as he laid out plans for the University of Virginia.
Roy explores the wide, and sometimes strange, world of chisels. You’ll learn more about the tools you work with every day, and see how to use odd tools from history that you’ve likely never seen.
Roy makes a “sawbuck” trestle table – first delving into the interesting details, and then actually building it.
Starting with a raw popular log, Roy splits, chops, cuts and carves a huge wooden shovel. Along the way you’ll go through nearly every aspect of woodworking, from rough to fine work.
Roy travels to the Wooden Boat School in Brooklyn, Maine. See three distinct approaches to traditional boat building taught by three different instructors at the school
Roy arrives to find his shop taken over by a gaggle of marionette puppets! We’re joined by a pair of professional puppeteers that demonstrate how to build three types of puppets.
Start learning to make a simple, yet sturdy, portable folding workbench.
Finish learning how to put the workbench together, plus add all-important workholding features.
Make a colonial threaded candle stand – the screw threads allow you to finely adjust the height and position of the candles.
Visit the shores of Blue Mountain Lake in Adirondacks – see how to make an Adirondack guide boat and an Adirondack pack basket. Plus see the region’s signature furniture.
Visit the harness shop of Jim Clatter in Colonial Williamsburg. Learn how to make a variety of leather items including a knife holster, pistol buckets and water buckets using 18th-century techniques.
Roy climbs Bruton Parish Steeple in Williamsburg, Virginia, which has been holding a bell since the 1770s. See details of the original construction that tell us about how our ancestors lived, worked and thought.
Learn the steps to recreate a knock down bookcase originally built by the Roycrofters of East Aurora, New York.
Roy shows how to make a small box using a hidden dovetail joint that looks like a miter joint when complete.
This episode starts by making a scratch stock tool necessary to create the grooves for the simple Holly inlay that follows.
Roy visits local blacksmith shops and museums in the Alsace region of France in search of a giant chisel.
Using a roll-top joinery process, Roy creates a small box with tambour doors.
Roy shows how to build an “African” drum that originally came from colonial America.
Roy continues his visit to the Alsace region looking at woodworking and timber-building traditions.
In this two-part project, Roy shows the steps to create a classic comb-back Windsor chair.
Roy builds two simple toys: an interlocking-joint puzzle; and a sand-powered whirligig.
Learn to create the useful knuckle-hinge joint and, just for fun, whittle a wooden pair of pliers.
Roy shows how to use a tap and screw box to create wooden screws for use in shop and furniture projects.
Learn the history of writing instruments and the evolution of the pencil, then look at a variety of pencil sharpeners from the past.
Roy shows you how to make a shaving horse from a single 2x10.
Learn to whittle the mysterious, impossible-seeming wooden chain and ball-in-cage.
Roy make a child’s Windsor highchair showing classic Windsor techniques.
Make a chair out of grass ... Chinese bamboo, that is.
Make a No. 3 bentwood Shaker box – a deceptively simple design.
Roy’s panel-framed bench has a storage space built beneath the seat.
Using thin wood and only tapered, sliding dovetails, Roy makes a sturdy hanging bookshelf.
Roy takes a rotted window sash and repairs it with weather resistant resinous wood.
Make a cam-operated tea bag dunking machine that’ll save your arms from the repetitive motion of steeping tea.
How do you get to the center of a walnut? Build a turned, decorated nut cracker, as well as a simpler version from one piece of wood.
Roy takes a look at interior Shaker craftsmanship at the Hancock Shaker Village in Pittsfield, Mass.
Shaker furniture was made as if to be used for 1,000 years – see how that philosophy is worked into a small table.
During the time of Colonial America, many Loyalists headed north for Canada. Roy explores the life and economy they built there between harsh winters.
Learn simple box dovetails and create some shop characters that can hang out inside.
Dress up a small cedar box with a variety of chip carving designs.
Roy makes a walnut stick chair and a pine slab chair perfectly sized for children.
Learn the details to add a hickory bark seat to a child’s chair.
Roy draws on poetry from the 1400s to explain what tools were used by wrights of the day.
Build an improved version of Roy’s 20-year-old treadle lathe design — and it starts with scrap lumber!
A class on basket weaving? You bet! Weave a white oak basket with Roy.
Roy uses a red oak tool chest to illustrate a discussion on hand planes.
Learn to convert a treadle lathe into a treadle jigsaw.
Roy shows how to make a traditional Russian pecking-chicken toy.
Roy visits Old Salem, North Carolina, founded in the 1760s by the Moravians. Their craft lives on in the recreated town.
Learn to build a scaled-down German swinging cradle built with lapstrake construction.
Learn about the history and the early settlers of the Jamestown, Virginia settlement.
Underhill fits out a tool cabinet with shelves and dovetailed drawers
Roy shows how to hew, carve and turn a shoulder yoke for carrying those heavy sap buckets.
Roy shows how to make a little table from the 1600s with a unique folding design to save space in the old home place.
In this episode of The Woodwrights Shop, special guest Lyle Wheeler shows viewers how to construct their own spinning wheel.
Master carver, David Calvo gives lessons in high relief carving. Instructed in the "Old World" tradition, Calvo guides viewers step by step as he creates a Fleur de Lis woodcarving.
In this episode of the Woodright Shop, Roy Underhill visits a Connecticut shipyard, the Mystic Seaport. Here, Roy is taken on a tour of their current project, an exact replica of the famous Amistad clipper. He is given a brief history lesson of events leading up to the revolution aboard the notoriuos ship.
Roy visits two museums dedicated to two pioneers in preserving early technology--Henry Mercer and Eric Sloane.
Roy meets Hungarian-born cabinetmaker Frank Klausz, gentleman, craftsman and the fastest dovetailer on the planet.
Ultra close-up views give viewers the vision to sharpen their own saws.
Roy shows how to make turned wheels and the wooden ducks that roll on them
Roy shows how to make a chair that can turn into a ladder.
The director of the Alpine School of Woodcarving shows advanced techniques in chip carving.
Roy shows how to make your own buckets.
Watch and learn as Roy builds a reproduction of a simple walnut lap desk from the 19th century.
Follow along as Roy shows you how to make a circa-1550 three-legged chair from the Flemish town of Rotterdam.
Join Roy as he welcomes George Wunderlich and watch as he recreates a mid-1800s banjo.
Watch as Roy builds a small oak bookcase, without glue or fasteners, for easier disassembly.
Pick up valuable tips for large-scale woodworking from Roy as he builds the corner of a timber-framed structure.
Observe Nick Supone and Neal Conolly as they stop by “The Woodwright’s Shop” and demonstrate the hewing and carving techniques used in creating a duck decoy
Travel with Roy to Eastfield Village where he tours the museum’s restored historic buildings.
Watch and learn as Roy visits with marquetry expert Patrick Edwards, and discusses the technique of “painting in wood.”
Join Roy for a visit with blacksmiths Peter Ross and Ken Schwarz where they demonstrate making bench chisels and more.
Watch as Roy soldiers a tin-can bird whistle and makes a boxwood whistling top.
Travel along with Roy to the Hay Cabinet Shop at Williamsburg for a furniture-carving talk with Master Mack Headley.
Watch as Roy visits with Mike Dunbar of the Windsor Institute as he demonstrates the process for building a sack-back Windsor chair.
Join Roy as he looks back on 20 years of “The Woodwright’s Shop,” including highlights of guests, projects and memorable moments.
The tools we use can be beautiful too! Roy shows you how to build beautiful saw horse.
Roy teams up with the old Welsh Bodger himself and together they demonstrate how to build a classic Welsh Stick Chair.
You can learn how to build a timeless relic from past generations of fine woodworkers in this episode, a Joiner’s Tool Box.
An endless “pencil” sharpener to make round tapered handles for rake, boat spars- and more.
Get down, get musical! Produce a wonderful old wind instrument from the Elizabethan era- the Krumhorn!
Join Roy at the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival and learn how to build a timber-frame barn.
Make a mysterious puzzle mallet with a devilishly difficult dovetail that’s impossible to break!
Roy shows you how to find and restore traditional tools needed to do old time traditional woodworking.
Join Roy at the Anderson Forge in Colonial Williamsburg and see how to make a traditional cross garnet hinge.
Learn how to make “big” furniture by starting with scaled down versions.
Learn how to build a four-light Colonial window sash.
Roy visits the Gunsmith Shop at Colonial Williamsburg to see how 18th century flintlock rifles were made.
Watch Roy “spin the wheel” at the Cabinet shop in Colonial Williamsburg as they produce 18th century furniture the old fashioned way.
A three-sided box?! Well that’s different. Let Roy show you how to make a triumphant triangular box for your trifocals.
Clever, elegant and delicate beauty. Roy shows you how to produce a wonderful little Shaker work table.
Roy's bringing craftsmanship back into our lives with an Arts & Crafts style cabinet.
Have fun building a folk milking stool. Think of the possibilities!
What the heck is a spill plane and how do you make a hinged book stand out of one piece of wood?
Roy shows you how to build a delightful rocking cradle for a newborn baby.
Roy learns how to make shutter dog that is used to hold open shuttles when not to use.
Meet Dan Mack, and see how he fabricates fascinating furniture out of naturally occurring materials.
Find out what it takes to make a wheel at the Palace Wheelwright Shop in Colonial Williamsburg.
Roy shows you how to build wonderful articulated dancing toys called Limberjacks!
See how the Pilgrims performed early American woodworking with just a few basic tools.
Learn the difference between a carpenter and a joiner. Hint: Think doors, windows & stairs.
Visit Old Sturbridge Village, and meet the 1930s American—a farmer/craftsman.
Simple rainy day projects to "tink" around with - especially if you’re young at heart.
Build a solid, sturdy workbench without any screws, nails or glue—that you can break down and take with you!
Putting the finishing touches on your new workbench — the vices, the dogs, etc.
Beautiful "compass inlay" on a Pennsylvania Spice Box done in the Pennsylvania/German tradition.
Jack planes, combination planes, single iron joiners-Roy introduces you to the world of planes—not to mention snipe spills, skew mouth badgers, iron rabbits…
Learn how to build an odd corner chair called a Roundabout Chair—found in the offices of Dr. Sigmund Freud.
Need a sign? Let David Calvo show you how to carve one.
Take a trip to beautiful downtown Paint Lick, KY and meet the old bodger himself, Don Weber. Learn how it was done in the old country.
Explore Conner Prairie, a living museum in the heart of Indiana. See how life was in the 1800's.
How do you turn a round table into a triangle. Let Roy show you how.
Let Roy show you how to make something useful out of scrap wood.
Roy shows you how the very first Americans worked with wood — the Cherokees of Cherokee Nation.
Watch Roy make a beautiful red cedar chest out of a tree knocked down by a hurricane.
Roy shows you how to make a shaving horse to help you make ax handles, wheel spokes and more.
Not all good things are made out of wood. Anne Pederson shows Roy how to make things out of tin.
The Acadians, forbearers of the Cajuns, brought a clever idea for a chair with them to Louisiana. Roy explains…
If you need a washtub, butter churn or water bucket – go see a “white cooper.”
Roy shows how to build a “spring pole lathe” – powered by foot.
Need a big ol’ wooden screw for your cider press? Roy will show you how to make one.
Take a class in kayak building, or build a long bow or a berry basket – all available at the North Folk School.
Watch Roy transform a big log into a beautiful bowl. Hint: Just remove everything that’s not a bowl.
Let it snow, then go skiing with Mark Hensen.
Let Roy show you how to make useful & “useless” things out of one piece of wood – no kidding.
Roy shows you how to make a standard chess set or a not so standard chess set. Check, Matey!
Now that you have the chess pieces it’s time to make the chess board – and a box to put the pieces in.
If you’re a “leg man” you gotta’ see this. Beautiful inlaid legs by Steve Latta.
Build a small garden bench made of Cypress, and with a south-east Asian design.
Avoid being frustrated by wooden puzzles by making a wooden knot, and three burr puzzles yourself.
Jeff Headley and Steve Hamilton visit the shop to show the construction techniques - and secrets - in a Winchester slant-top desk.
Build the wooden plane pictured in Albrecht Durer's Melancolia
Join Roy as he inventories woodworking tools he found in three tool chests.
Roy discusses the "perfection along the axis" found in woodturning
Build two accessories valuable to the weaver.
Nora Hall visits the shop and shows the steps to carve a linenfold design.
David Russell visits and shows the intricacies of corn-shuck chair seats.
Roy discovers the history of Appalachian people at the museum in Clinton, TN.
Roy visits Monticello, Poplar Forest and Montpelier to follow the work of the two men who were responsible for most of the construction and woodworking.
Raise the sails on a fleet in a flask with a master of the maritime miniature.
Build an oak, three-legged drop-leaf table from the time of the English civil war.
See how to turn and carve the double spiral of the barley twist leg from Cromwell’s time.
A second generation Adirondack furniture maker shows how to build chairs - rustic style
Learn how to bend and turn the stock for a wonderful Windsor highchair.
Frame and finish the Windsor highchair with the master chair-maker and storyteller.
Join in Thoreau’s search for moral lessons deep in the grain of the wood.
A master craftsman shows how to sharpen, tune and use the Japanese plane.
Oak, ash, elm and iron make the wheel of our barrow.
Fitting the beveled elm panels into the oak wheelbarrow frame.
An expert shows how to make and restore webbed and stuffed chair seats.
Beautiful belt-driven 19th century machines still make window sashes in this New York shop
Enjoy the journeyman joint that holds your drawers together in a variety of various forms
Master joiner Peter Follansbee of Plymouth Plantation carves a 17th century “bible box.”
Turn the base and shaft of an 18th century embroidery stand from Colonial Williamsburg.
Steam bent hoops and wooden adjusting screws complete the embroidery stand.
Down and dirty metalworking forges the cutters to make wooden screws.
This workbench from Provence uses puzzling dovetails to join the legs to the bench top.
A tool chest, drawers and vises complete the workbench from Provence.
Meet a modern luthier who works with tools and techniques unchanged for centuries.
A sliding side reveals the hidden drawer on this missionary’s candle box.
Shelves that swing keep your plants in the sun on this Victorian contraption.
Explore woodworking traditions of the Moravian settlers at Old Salem.
Ox yokes & timber-framing number among the projects at a school using low-tech solutions.
A Williamsburg blacksmith forges hinges following instructions in a 17th century manual.
Partake in a celebration of American innovation at Greenfield Village.
North Carolina Governor Mike Easley shows how to make a walnut side table.
Pack up your tools in this little dovetailed chest of pine.
Finish the chest with a mitered and paneled lid and a tongue and groove bottom.
The sage of Monticello based his five-sided bookstand on designs he found in Paris.
First lessons in fine furniture carving from Mack Headley, master of the Colonial Williams
Master blacksmith Peter Ross shows the technique of cold joining and shaping colonial lock
From bits to braces, augers to angle borers & even boring a square hole,you know the drill
A Michigan master of folk carving whittles white cedar fans and birds of a wooden feather.
Imagination (and a few strings) makes these carved critters come to life.
Master musical instrument makers show classical techniques of hand cutting & wood veneer.
Create decorative veneer patterns using oval engines, sharp knives/patient perfectionism.
Welsh chair bodger Don Weber turns his hand to recreating a medieval tool kit.
From chair building to instrument making to fine furniture collections.
Walnut and boxwood make a little box with a secret lock to stash the woodworker’s pal.
Grinding forever as his wife cranks the stone, the whirlygig man turns our hand to mechanical toys.
The Shakers were rocking in this classic chair of turned and steam-bent maple.
Traditional Shaker worsted tape in checkerboard patterns makes a sweet seat.
Swelling and shrinking, bending and breaking, the worker with wood must be wetness aware!
With artful arched feet and tenoned trestle top, this Shaker side table stands sturdy and fine.
Strong and resilient, wood has the lively lightness to support a leg when it’s lacking.
With its turned top and dovetailed legs, this walnut tripod table is a classic of American design.
An Asheville artisan shows the secrets of the steam-bent green-wood chair
Build the frame and panel door of this corner cupboard—an early American classic.
Complete your corner cupboard with glass casement doors and molded crown.
Long splined miters anyone? That’s how you join the coffin-like case of this 18th-century corner cupboard. See how to make the special jigs to hand plane this crucial joint with precision and dignity.
You can make any complex molding you want with simple hand planes—just take it one curve at a time. Bill Anderson and Roy show how to flute your pilasters and carve your cornice for this comely corner cupboard.
This butt joint of distinction joins everything from picture frames to crown moldings. Learn all the angles and see how to carefully cut corners as we master the miter box for fitting frames and fine furniture.
We’ll delve into the drawers in search of the secret of an old tool chest. The quality of the tools shows that it belonged to a first class joiner back in the early 1800s, but the dovetail joints break all the rules.
Chairmaker Elia Bizzarri joins us to make this elegant and comfortable rocking chair. We’ll turn the legs and frame the seat in part one of this American classic.
We’ll finish our rocking chair as we steam and bend the continuous arm's one-piece back. With its compound bend, this challenging chair is truly an American design innovation.
Sloyd, the late 19th-century Swedish system of learning woodworking was intended to develop skilled, industrious and morally upstanding citizens. We’ll give it a try, and hope it’s not too late for us!
So many books, so little space! Say goodbye to cinderblocks and sagging shelves as you see how to cut the essential dado and sliding joints to build this better bookcase.
Chris Schwarz, editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, joins Roy to explore the three classes of English sawcuts. Chris reveals the devious French tenon cheat, and even shows us how to saw without a saw!
How can you stretch a basic kit of tools to build impressive casework? Chris Schwarz, editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, shows how with the toolkit of young Thomas, hero of the 1839 book The Joiner and Cabinet Maker.
In the days of slavery, Thomas Day, a free black cabinetmaker in North Carolina, was one of the most respected artisans in the South. We’ll look beneath the veneer on his furniture and discover his intriguing architectural work.
Mortise and tenon joints frame this classic feature of the English countryside. It’s a rustic woodworking challenge as we balance both beauty and strength to make a gate that will keep swinging for decades.
Hinges Master blacksmith Peter Ross turns his hammer to forging iron hinges for our oak field gate. We’ll see how to shape and weld wrought iron for straps and pintles to make our gate swing true.
Walnut bookstand.
Bow saw.
Making wooden rakes and rounded reels from steam-bent stock.
Making the stiles and rails of a classic raised panel door.
Gleaming surfaces, tight joints and crisp moldings through perfect planing.
A simple square with laps and bridles.
Traditional joint stool.
Making spoons using an axe and traditional hook knife.
Making a name in holly wood by setting slender stringing into the slotted surface.
Classic hammer veneering.
Spike dogs and cant hooks for log holding and handling.
Turning ovals and offsets by measuring once and turning twice.
Why do it by hand—when you can do it by foot? Roy Underhill gets caught up in up a bevy of century-old, foot-powered woodworking machines.
Grooves and splines make a tidy oak box, but can we cut the joints just using hand tools? And do we want to?
You can’t make a drop leaf table without the rule joint. So, what are the tools you need to cut it by hand? Bill Anderson drops by with the answer.
Chris Schwarz’s anarchist’s tool chest starts a back-to-basics revolution! Learn his classic system of simplicity to set your work life free.
Secrets of the mysterious two-screw vise revealed! Chris Schwarz joins Roy Underhill to rediscover this enigmatic wooden vise.
Make your own darn metal screws with this 1889 foot-powered lathe! Roy shows how to cut perfect threads, cones and tapers in iron and brass.
The old triangular stool spells trouble for Peter Follansbee and Roy Underhill as they tackle a trio of terrible turned tenons!
With foot-powered lathes, Peter Follansbee and Roy Underhill turn this adjustable bookstand from walnut and maple.
Make raised panels for your doors with care and flair! Roy Underhill uses both complex planes and tricks with basic tools to raise the classic panel.
Woodcarver Mary May makes basswood flowers bloom. Get in the groove of high-relief carving with sharp gouges and good-grained wood!
Haul out the anvil and forge this essential bench tool! Blacksmith Peter Ross shows how to forge historical versions of this powerful gripper.
Make this Shaker cabinet and dwell in utopian serenity! Simple to construct and elegant in design, this cupboard is a standby in any room or shop.
What made these American communal craftsmen tick? From their furniture to their bentwood boxes, the Shakers may be our most modern artisans.
Give your butt joints a break with the tenons and dovetails that connect this pine standing desk from Pennsylvania.
The miter-clamped breadboard end makes a broad desktop that always stays flat.
Roy Underhill demonstrates how to cut bead moldings with hand planes for corners that look sharp and last longer.
Classical carver Mary May provides a lesson on woodcarving and a proper rebuke for edge tool abuse!
Roy duplicates the beveled bridle joints and chamfered chops of an old saw-sharpening vise.
Using giant model rip and crosscut saws, Roy demonstrates how to correctly sharpen handsaws.
Roy attempts to replace a chest of molding planes with one complex metal contraption
The master joiner of Plimoth Plantation shows how to frame a small, mortised, and tenoned chest in the old English style.
A master joiner shows Roy how to make and fit the beveled panels and storage till into a framed chest from the Pilgrim era.
Master blacksmith Peter Ross shows how to forge iron hinges and locks from the earliest days of the American experience.
Chris Schwarz shows Roy how to measure up with an English try square based on the examples in the famous Benjamin Seaton tool chest.
Learn to make the simple and useful Dutch tool chest with its characteristic 30-degree slanted lid.
With ash head and hickory handle, Roy shows how to make a proper joiner's mallet for the ages.
Your legs will stay tight in this classic German carpenter’s bench built with stopped sliding dovetails.
This pair of sliding diagonal rods with copper collars will help you get your chests square and your dovetails tight.
Walnut legs riven from the log begin this table inspired by the Dominy workshops.
A walnut burl top and tricky turning makes tapered dovetails for a three-legged table.
From the holdfast to the birdsmouth, Roy explores wondrous ways to grip the grain and rediscovers and old trick from a rare book.
Learn to cut the rising diagonal dovetail for corners that are stronger and striking, no matter how you look at them.
The old shop-class plant stand joined with half-laps and dowels teaches us to pay attention to the grain, not just the machine.
Christopher Schwarz shows the ins and outs of Campaign furniture made for travel to the far-flung reaches of the Empire.
Chris Schwarz shows how to fit brass corners and hardware flush with the surfaces of Campaign furniture.
An old shaving horse from the Virginia mountains demonstrates that the natural shapes in timber make the strongest wooden construction.
Tom Calisto joins Roy to make a brass-backed hand saw perfect for the finest dovetails or the toughest tenons.
Blacksmith Peter Ross shows how to forge, weld, harden and temper tool steel for cutting edges that stay sharp longer.
The Underhill Rose band joins Roy in the shop for a musical misadventure in the ways of the Woodwright.
Part 1 of 2. A rocking cradle modeled after one spotted in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul is crafted in the Season 35 premiere.
Conclusion. A rocking cradle is completed with pine sides and rockers. A lathe-turned carrier bar joins it all together.
Woodcarver Mary May joins Roy to carve springerle cookie molds for every occasion.
How to cut the mortise and tenon joints for the legs and frame of a Shaker table.
The dovetailed and grooved construction techniques found inside Shaker drawers are detailed.
Cherry knobs for Shaker furniture are turned on a foot-powered lathe. Also: finishing a joined table top.
How to use a cross-cutting wood saw.
Master craftsman Peter Follansbee joins Roy to hew huge bowls from poplar & sycamore wood.
These most basic molding planes also prove the most versatile as we look at making and using wooden hollows and rounds.
Roy makes this country cousin of the Windsor chair using the same tools and techniques.
The challenge of the Welsh stick chair continues as Roy shapes spindles and backs for a proper sit-down.
Dividers, calipers and turning tools take shape as master blacksmith Peter Ross shows Roy the art of tool-making.
Roy looks into the simplest form of furniture, the plain pine box.
The Season 36 premiere shows how to make a chair similar to the one portrayed in Vincent Van Gogh's masterpiece.
Roy shows how to create easy-to-make wooden gift boxes with mitered corners and lids that slide in grooves.
Master of Pilgrim-century furniture Peter Follansbee joins Roy to make a slope-lidded, carved box from carved white and red oak.
Figures from history including Benjamin Franklin and Muhammad Ali inspire Roy’s new line of waving arm wooden whirlygigs.
Roy and workbench builder Will Myers test out the strength of the classic wedged mortise and tenon joint for take-apart furniture.
Woodworker Peter Follansbee shows Roy Underhill how to make Swedish shrink boxes from hollowed wood with inserted bottoms.
The great poet-athlete Muhammad Ali inspires the best lessons in woodworking – Saw Like a Butterfly, Plane Like a Bee!
Chair-maker Elia Bizzarri shows Roy how to make a split oak firewood carrier inspired by the classic wooden harvest rake.
Roy Underhill makes a double, swinging casement window using wooden planes and premium pine.
Master blacksmith Peter Ross shows how to forge hinges and latches for a replica tool chest.
Roy shows how to dovetail a stout, sloped top tool chest that came from Bristol, England in 1900.
Christopher Schwarz joins Roy to unlock the secrets of the ancient Roman woodworker’s bench.
How a plank with inserted legs can become a chair, table or bench.
