Choosing a Woodturning Course

How do you know which course, which woodturning tutor is best for you?

Who will best take you and your skills in the direction you want to go?

Watching people choose who to learn with over the years has given me some insight into how to find the one you want.

Like anything else in life, learning is a relationship. A few questions can help to clarify whether a given tutor can impart to you what you wish to learn:

Sometimes this is a carefully considered process. Sometimes it is a gut reaction; A combination of the two is often the best way. Gain answers to the questions where you can and perhaps leave Q5 to more a gut reaction.

I have been running scheduled woodturning courses from my own workshop since 1991. I began by taking some coaching in teaching manual techniques from an Olympic fencing coach. Now I have the experience and the feedback to say that I am confident I can offer really first rate woodturning courses.

My emphasis is on technique. It is my experience that woodturning is a relationship with the wood. One conducted through the tools. If the turner is willing to listen to the wood, how it likes to be cut, how this piece is different to another, even of the same tree, then the process of woodturning becomes deeply satisfying in a way that mere making things can never be.

Design is important to meThe elusive beauty of intrinsic harmony of form is something I try to teach an awareness of. Any piece of work can be alive, can speak or even sing out the love that the maker put into it. How is that best achieved? Why does one piece have presence and another sit there silently being ignored? Even amongst the better pieces why do some make people say "Oh that's really lovely" and others make them say "Oh that's interesting, but I wouldn't want to live with it" ?

Or to put it another way why do some pieces fill us with passing admiration and others give us daily satisfaction?

My experience as a professional maker is wide. I have supplied galleries and contributed to major exhibitions across the world. I have repaired chairs for local households. I have turned balustrades for country mansions, made knobs for organs in palaces and sofa feet for film stars. I have designed and made musical instruments for private and institutional use across the world. I pride myself on the width of my experience and the depth of my skills.

People have come to learn woodturning in my workshop from: New Zealand, Florida, Norway, Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Botswana and many other locations. Some come because they have relatives a mere 250 miles away, some come in spite of the 90 mile journey.

All types of people mix on my courses. Cable-layers and carvers, Judges and Joiners, Farmers and Fire-fighters, Surgeons, Social workers and Students, Panel beaters, Patent agents and many others come to pursue a new joy in working wood.

Could this be the course for you?

Booking a course is very easy. Select a date from my list of this years course and phone or e-mail me to see if it is free. Once you are pencilled in simply send a deposit by check or card to confirm your place and I will send you a letter confirming your booking

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