February 2022 Class - Wooden Cutting Board in Waukesha

I found this place online, and they have several classes. This particular class seemed like a good one as my first woodworking class. I asked some of my siblings if they wanted to try it, and both Janet and Jackie joined.

The class was at Fisk Avenue in Waukesha. They have several different classes – some that result in some rather substantial furniture. When we got there, I ran into an acquaintance who was just picking up the king size headboard that he had made! It was pretty cool.

The space has a workspace upstairs where we got started, and our instructor led us through picking out the wood pieces and gluing them together. It felt a bit rushed, and I’m not sure why – some of the people had already started when Jackie and I walked in, so I felt like I missed a welcome and instructions. I don’t think there was anything like that, but that would have been nice.

After getting the pieces glued, we had a bit of time to let them dry – maybe that’s why he had people get started right away. We had a bit of time to poke around the venue, and see the other projects that people do there – in addition to some of the owner’s custom pieces.

When everything was dry, we went to the workshop in the basement. There were only 7 people in the class, and that was good, because the owner was the one using the big equipment – so he was stretched pretty thin. Once the pieces were through the planer, each of us used the hand sander to smooth everything out – then to the router, and back to the sander.

Once our pieces were all nice and smooth, we went upstairs to oil them and make them look pretty. There was an option for an extra fee to get some sort of photo burned into the cutting board – but I did not do that. I thought a handwritten recipe might be good, but I liked the clean look better. Once it was oiled, it was done.

I use my cutting board all the time – it was a simple project, and I came home with a cool piece. I am watching the Fisk Avenue website for any other projects to do in the future!

A few of the key take away from the session:

1. This was a super easy project, a lot of the ease was because the instructor had all the boards pre-cut, so that was nice.

2. Wood glue is stronger than I thought.

3. The class kept the heavy equipment use to the instructor – so if I wanted some more of that, a different type of class is probably needed.