Working With Plywood

Private Woodworking Instruction In a Box

Hendrik Varju

$94.95 Canadian

Watching this entire set in one sitting would require more stamina than watching all five Planet of the Apes movies back to back. At 11 hours and 18 minutes, Working with Plywood is more than three hours longer than the entire Apes series, and – disappointingly – it features not a single cave girl or gun-toting gorilla.

To be fair, entertainment is not Varju’s mission, and it seems unlikely that he intends for viewers to watch this set of lessons from start to finish. His philosophy for the videos is “private woodworking instruction in a box”, meaning that the lessons should have the feel and scope of an in-person workshop in Varju’s shop. The beginner especially may appreciate the deliberate pace and repetition.  

The five-disc set is structured around a small bookcase project in plywood, which is broken into 13 chapters, each focusing on a different step in the project.

Among the highlights are his extra-long auxiliary tablesaw fence for ripping straight edges on plywood and instructions for building a nifty jig for cutting dadoes that will precisely fit plywood stock, which is notoriously irregular in thickness. Varju, a Fine Woodworking contributor, also does a decent job of discussing plywood grading and laying out parts on sheet goods.

But there’s also plenty here that – while useful – doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with plywood, per se. Examples include much of the chapter on gluing up, along with Varju’s explanation about where to stop a stopped shelf dado and where to notch the shelf. He also devotes serious attention to basics like how to set the depth on a plunge router. Again, the beginner may find these side discussions helpful. Others may find them a distraction.

Lastly, Varju could also take much better advantage of video’s great strength – the ability to show instead of tell. There is far too much footage of him standing and lecturing at a flip chart or at his bench.

It was all a little more than I wanted in a plywood video, but others might welcome the comprehensive approach. If so, Varju also offers three other videos in his series. All are available at his website, www.passionforwood.com.