About us
Who we are... What we do
The Southwest School of Woodworking is Arizona’s only comprehensive woodworking school. The school was founded in 2013 by a group of professional woodworkers who became concerned about the lack of woodworking education in high schools and technical schools. Our mission is to pass on the craft of woodworking, and we love bringing new woodworkers into the fold.
We modeled the Southwest School of Woodworking on the best contemporary schools around the U.S., as well as taking inspiration from the great European traditions of craft education.
Our goal is to bring the highest level of craft education to our local region, and beyond. The majority of our students come from Arizona and surrounding states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California, but we have also been delighted to welcome visiting students from Texas, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Alaska, Canada, and even New Zealand and Australia!
We offer:
- Hands-on learning
- Fully equipped workshop
- Professional-grade tools and equipment
- Small class sizes, with a maximum of nine students
- Close attention from excellent instructors
- A safe, supportive learning environment
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The heart of our school is our three-part Fundamentals of Traditional Woodworking series, which is designed for beginner or self-taught woodworkers seeking a strong foundation in the tools, methods, and philosophies of our craft.
It focuses on developing hand tool skills and learning to understand the behavior of the wood. Students get hands-on practice in marking out, joinery, assembly, design principles, and more, as they build several small tools and other useful projects.
In Fundamentals II students progress to power tools and learn how to integrate them with hand tools for maximum efficiency. During this class, every student builds a classic bench that incorporates different joinery techniques and allows them to employ their new skills.
Fundamentals III brings together both hand and power tools to give the students a cohesive experience of furniture making. The centerpiece of the class is for each student to work from plans to make a Shaker-style table from solid wood with a dovetailed drawer, mortise-and-tenon aprons, and tapered legs.
Students who complete the full Fundamentals series should have a solid understanding of woodworking principles and will receive a Certificate of Completion to commemorate their achievement.
Outside of our Fundamentals series, we offer a wide range of classes that include everything from short Weekend Workshops to extended Master Classes.
Guest instructors include some of the foremost woodcraft professionals working today, who teach classes in topics including Marquetry, Advanced Veneering, Furniture Design and Construction, Carving, Turning, Finishing, and more.
In addition to skills classes, we offer Project Classes that give students the opportunity to build a more challenging design under the guidance of a professional woodworker.
Our workbench class, for example, features an heirloom style bench with a solid four-inch top that is mortised into the legs, fitted vices, legs with mortised and tenon stretchers, and a tail vise (wagon vise) that incorporates hand-cut condor tails.
The Rocking Chair class allows experienced students to push their skills with features including bent laminations, advanced joinery, complicated fit-ups, and hand-sculpted seat, arms, and rockers.
