Every Sunday between 1pm and 3pm you can take a free guided tour of BARN. Visit all 10 studios, and find out what you can create at BARN.
We’ll answer all your questions and show you examples of what other makers have made in BARN's fully-equipped workspaces. Tours are free, no need to register. See you on Sunday!
If this posting looks familiar, it's because it is a continuation of the Tiny House community service project we began in June. Rainy weather delayed the work, so we need three more days to complete the project.
BARN is building a Tiny House in partnership with the Low-Income Housing Institute in Seattle. LIHI, a non-profit organization that is one of the largest providers of tiny houses in the nation, is providing plans and materials; BARN is providing the volunteer labor. The completed structure will go to one of the Tiny House Villages that LIHI is organizing to provide warm, secure shelter to homeless people in Puget Sound communities.
This will be the second Tiny House built by BARN volunteers. The picture shows the first house soon after it was installed at the Friendship Heights Village, located at 12245 Aurora Ave N in Seattle. The village has 40 tiny houses that serve approximately 55 formerly homeless people.
As with the 2021 house, the one being built this year will be insulated and dry, but it won't have a kitchen or bathroom. Each village provides shared dining and bathing facilities.
BARN members with experience in residential construction will supervise the work of up to five other volunteers each day. Volunteers of all skill levels are welcome to participate. Besides helping people who need housing, volunteers will also learn how to build a small building using a variety of tools
Details:
Most work will be done outdoors, so please dress appropriately. You must wear safety glasses and closed-toe shoes, tie back long hair, and avoid loose-fitting clothing and jewelry. We recommend bringing your own safety glasses.
Project leader: David Grant. If you have questions, please email him at David.Grant@bainbridgebarn.org
Participants will also learn about the leadership structure within the shop and about opportunities to participate in helping everything run smoothly. Volunteer jobs range from serving as safety monitors to helping on Maintenance Mondays.
Instructor: Jeff Williams
To use the shop, you will also need to attend our free one-hour Orientation to the Woodshop class.
Woodshop Tool Safety 1 will qualify you to use the following tools during Open Studio time and in classes that require certification in these tools:
Please click here for BARN's current COVID-19 health & safety protocols.
Wear safety glasses and closed-toe shoes, tie back long hair, and avoid loose-fitting clothing and jewelry. We recommend bringing your own safety glasses.
BARN is committed to accessibility. For those who might need physical assistance, please learn about BARN's Companion Program here.
Build a skateboard and give it a custom finish in this class, which is open to youth ages 12 and older as well as to adults who may want to make a skateboard as a gift or you can work as a team with a youth and build one together.
The class includes an introduction to modern manufacturing; you will see how a CNC router cut the form needed to shape the curves on a skateboard deck.
Starting with sheets of 3mm birch plywood, you will cut the layers of your skateboard, assemble and glue them to bend against the mold, and press the deck layers together using BARN’s vacuum bagging system. You will cut the final shape and prepare your board for finishing. Through these steps, you will use a variety of woodworking tools, including a band saw, power drill, sanders, and vacuum press.
On the final day of the first week, a representative of Norse City Board Room, a skateboard shop in Poulsbo, will explain the other components needed to complete your board, including trucks, wheels, bearings, and grip tape. You will then have the weekend and the beginning of the following week to purchase those components. NOTE: To allow individual choice, these items are not included in the materials fee. You will need to purchase them, at a cost of around $100-$200, before the final session. Safety gear, if you don't already have it, might cost around $75. Some safety gear is available thanks to a donation from Norse City Board Room; email anyt@bainbridgebarn.org to inquire.
When the class regroups on Wednesday, July 20th of the second week, you can apply creative images to your skateboard. You will go home with enough waterproof polyurethane to apply multiple coats to your board. The brush-on, oil-based finish requires 24 hours of dry time between coats so it is not practical to do it during class.
At the final session, you will add the hardware and go home with a completed board.
Instructors: Ben Dykstra with Carol Fiedler Kawaguchi, Doug Salot, and Mike and Billee Gearheard. Ben has been a woodworker for almost 30 years and has expertise in custom furniture and high-end kitchen cabinetry. He has worked with youth for more than 10 years and currently teaches middle school woodshop and high school technical drawing and CAD. Doug heads BARN's Electronic & Technical Arts Studio and has several skateboards of his own. Carol is a professional woodworker who specializes in furniture restoration and refinishing. She is on the Woodworking Studio's steering committee and teaches finishing classes, and others, at BARN. Mike, who heads the Woodworking Studio, and his wife, Billee, recently made five skateboards for their grandsons.
Instructor: TBD
Learn the fundamentals of making beautiful wooden pens as you also learn the safe use of a lathe to make small wooden objects using carbide turning tools.
The instructor will discuss the basic concepts of turning, using the modern pen as a model. You will use the drill press to prepare your turning blanks. Then, depending on the experience level of students in the class, the instructor will work out a schedule so that each student gets sufficient lathe time and one-on-one attention to complete a pen.
BARN is committed to accessibility. Tuition Assistance is available - click here to fill out the simple application before registering for a class. For those who might need physical assistance, please learn about BARN's Companion Program here.
This class has a prerequisite. Please see below.
Learn how to use hand tools skillfully in this four-week component of BARN's Beginning Woodworking series.
You will build a two-compartment tote, handy for storing or carrying silverware, garden tools, or other items. The project was specifically designed to give you experience with the most common hand tools. You will learn to use:
All students must wear a mask to this class.
Instructor: Tom Leurquin is a BARN member who specializes in projects involving hand tools. He made a curly maple coffee table that was on display at BARN in the spring.
Registration on this page is for the workshop being held at BARN. The simultaneous online Zoom version can be found here.
Nothing is as important to a professional artist's or designer's career as a carefully created portfolio. Yet very few people have one that they're proud to show. Something always seems to get in the way of sitting down and figuring out just how you want to define your work, what you want to focus on, and whom you want to attract with a curated group of pieces you've made. Whether you're blowing the dust off your old portfolio, or creating a new one from scratch, this class takes you through the process of creating a strong portfolio step-by-step, identifying concrete objectives, finding holes that need to be filled, and providing encouragement and review along the way.
High schoolers applying to college, people applying to grad school, recent grads about to start the job search, people applying for a job in a design field or in academia, or artists who want to get their work into viewable order either physically or online--all need up-to-date portfolios-- and all are welcome.
Instructor Bio - Natalia Ilyin:
Professor of Design, Design History, and Criticism at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Natalia also teaches studio classes in brand and identity design, design for social activism, and transition design. Natalia is also Founding Faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts, advising design grad students on critical and contextual studies. She has taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Yale University, The Cooper Union, and the University of Washington, and has acted as Critic for the MFA in Graphic Design at Yale University and Rhode Island School of Design.
A former National Director of Programs for the AIGA in New York, she has given talks and workshops at Microsoft, Boeing, Rhode Island School of Design, Maine College of Art, California College of Art, Art Center College of Design's Toyota lecture series, the Wolfsonian Museum, The Henry Art Gallery, and many other very nice places. She has published four books on design criticism and many articles in a wide variety of publications. She worries that people often don't present their work in ways that will support their visions for themselves.
BARN is committed to accessibility. Tuition Assistance is available - click here to fill out the simple application before registering for a class.
Get started on your woodturning adventure with this three-session beginner's class, where you will learn safety, tool control, and how to create the basic shapes involved in spindle and bowl turning. A small project will be started and completed as time permits.
By successfully completing this class, you will be cleared to use the wood lathes for spindle turning during Open Studio. While you will also be eligible to take a bowl-turning class, it is strongly suggested that you spend time turning in Open Studio a few times before you enroll in a bowl class.
In Session 1, you will learn about woodturning safety, bevel contact, and gouge technique focusing on good body mechanics - all important to building a foundation to launch your turning skills. You will use the roughing gouge during most of the class, followed by an introduction to the regular (“fingernail”) spindle gouge. Tools you will use: spindle roughing gouge and fingernail spindle gouge.
In Session 2, you will review the earlier lesson, and then focus on the spindle gouge and parting tool, learning new mechanics for turning beads and coves. Toward the end of class, you will learn how a scroll chuck and tenon work in preparation for Session 3.
In Session 3, you will increase the precision of your turning technique by making a small project such as a honey dipper, finial, spinning top, or goblet, with your own design elements. You will use a scroll chuck, a Jacobs chuck and Forstner bit.
You must wear safety glasses and closed-toe shoes, tie back long hair, and avoid loose-fitting clothing and jewelry. We recommend bringing your own safety glasses.
Instructor: Jamie Straw has been turning wood for several years, working on both spindle and bowl projects, and has taught woodturning at BARN since July 2017. She also serves as coordinator of BARN’s woodturning classes. She is past Vice President for Education and Training for the local chapter of the American Association of Woodturners. Her focus is on helping students build skills progressively as they design and create their woodturning projects.
Assemble a classic Fender-style electric guitar, give it your own custom finish, and string it up so it's ready to play — and to display on a wooden stand you will make in this class.
You will begin by learning about the components of an electric guitar and how modern electric guitars are made using computer-aided design and manufacturing tools. A finishing expert will explain various approaches that you can use on your guitar, and a woodworking instructor will help you design and build the stand.
To ensure you go home with a working guitar, you will start with a precision-cut body, pre-cut neck and headstock, and solderless electronics. You will need to do final sanding on the parts, decide on the finish you want, and create any special effects, such as a decal if you want to add a custom logo to the headstock. You will have a variety of paints and stains to choose from. The final finish will be a clear, glossy, oil-based coating that you can rub to get a satin finish if you wish.
To learn more about getting the best sound from your guitar, you may also want to sign up for Electric Guitars: Level-up Your Game, Monday through Thursday, August 1-4. Click here to read more and register.
Instructors: Doug Salot, Carol Fiedler Kawaguchi and Ben Dykstra. Doug, who heads BARN's Electronic & Technical Arts Studio, started playing the guitar more than 10 years ago and occasionally tries to distract himself by building guitars and ukuleles. He studied instrument building with local luthier Alan Simcoe. Carol is a professional woodworker who specializes in furniture restoration and refinishing. She is on the Woodworking Studio's steering committee and teaches finishing classes, and others, at BARN. Ben has been a woodworker for almost 30 years and has expertise in custom furniture and high-end kitchen cabinetry. He has worked with youth for more than 10 years and currently teaches middle school wood shop and high school technical drawing and CAD.
* This class has prerequisites. Please see below.
If you have a work of art that you’ve been wanting to frame, this class is for you. At the first session, in the Woodworking Studio, you will learn to design, cut and assemble a frame 11 by 14 inches. At the second session, in the Woodworking Studio, professional framers will show you how to properly mat a picture to fit that frame, and how to put all the pieces together in expert fashion.
Bring a picture or drawing you want to frame. It can be any size that will fit in an 11x14 frame. (Small pictures look great in a big mat and frame!) The goal of this class is to enable you to return to the BARN Woodworking and Print & Book Studios to frame additional artwork.
This class has prerequisites. Please see below.
Use the VCarve Pro software program to design and cut an inlay on the Woodworking Studio's CNC router. Each student will attend two sessions. For the first session, the class will meet in the Electronics & Technical Arts lab to review VCarve Pro, review/finalize design of inlay, and set up the CNC project.
The second session will be in the Woodworking Studio. Students will cut the materials (walnut and maple), and glue them up. The instructor will then show students how to cut off the excess inlay material and sand the inlays using a sample cut so students can do the same to their project at their leisure after the glue has dried.
Instructor: Al Ebken is a retired ocean engineer with many years of computer and computer-aided design experience. (In the picture, he's using the Woodworking Studio's CNC router to make parts for face shields to protect against coronavirus infection. Using VCarve Pro, he also made the hummingbird inlay shown in the top picture.)
Instructor: Mike Morgan
Do you dream of earning money as an artist? Make that dream a reality by learning how to market your artwork to reach a bigger audience! No matter what your medium is, you can use tips and tricks from the marketing trade to make your art shine on a bigger stage. From jewelry-makers to woodworkers, illustrators and digital artists, textile crafters, and mixed media creators, you can sell your craft by getting in front of the right people — with the right price and the right message!
In this four-session class, you’ll learn:
Note: This class is tailored to students 12-18 who have an established art or craft they feel confident about. Participants should bring their own tablet or smartphone and will be required to download a subscription-based design software called Canva (which has a limited free version available). Participants will also be asked to use existing social media and email accounts to promote their materials, though this is optional if they don’t have them or don’t want to use them for promotional purposes. Finally, they will also be creating an Etsy account, which will require a credit card in order to go live (this is part of their class homework).
Instructor Bio:
Carrie Bancroft is a magical marketer, event creator, mother of an aspiring artist, and writer. When she's not running creativity workshops and insanely awesome events, she can be found helping others live the life of their dreams, exploring tidal pools with her son, hanging out with horses and cats, or adventuring in the wilds of the Olympic Peninsula.
Bring your imagination and make one or more games or pieces of game gear from wood. Options include rackets for ping pong or pickleball, a pair of regulation-size cornhole boards, a toss game, or a pegboard or pocket game that you design yourself.
The instructor will have project ideas, or you can develop your own project, subject to the instructor's assessment that it is one you are likely to complete during the four days of this class. A supply of solid wood and plywood will be in the shop for your use. If your project requires special hardware, you will need to buy that on your own. The class will include safety training on the tools needed to build your project. By the end of the class, you should have one or more projects to take home and put to good use. Summer is partly for play, after all.
Instructor: Ben Dykstra. Ben has been a woodworker for almost 30 years and has expertise in custom furniture and high-end kitchen cabinetry. He has worked with youth for more than 10 years and currently teaches middle school woodshop and high school technical drawing and CAD.
You will make the box from maple and walnut. With the lid, the box will be 5¼ inches long, 4 inches wide and up to 3 inches high. At the end of class, your box will be ready for sanding and finishing.
Instructor Bio: Doug Salot has adopted Fusion 360 as a lifestyle. He has used it to design signs, cabinets, and replacement parts for various broken things. You'll often find him in ETA using the laser cutter or in the woodshop carving things on BARN's CNC router.
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Learn the fundamentals of making beautiful wooden pens as you also learn safe use of a lathe to make small wooden objects using carbide turning tools.
Bring your imagination and make one or more games or pieces of game gear from wood. Options include rackets for ping pong or pickleball, a toss game, or a pegboard or pocket game that you design yourself.
To turn wood effectively and enjoyably, you need sharp tools that have quality profiles. Learn to sharpen the tools you need to turn spindles, bowls and other projects on the wood lathe.
In this class, you will learn to sharpen gouges according to BARN protocol and gain an understanding of how to sharpen other tools (e.g., skews, parting tools, scrapers). If you would like advice on your own tools, you are welcome to bring them.
This class is strongly recommended for students who have completed Intro to Woodturning or are enrolled in Intro to Bowl Turning. The class is required for any turners who wish to use BARN turning tools on an ongoing basis.
Learn the basic features of VCarve Pro, a popular program used to make signs, engravings, intricate inlays and imported 3D shapes and models on computer-controlled routers. VCarve Pro is easier to learn than Fusion 360, the other 3D design program taught at BARN, and can be used for projects on both the large CNC router in the Woodworking Studio and the small CNC router in the ETA Lab.
Session 1 will be in the ETA studio where you will use the VCarve Pro software to design an 8x16" sign. You will prototype your design on ETA's laser cutter then in session 2, you will meet down in the wood shop to carve it on the CNC router.
Please note: To take this class, you need a laptop computer with a mouse and a working copy of VCarve Pro 11 already downloaded to that computer. Download a free trial at www.vectric.com. The software requires a PC or a MAC that has Windows installed. There is no time during the class to download the program. If you have questions or run into problems downloading the program, please email the instructor for help. If you don't have a laptop you can bring to the class, you may use an ETA studio desktop computer with the required software already loaded.
Instructor: Al Ebken is a retired ocean engineer with many years of computer and computer-aided design experience. (In the picture, he's using the Woodworking Studio's CNC router to make parts for face shields to protect against coronavirus infection.
Volunteer to help fix and refurbish used wooden furniture in collaboration with Zero Waste Washington, which will give the items to refugee families and others in need.
The goal is to fix 30 pieces of furniture in two days. The primary tasks will be tightening wooden joints, sanding, and final finishing. Volunteers may also need to do minor repairs, but no upholstery work. Zero Waste Washington has arranged for that to be done by students at Clover Technical College in Tacoma.
Zero Waste Washington, which is dedicated to driving policy change for a healthy and waste-free world, received a two-year grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology to keep imperfect furniture out of landfills, refurbish it, and get it to refugee families across the state, including in Kitsap County. You can read more about the project's Fix-It Events here. The Fix-It Event is a homecoming of sorts for BARN's community service program: Founders of the woodworkers' group that existed pre-BARN helped some elderly people move and thought it was silly to move their broken furniture without repairing it. That seed grew into the woodworkers' community service program and later BARN's.
