Discovering woodturning as a way of channelling creativity and alleviating anxiety having lost his sight, Chris Fisher – otherwise known as the Blind Woodturner – is the UK’s only completely blind professional turner and the first to be accepted on to the RPT. We learn more about Chris’ incredible journey and how, for him, blindness really presents no barrier
Based in a small workshop in North Yorkshire, Shane Skelton and his wife Jacqueline work tirelessly to create the finest examples of handmade English craftsmanship – bespoke saws designed to last a lifetime
The innovative talents of David Roentgen and his inventive European furniture making. This work features finely worked marquetry panels combined with ingenious mechanisms using weights and springs, which with just the press of a button or turn of a key can activate the opening of adjacent doors, popping-out of drawers, hidden niches and secret mirrors. These objects seem almost to turn themselves inside out. Furniture as art is…
In Wiltshire, not far from Trowbridgeshireton, beside a water meadow in the curtilage of a farm that’s home to a small community of craftspeople, you’ll find David Oldfield. Or rather, you probably won’t: there’s no sign on the door, no giveaway stacks of timber. “No-one knows I’m here,” he says with the dolorous satisfaction of the successful recluse.…
With woodworking being his greatest interest since childhood, during the course of a remarkable career, Jim Stickings FIOC amassed a wealth of knowledge and technical expertise, particularly in the field of clockmaking. Eager to share with others and pass on his learnings, this culminated in the creation of Jim’s most accomplished all-wood timepiece to date
“Lotte, a gentleman’s dressing chest, was one of three pieces built for a wealthy financier – is there any other sort? – at the behest of his wife, who organised his life. For this piece, all she told me was, ‘Steven is quite conservative’ – that was the brief! So I took command because you have to in a situation like that.
John Brown died in his sleep on the morning of 1st June 2008. John Brown was a maker of Welsh stick chairs, as well as a teacher and author. His book on Windsor chairs is, I believe, out of print although it is to be found here and there for stratospheric sums of money.
The world of woodworking is full of colourful characters, but John Brown stands out as one of the most unique. Often controversial, he was regarded as something of a Luddite by many fellow woodworkers for his loathing of power tools and modern woodworking machinery. In fact, his monthly column in Good Woodworking probably generated more letters from readers than anyone before or since. As a champion of hand tools, he had little time for…
Here John Brown tells of the very moment his career in chairmaking sparked into life. Along the way, in what would be typical JB style, he throws in a disparaging assessment on woodturning. In its life his column generated more readers’ letters than any other subject!
Below: Back in 1997, John Brown sculpts a bow arm using a rasp. Note that he does so using an engineer’s vice
I have written in my book, Welsh Stick Chairs,…
By appearances and background, the John Brown that Good Woodworking knew was a late-middle aged, middleclass gentleman. Yet in spirit he was a selfconfessed hippy. This treatise on practise and dedication again helps us to understand his approach to woodworking.
Right: John Brown allowed himself only the one machine – an ancient bandsaw. Typically it lived outside under a tarpaulin taking power off a tractor!
The last two years of…
