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Hand Planing with Precision  

featuring Bob Van Dyke


Your hand-planes can do a lot more than smooth a board.


Full Course Content Will Be Released 9/10/26
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About The Course

Most woodworkers reach for a hand plane when it's time to clean up a surface — and then put it away. Bob Van Dyke uses his throughout builds as a precision tool for solving the exact problems that show up on real projects. A door that binds. A miter with a hairline gap. A panel glue-up that won't sit flat. A tenon that's just a hair too proud.

In this course, Bob shows how a single hand tool can fix problems that most people solve by reaching for sandpaper, a router, or a table saw. You'll learn to see a joinery error and correct it with a few confident, controlled strokes.

What You'll Learn

  • How to square a leg blank and true-up stock for dead-accurate joinery
  • How to plane a glue-line edge joint to ensure a flat panel, including when and how to build in a spring joint for lasting clamp pressure
  • How to fit a door and drawer face for a clean, consistent reveal, then tune a full drawer box for smooth action
  • How to true-up and adjust frame and case miters, closing gaps without starting over
  • How to pare a tenon to a snug, glue-line fit and correct minor mortise-and-tenon errors
  • How to shape a clean roundover and bullnose by hand for consistent detailing

Bob uses his trusty Stanley #4 for most of the work in this course. There are guest appearances by a #3, a block plane, a scrub plane, and a shoulder plane, but this course focuses on getting the most out of a single hand plane.

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MEET YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Bob Van Dyke

Bob Van Dyke has been a woodworker for most of his life and has been teaching the craft for more than 25 years. A contributing editor to Fine Woodworking, he has written dozens of articles and appears in some of the most popular videos on FineWoodworking.com. Bob owns and runs the Connecticut Valley School of Woodworking, where his hands-on teaching approach is centered around building student mastery of hand tools, power tools, and machines. Outside of woodworking, Bob’s favorite pastime is hanging out with his four grandsons.

 

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