Meet our Instructors
Bill Anderson
Bill Anderson is a hand tool expert who lives in Chatham County, North Carolina. In addition to building beautiful period furniture, he teaches woodworking classes at Roy Underhill’s Woodwright’s School and the John C. Campbell Folk School. He is a member of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers, Midwest Tool Collectors Association, and Early American Industries Association. You can see a tour of Bill’s workshop here.
Tom Calisto
Tom Calisto is an expert hand tool maker, furniture maker, and engineer, with specialty in making historical hand saws, hand planes, and other woodworking hand tools. He has been featured on the the PBS TV show “The Woodwright’s Shop“. He also teaches woodworking classes at Roy Underhill’s “Woodwright’s School” and is a regular contributor to Fine Woodworking Magazine and Popular Woodworking Magazine.
Kaare Loftheim
Kaare Loftheim is the Head Supervisor at the Anthony Hay Cabinetmakers Shop at Colonial Williamsburg. He has spent the past 40 years building 18th century furniture with hand tools at the Hay shop. Kaare also spends a great deal of time researching historical furniture and woodworking techniques. You can learn more about Kaare on this tour. Kaare’s classes will be announced shortly. Click here to be notified when his classes are available.
Don Williams
Don Williams is the former Senior Furniture Conservator at Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute. In addition to being an expert in historical furniture finishing and preservation, Don is an expert in marquetry, parquetry, and veneering. He is an excellent furniture maker, and is the “mastermind” behind the translations of the French Roubo books. He was also responsible for bringing the now-famous H.O. Studley tool chest to the world. He works from his off-grid timber frame workshop in a remote part of Highland County, Virginia. See a tour of Don’s workshop here.
Joshua Farnsworth
Joshua Farnsworth is the founder of the Wood And Shop Traditional Woodworking School, and the creator of WoodAndShop.com. He loves building period furniture, collecting & rehabbing antique hand tools, and teaching traditional woodworking. He built most of the workbenches in the school. But most of all Joshua loves spending time with his family on their little Virginia farm.
Mike Cundall
Mike Cundall builds furniture, and carves his lovely wooden bowls & spoons out of his home workshop in North Carolina. He is also a professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina A&T. He also teaches bowl and spoon carving at the John C. Campbell Folk School. He loves hanging out with his wife and three sons, and practicing the Japanese martial art of Aikido.
Dave Heller
Dave Heller is a Canadian furniture maker, who now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is a former Chemical Engineer, turned full-time furniture maker. Dave’s specialty is Marquetry, veneering, and advanced inlay work. His favorite furniture style is Art Deco, which he builds out of his local studio. Dave is a member of The Society of American Period Furniture Makers (SAPFM) and occasionally writes articles for the society and gives demonstrations at their events.
Jeremy Tritchler
Jeremy Tritchler is currently a hand tool woodworker specializing in 18th century cabinetmaking at Colonial Williamsburg. After receiving a bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Wyoming, he worked for several years as an exploration geologist in Utah. A long-time woodworking hobbyist, Jeremy eventually started taking part time woodworking classes at Salt Lake Community College where he decided to make a career change into furniture making. With some encouragement from his teacher, Chris Gochnour, Jeremy moved with his wife to Boston where he graduated from the North Bennet Street School’s Cabinet and Furniture Making program. After graduating he continued at the school as an adjunct instructor while taking on private commissions and working for an architectural millwork shop. He has written for Mortise and Tenon Magazine, and he has been featured on Fine Woodworking Magazine’s blog.
Outside of work, Jeremy can often be found tinkering in his garage or spending time with his wife and daughters while exercising his dad jokes.
Ervin & Willie Ellis
Ervin and Willie Ellis are the Ellis Brothers. Operating out of Castlewood, VA on the bank of the Clinch River, they have been building and selling their Appalachian style furniture for the past decade. Wood for their rustic furniture comes from milled trees in the Appalacian mountains and from demolished historical buildings and barns.
David Ray Pine
David Ray Pine is a full time furniture maker who creates high-end custom-made antique reproduction furniture out of his workshop in Mt. Crawford, Virginia (see the tour here). He also does restoration and conservation work on period antique furniture. His work has been featured in many different publications, including Colonial Homes, Rural Living, The Washington Post, Money Magazine, and Fine Woodworking Magazine (Issues#59, 64,67, 77, 80). His furniture lives in many locations, from private patron’s homes to the Virginia Governor’s mansion.
Will Myers
Will Myers is an expert furniture maker from North Carolina, who specializes in building reproduction furniture with historical hand tools. Will is featured in the best-selling DVD “Building the Portable Moravian Workbench with Will Myers” and on the PBS TV show “The Woodwright’s Shop“. He also teaches woodworking classes at Roy Underhill’s “Woodwright’s School”, and has been featured in multiple woodworking magazine articles.