A Week at William Ng’s School of Fine Woodworking

My visits to Anaheim to teach at William Ng’s school are always rewarding. It’s a time to make new friendships and renew old ones around a common theme of woodworking and Greene and Greene. The week started with the first commercial run of my new Details II class. I was more than a little delighted to see among the 18 students, several who I already knew from my Details I class. After the trial run at Port Townsend I had a good idea of how the material would flow – but I was a little nervous nonetheless –all went well though and if nothing else the students were polite enough to say they really
enjoyed the class.

Several students from the weekend stayed on for my 6-day Arched Aurora End Table class for a total of eight . Two guys from the Seattle area - Tom and Jim made it to Anaheim for both classes. Their tables will be shipped home in knock–down and will be assembled later in my shop in Seattle.

We were especially thrilled to have Marc Spagnuolo (better known as the Wood Whisperer) in attendance. Marc along with his good friend Brad Ferguson were my star students - always done first and eager for what’s next. Both Marc and Brad are very fine woodworkers and were with us mainly to add some Greene & Greene details to their bag of woodworking tricks. I would like to thank Marc for his blogging of the class on his website – my hits doubled and my book sales soared! And I would like to thank Brad for helping me with some of the slower students in the class. A video of Marc interviewing me will be available for download from thewoodwhisperer.com – stay tuned to Marc’s website for details.

When I found out that Marc and Brad were interested in building John Hall’s walnut mirror frame (1909), I called Gary Hall - Gary graciously brought the frame by for hands on look. This was an incredible treat and a rare close-up look at work by one of the Hall Brothers. You would have thought a rock star was in the room with all the cameras clicking.

All in all it was a very good eight days at William Ng’s. I am home now and still feeling a bit exhausted - but the exhaustion is from doing things I love to do - a good exhaustion indeed!