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13 Episodes 1989 - 1989
Episode 1
Sat, Jan 7, 1989
After a tour of The New Yankee Workshop to preview the collection of furniture he will build in the first season, Norm visits a "retiring room" at the Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts to find a model for a handcrafted medicine cabinet. Drawing inspiration from a looking glass and cabinet, Norm uses durable red oak and oak plywood to construct a medicine chest of his own design featuring box-joint joinery.
Episode 2
Sat, Jan 14, 1989
After a look at a workbench used 100 years ago by the craftsmen at Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts, Norm builds a workbench featuring an oak-edged hardwood top, a bench vice, a recessed tool storage area on top and a shelf beneath.
Episode 3
Sat, Jan 21, 1989
Norm shows how to turn the table legs on a duplicating lathe and reveals a few tricks for making mortise and tenons joints. Using a router and two special bits, he shows how the drop-leaf joint is made.
Episode 4
Sat, Jan 28, 1989
Norm travels to the island of Nantucket off the Massachusetts coast to look at a handmade blanket chest in a sea captain's house dating from 1790. Incorporating elements of this antique in his own design, Norm builds a blanket chest of pine, lined with aromatic cedar panels.
Episode 5
Sat, Feb 4, 1989
Norm constructs a bedside table inspired by one found at the Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts. Norm's design, made from pine, features a shallow drawer, table legs tapered on the inner sides and a table top with a breadboard design (glued boards edged with wood on two ends).
Episode 6
Sat, Feb 11, 1989
Norm builds a bathroom vanity whose design is inspired by a dry sink he found at Fruitlands, a 1790 Shaker house and museum located in Harvard, Massachusetts. The vanity, constructed of oak, features dovetailed joints, a high-pressure laminate top and Shaker-style double doors with a flat panel on the outside and a raised panel on the inside.
Episode 7
Sat, Feb 18, 1989
After a look at a pine trestle table in a Shaker house on the island of Nantucket off the Massachusetts coast, Norm constructs his own easily-disassembled trestle table of cherry, a hardwood which, if kiln-dried, resists twisting or shrinking over time. Norm shows how to glue up the boards that comprise the expansive table top and demonstrates how to make the two trestles and the stretcher which connects them.
Episode 8
Sat, Feb 25, 1989
A visit to the "Stone Bank" at Old Sturbridge Village inspires Norm to build a freestanding bookcase with a cornice detail at the top, adjustable shelves and a removable base made of pine. Norm makes his bookcase from birch plywood, which is more stable than solid wood and offers a smooth surface for painting.
Episode 9
Sat, Mar 4, 1989
Norm demonstrates how to build a chest of drawers using Ponderosa pine. He cuts and planes the wood, glues the boards fro the top and sides. He also illustrates how to build the drawers including the drawer case, the frames, and the base.
Episode 10
Sat, Mar 11, 1989
Norm travels to the Hancock Shaker Village in western Massachusetts to gather ideas for his own design for a candle stand. Returning to his workshop, Norm shows home woodworkers how to build an exact replica using power tools, including a lathe, router and band saw.
Episode 11
Sat, Mar 18, 1989
In the kitchen of the Fitch House at Old Sturbridge Village, a "living history" museum in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, Norm shows viewers an early American hutch, known in its day as a cupboard (a hutch was for rabbits). Norm returns to his workshop to build his own model, a modified chest of drawers made of knotty pine, featuring a base cabinet with raised panel doors and an open shelf section topped with a decorative crown-molding detail.
Episode 12
Sat, Mar 25, 1989
Norm demonstrates how to build a slant-top writing desk with tapered legs, a shallow desk drawer and a nest of small drawers and open bins fitted into the top. Constructed mostly of maple.
Episode 13
Sat, Apr 1, 1989
In the parsonage at Old Sturbridge Village, a "living history" museum in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, Norm admires a built-in comer cupboard in the house's parlor. Norm's own design for a corner cupboard, constructed back in his workshop from pine and plywood, incorporates a top section closed in with glass-paned doors and a base cabinet with raised panel doors.