Instructors - Craig Stevens

• To be scheduled again in 2025

Our Joinery Basics course is designed to provide a strong foundation in two essential joints, mortise and tenon, and hand-cut dovetails, helping build excellent fundamental woodworking skills. Unlike many of our other Beginner classes which are project-based, this course is process-oriented, focusing on the techniques to build mortise and tenon and dovetail joinery with the proper and safe use of hand tools and woodworking machines. Through demonstrations and hands-on work, participants will learn and practice traditional techniques essential to high-quality woodworking and furniture making.

The mortise and tenon joinery covered in the class is the basic, or blind, mortise and tenon joint. If time permits, we’ll also talk about the wedged, through mortise and tenon joint. We’ll cut the tenons on the table saw and bandsaw. The mortises will be cut with a plunge router.

The dovetail joinery covered is the through dovetail, and we’ll be using Japanese pull saws. We’ll cover the important layout and measuring skills required of both joints and the best hand tools to do so.


Students will practice the sequence of steps to make the mortise and tenon and dovetail joinery and then make small joints as shown in the pictures.

It is recommended that students take our Basic Skills course before taking Joinery Basics.

The course fee includes all materials