Designing a Third Level Woodworking Course!

Great news for JD Lohr School of Woodworking alumni: We are working hard on designing a brand new, third level advanced woodworking course!

By popular demand, we have started the plans, design, and prototypes for the wall cabinet that will be the project for students who return to the shop for a third level course. This project will step up the skill and technique levels from the Advanced Joinery course. In it's roughest planning stages, we know the course will include but not be limited to veneering, frame and panel construction, door making, and a different style of drawer construction.

This third level course will be open only to the alumni of our Advanced Joinery course so, if you haven't taken our first or second level course yet, don't miss the opportunity. Practical Woodworking, our introduction course, is perfect for all skill and experience levels to learn safe and practical methods for woodworking via building a red oak hall table. Advanced Joinery kicks things up a few notches as students get their hands dirty with dovetail joinery, floating shelf construction, Greene & Greene style breadboard ends, and drawer construction. And now, we are excited to challenge students even more with a whole new set of skills built into a new class!

We hope to have the new course organized and prepared to launch before the end of this year but, I will keep you updated on that news as it unfolds. We are excited and hope our alumni are too! Keep your eye out for more updates on this class as we perfect the design and curriculum.

Practical Woodworking & Rob's Evergrowing Stardome

The new year was kicked off with the 'weekend warrior' edition of our Practical Woodworking course! What better way to start 2014 than with a group of wonderful woodworking students sharing the shop with us for two long weekends?

Keith, Brad, Esther, Cait, Carol, Bob, Dave, and Steve, Steve, and Steve were a perfect crew to host. Each student was eager to learn and successfully created their own unique red oak hall table. As usual, it was 6 days filled with practical woodworking skills, safety, tools, machines, joinery, jigs, and technique. Most of these students were virtual beginners to the craft and they all did a beautiful job.

We want to congratulate the first Practical Woodworking graduates of 2014 and thank them for, not only being pleasant company, but having an unwavering interest and dedication to learning and practicing the skills. Any and all of the ten of you are welcome back to the shop any time! We wish you the best of luck in all your future woodworking endeavors. These alumni, along with all others, are welcome and encouraged to send along any photos of future projects for us to share on our Alumni Furniture Gallery!

And, Rob has proven himself worthy of fame yet again. Not only was he featured in Woodcraft Magazine TWICE in the past few months but, now he is an alumni face of Northamton Community College on billboards around the Lehigh Valley area! Rocking plaid (as usual) and armed with a caliper, he is advertised as a notable NCC Grad with the title of Furniture Craftsman. If you are in or around the Lehigh Valley area, keep your eyes out for our superstar Lohr Woodworking team member.

The Affordable Healthcare Act helps JD Lohr Woodworking!

While we've all heard various media complaints about the Affordable Care Act, all of us here at JD Lohr Woodworking can say is that the new law and the ability to enroll sure was fantastic for us. As a company benefit, we were offered enrollment with a leading health care provider. Better yet, we even had plan options!

We all are relieved to finally be able to have respectable "real" health insurance provided by the company. Boss man Jeff is ecstatic as he was previously unable to get health insurance due to the earlier pre-existing conditions clause insurance companies were able to use to cherry pick who they insured. In the end, January 1, 2014 was a big day for employees of JD Lohr Woodworking as we rang in the new year by finally getting respectable health insurance. It's comforting to know that as a small, hard-working business, we can all rely on staying healthy to keep the eager woodworking students educated and the one-of-a-kind furniture being made! We still, however, committed to keeping our fingers.

Practical Woodworking & Gift Certificates!

A short entry for your Saturday evening:

A huge congratulations to Nancy, the Steves, the Matts, Brian, John, Jim, Mehmet (who came to us all the way from Istanbul), and Gary for being the newest Practical Woodworking graduates! After a week of seemingly overwhelming amounts of information and even more hard work, we have ten students (each still with 10 fingers) who should be nothing short of extremely proud of, and confident in, their woodworking skills. They started the week having their brains filled with wood theory and characteristics and, just a few days later, they have filled the shop with 10 beautiful red oak tables that will stand the test of time. We are lucky to have had the chance to spend the week with these wonderful people and we are hopeful they go on to create (and share) all the wooden masterpieces they can dream up!

In other news, we are happy to introduce JD Lohr School of Woodworking gift certificates in time for the holiday season! Are you a woodworker who has been taught by youtube videos and trial and error? Are you the spouse, parent, sibling, or friend of a woodworker that you are fairly certain runs the risk of losing fingers or limbs every time they head out to the shop? Practical Woodworking is a course built for these folks! What better gift that to give them the gift of a week on a farm learning practical, safe, and repeatable woodworking techniques and practices from a master?

Zero-experience through advanced woodworkers are welcome and encouraged to enroll. Students of all skill levels will walk away from the course with a guaranteed wealth of new information.

Please feel free to learn more about the gift certificates in our online school store!


Until next week, ladies and gentlemen. Check back for an update in the near future about the happenings of the Bigleaf Maple live edge coffee table as we start finishing the top and begin design/construction of it's base! Exciting!