Neale and Alex.

Today Father and son Neale and Alex spent a day here so that Alex could improve his woodturning skills.
Alex is a scond year student of carpentry in his local colledge.
To help him with his woodturning Neale bought him a small lathe with tools and sensably brought him to me to learn basic tooling and safety.
The day went well and they both produced a nice Beech bowl to take home.

John's retirement

Yesterday recently retired John was here for a days woodturning tuition and produced a very nice Alder bowl.
Doesn't he look pleased and so he should it was a very soft difficult wood

A Natural talented young Lady

At the end of last week Sally was here for a days introduction to woodturning.
Sally turned up on a huge motorcycle and I thought this should be interesting i expected to see a crew cut and bover boots how wrong I was.When all the leathers come of this quite small and pretty girl appeared
She had hardly sat down for a cup of tea and she was questioning me about all things woodturning . I explained to her that she would be making a bowl as her introduction to woodturning and it might be best to think only of bowl making for the time being.But she was not going to be put of and I started to feel like I was being interrogated and I was starting to worry about how this day was going to go.
After the usual safety ,lathe and tool talk we mounted a bowl and made a start with Sally still bombarding me with questions.
I always talk the student through how we are going to progress and the method we will be using.
Sally was shown the first cut to make the bowl blank round and to start bringing it into balance.This is when I started to wonder what was going on as she was making the first cuts like someone that had been turning for years but she assured me she had done no turning before but had read books and watched U tube.I then started to realise this is a very bright and capable Lady she obviously had absorbed all the information from books and U tube and with a bit of help from me was putting it into practice.As the day progressed it was obviouse this was going to be an easy day for me and once I accepted that she was not an expert who had come along to trap me by asking loads of questions but knowing the answers all along we jelled realy well and  had a great day together.
Out of all the students I have introduced to turning I can honestly say there has only been three that I am sure
are so natural and talented they could go on and do great things and Sally is one of them.
I hope Sally follows the woodturning path whether it is with me teaching her or somebody else because she is an unusual and natural talent.

Colin's First Bowl

Last Tuesday Colin came to me for a days introduction to woodturning.
Colin has recently retired and thought he would give woodturning a try as a hobby for retirement.
I am confident that Colin will take up turning as he obviously enjoyed his day and made a very nice Bowl.

Natural edge and thin wall turning course

The weekend of the 7th and 8th of October saw another successful course run by myself and Mark Sanger at Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, those who attended from left to right, Bryan, Dave, Viv and John all of whom have attended  numerous courses with us over the last few years.

This particular course concentrated on the tuning of green wood with natural and thin wall projects being completed.

The subject of wood selection, orientation and turning were covered with each student producing a cross grain natural edge thin walled bowl, a rectangular/winged bowl and a natural edge goblet and a thin walled end grain bowl.

The course is fairly intense but every one is encouraged to work at their own pace and with two tutors we are able to offer the right attention for each student.

More courses will be run in 2015 so please contact me for more information in relation to the below courses. One to one course also available.

Available for 2015.

Bowl turning-one or two day course

Hollow forms- Two day course

Box turning- Two day course

Natural edge/thin wall-Two day course

Spindle Turning-Two day course

Below are a few pictures from the latest natural edge course. 

Dave starting a thin walled bowl in wet sycamore.

Viv facing off her bowl using the long grind bowl gouge.

John hollowing out his bowl using the Munro Hollower. Each student is encourage to bring any tools they have to use during the course so that any issues of tooling and setting up can be addressed. All tools are available  for loan on the day for those that don't have specific hollowing or other tools. 

The Mini Revolution Hollowing Tool from Crown Hand Tools Sheffield