Presentations
I offer lectures for museums, universities, trade schools, and clubs that can be fit into a two-hour, one-day, or an evening lecture followed by a two-day demonstration. Please contact us for more specific information.
Click here to see recent class pictures
- Marquetry – Historical Pieces to the Present Day
- Decorative Veneering for cabinet shops
- Intuitive Furniture Design
- Wood as Material used in Society
- The Business Side of Woodworking
- Drawing for Blueprints
- Curves in Furniture
- Joinery- Where to use What
- Sharpening Hand tools
Sample – Two-hour Lecture
Sharpening Hand Tools: Getting the most out of your hand tools. Learn how to maintain, store, use, and sharpen your chisels, hand planes, and knives to a razor edge. Create the perfectly honed tool that will make the hair leap off your arm trying to avoid the sharp edge!
Curves in furniture: Have you ever wanted to create a flowing arc component or curved doors to use in your furniture designs? Learn how to draw and create curved components from hand shaping, curved laminating, vacuum forming, or routing from templates. Working with curves can add a new dimension to any project, and we will cover the different ways in which to create the perfect curve.
Sample – One-day Demonstration
Decorative Veneering for Cabinet Shops: This class is geared for the small to mid-size shops that make kitchen cabinets, limited production runs of entertainment centers, bedroom furniture, vehicle components, and small accessory-type furniture that are interested in exploring the possibility of incorporating veneer into their products. Having the knowledge and the capability of veneering can yield projects that will be higher-end, and more diversified from what the shop currently does. Veneering offers the chance to take the business into a new area of woodwork that can be profitable. Participants will learn the fundamentals of veneering including purchasing, flattening, storing and handling, and basic cutting. Everyone will see how creating basic matches and adding borderwork can greatly enhance a veneered project. Design theory, principles for clean-cut joints, assembling techniques, sub-straight and adhesive selection, radial and book matching production techniques, and using finishes appropriate for veneer. We will also cover the use of various hand and machine tools for veneering and gluing flat panels and curved work.
Joinery – Where to use what: Joinery is one of the most basic and timeless foundations of furniture making, playing an important role in the strength and aesthetics in a piece of furniture. Deciding which one to use can be a confusing task, from understanding the basics to planning out the more elaborate joints used in woodwork. Dominos, biscuits, dovetails, mortise and tenon to nails, and achieving great results using hand tools, or jigs with common power tools. In this class, chips and dust will fly!
Evening Lecture with Two-day Demonstration
Marquetry – Historical Pieces to the Present Day: This slide presentation is a comprehensive view into the world of veneering, inlay, and marquetry, from historical techniques to the modern-day creation of marquetry, describing the practical application of materials and techniques that can be done with a minimum of tooling while yielding fast and professional results. The following two-day workshop will start by designing original artwork for a small project, the patterns to be used to cut out the veneers, sand-shaded, assembled, glued up, and finished by the end of the second day. There are many different styles and techniques for creating wood marquetry, and the combination of packet, contour, and knifing techniques will demonstrate and illuminate how simple this process can be. There will be some hands-on for everyone contributing to this class project.
Three-Day Workshops
Please inquire to receive syllabus for the following classes.
- Beginning Veneering and Marquetry
- Woodworking for the Teacher
- Jewelry Box
- The Chess and Backgammon Board
- 20” round Marquetry Serving Tray
- Practical Furniture Design
- Hand Planes and Hand Tools
- Joinery- Dovetails and Beyond
- Making Curves in Furniture
- Vacuum forming, pressing, and laminating
Jewelry Box with Veneer Class taught by Paul Schürch
Three-Day Jewelry Box Class (Four-day with a decoratively veneered lid)
This class is an instructional hands-on three-day workshop and one evening lecture that covers the fundamentals of making a 8″ x 14″ x 4″ solid wood jewelry box with a decoratively veneered top. Paul will cover many of the design aspects and challenges of combining solid wood with veneer and each student should be able to complete a wooden box with a veneer, parquetry, or veneer pattern on the top lid. The first day will be dedicated to finalizing the box design, selecting veneers and hardwoods, and creating the decorative veneer work using a variety of hand and machine tools. The class will progress onto the pattern assembly and gluing up the veneer panel, after which the solid wood will be selected and milled until joint work is done. The second day will be dedicated to sanding and finishing the veneer work, constructing the lid that will house the panel, fitting and sanding the box components, gluing the box together, assembling it all, and finishing it, by the end of the third day. The class is relatively fast-paced and each student should have some basic table saw and joiner experience to complete this project.
This should be an exciting and informative class and will be full of tips, techniques, and ideas that you can take home with you and apply to later projects.
The supplied kit for this class contains: Shop note handouts, MDF veneer core, box bottom plywood, Veneer pattern sketch and casework blueprints, screws, two practice veneer sheets, two paper chipboards, veneer gum tape, plastic bag, 2x) and a bushing canvas for glue-up.
Class is normally 9 am-5 pm with a 2-hour slide lecture the evening before or after the first day of class.
Five Day Workshops
Basic Decorative Veneering Five-Day Classes
My goal for the ‘Decorative Veneering’ class is to present projects that will show each student what is possible in the art of veneering and inlay. This will be a class devoted to lectures and demonstrations with hands-on experience for each student. Each student will learn basic veneering up to advanced inlay and border work techniques depending on individual skill and experience. I would encourage students to bring designs of their furniture projects for constructive critique. This week will be quite intense with the amount of information that will be covered and the curriculum that I wish to complete. I will be showing my own drawings to cover design in more detail, and if there is time and interest, I will cover the process of advanced production marquetry, stone, metal, and wood inlay. Each student will take home two completed projects and contribute to a larger group project using marquetry skills that everyone has learned during the week.
Syllabus for Basic Decorative Veneering
Day 1:
Talk: Introduction and history of Veneer and tools used. Furniture design using veneers, purchasing, flattening, storing and handling.
Demonstration and project: Handling, flattening, rough cutting, and basic joining techniques using the veneer saw, shooting board with 07 handplane, and knifing techniques.
Day 2:
Talk: Patterns of the background veneer. (Bookmatching, Slip, Diamond, Starburst, etc..) Effective use of veneers and burls to achieve maximum results.
Demonstration and project: Starburst, 4-way match, masking tape, and gum taping. Guidance on individual projects if applicable. Slide show of techniques in progress used in burl joining and patching, 16-piece radial match background, strip inlay, and borderwork. Portfolio slide show of furniture.
Day 3:
Talk: Drafting and design. Wood movement and veneerwork. Creating borderwork and inlay strips. Edging and core materials. Scissors, Knife, and scroll saw cutting for borderwork. Student drawing, design critique, and troubleshooting.
Demonstration and project: Finish creating a veneer background with inlay strip and border work. Create a sample of advanced borderwork.
Day 4:
Talk: Core construction, edging, glues, curved work, odd shapes, single-ply vs. three-ply veneer, backing veneers, and vacuum bags. Filling, sanding, and finishing with oils, lacquer, and French polish.
Demonstration and project: Glue up of edging around core then veneer onto core. Create curved form and glue up a curved core.
Day 5:
Talk: Advanced veneering, parquetry and marquetry. Slide show of packet cutting, contour cutting, knife work, inlay, and antique marquetry repair.
Demonstration and project: Glue sample onto curved core, Freehand knife, scroll saw and inlay techniques. Finish individual projects.
Specialty Workshops
Specialty Workshops and Skill-Building Classes
These are hands-on classes of different topics, ranging from Furniture Making, Marquetry with Stone to Project Oriented classes, designed to advance woodworkers to the next skill level of fine craft. They range between five and ten days, depending upon the subject matter, student skill level, and classroom setup. Please contact us to customize a class to suit your club’s needs.
- Design and Build a Game Table
- Building the Veneered Cabinet
- Build a Jewelry Box with Marquetry
- Practical Furniture Design – Concept, Mock-up to Blueprints
- Traditional Woodworking Techniques
- Stone Marquetry – Pietra Dure
Please contact us for further information:
Paul Schürch
PO Box 26, Laupahoehoe, HI 96764
click here to email Schürch Woodwork
Practical Furniture Design
This class is about learning the process of designing and teaching design that can be original, establishing a clear approach so mistakes are minimized, fulfilling a project goal, and establishes a foundation in practical furniture design for woodworkers. For those who are creating complex furniture, teaching design, or just starting out, it should give valuable and fresh insight into the design process and how to envision and create a shop drawing that is essential to a smooth building process.
The concepts of the craft, drafting, mock-ups, structural planning, and general design theory will be covered in this class. These are all important steps that will assist you in creating any type of project and will allow you to take the next step in creating original pieces of furniture.
There will be an 8-page handout supplied to attendees and there will be a 70-page book on Practical ‘Furniture Design by Paul Schürch’ includes basic drawing tools of a mechanical pencil, Erasing shield, and a 6″ / 15 cm metal rule.
Designing and Building Veneered Furniture
This 6-day seminar is an opportunity to learn the process of designing and building a piece of veneered furniture. This class will go through the process of how one can design and build a project that shows off the beauty of different woods and veneer matches. The class will start off on Monday with designing and drawing a small table on paper and making a mockup, and the following 5 days will be dedicated to building, veneering the tabletop, and shaping the legs. Time permitting, a finish could be applied and students will have a completed table that is ready for display. Different veneer patterns will be explored, including book and radial matches, piping and inlay, working veneer into solid wood, marquetry, edge banding, and learning the shortcuts that can make a veneered piece of furniture a successful one. Be prepared for a lively week and come to explore the next level of furniture making.
Mentoring Programs
Have you ever wanted a faster way to get the experience you need to do great work? Mentoring is ‘one on one’ instruction, a step above the group seminar, since such a program is tailored to your project, needs, and skill level.
The concept of a Mentoring or Fellowship program is one that usually occurs between a master in his shop and a student or client who has his/her own workshop, and is planning to undertake a project above their current perceived skill level. A project can be in the initial design phase or currently being worked on the bench, complicated or simple. This is when a mentoring relationship can begin. These are people wishing to have direct access to a broad base of focused practical skills and knowledge, receiving direct assistance moving to the next level of creating art, furniture making, or simply creating beautiful things with one’s own hands and heart.
As we move into the age of technology there is now the opportunity to instruct and teach hand skills in ways inconceivable just a few years ago. This ‘Online mentoring’ can go beyond the basics of designing a project, and through phone calls, e-mails, sending pictures, and the now with Skype or Hangout on Air, much can be accomplished. The use of live interactive visual feeds and auto-focusing cameras makes it possible to transfer knowledge and certain hand skills, straight to your own shop from a teacher located far away.
With this in mind, there will never be a true replacement for meeting face to-face, working together, hand on hand guidance for developing specific handwork techniques. This ‘Shop mentoring’ still remains a strong part of this program, and can be between 1 hour and 1 month long, depending upon your needs, the project, and your individual situation.
Online, Skype, and Phone Consultations
For those wanting only a bit of my time, maybe for solving a particular problem, a material-related question, some work or jig building process, or have other questions about furniture, adhesive, or design issues, e-mail me with your available times you could talk (click here to email Schürch Woodwork) and we will set up a 15 min block of time where we would connect for a one-on-one session. My time will be billed out at $150 p/hr. plus travel costs, if any.
Mentorship Syllabus:
- You would send either sketches, sample pictures of past work and information on the planned project and I would evaluate it based on your experience level, the number of pieces needing to be constructed (production or one-of-a-kind) and the overall size and finishing of the project.
- We would need to discuss the time required to complete the project, the amount of my involvement that would be necessary, any limitations or restrictions (shop space, time, etc…), and what our expectations are of each other. I believe if we are all as fully informed as possible, We can estimate the total cost, and mitigate any problems before they arise.
- We create a wish list of techniques or processes to master, in order to complete such a project, and develop a stylized program that exactly fits your needs.
- We would plan dates for a Shop mentoring meeting, either online, at my shop or at yours.
- The client begins the concept sketch, cartoon or mechanical drawing process at home, and confers with me at scheduled ‘Online mentoring’ times to discuss progress and options.
- After the design is far enough along, work begins by you, or collaboratively in my shop
- I offer continuing online support to help see this project through if required.
My goal is to help make your ideas and dreams a reality, and the opportunity to pass on some of my skills and experience in a relaxed, focused, and efficient manner. I hope this has been informative on how modern-day mentoring can happen, and I will look forward to your e-mail:
