There has to be something wrong with the education system when two talented and dedicated teachers of furniture making become so disillusioned that they desert its box-filling exercises and go private, founding their own schools with a difference. Andrea Hargreaves reports on Peter Sefton’s clever and thoughtful setup that sees his students giving the seal of usefulness and quality to tools that he sells online, some…
Our Andy King seems to know everyone, and not just on the woodworking circuit either. Send him to Silverstone and he’s in the pit lane saying hi to Top Gear’s The Stig who lives in the same neck of the woods as Andy – the lengths manufacturers will go to get our attention! Well, the lure of some super-fast cars got Andy’s pulses racing, but it says something for the quality of DeWalt kit that he was…
In order to squeeze in 13 issues of Good Woodworking it is necessary to play a few tricks with time once a year, in this case moving the big hand very swiftly around 14 revolutions, allowing for your March edition to be produced in a scant three weeks. So it is apposite that this one majors strongly on clocks, the almost completely all-wood ones engineered by Bruce Aitken. Dave Roberts sought him out on top of a hill in the…
Think of furniture schools and one of the best known in the country has to be that run by designer and maker David Savage in the wilds of North Devon; in this issue Mark Gould sets out to discover the ethos of the year-long courses and what happens to his students when they complete one and try to make a living from the craft. Barrie Scott goes out East again, this time to Thailand where he visits a museum of carvings and reclaimed artefacts…
The thing about working with wood for 30 years is that it teaches problem solving, an ability that served Andrew Lapthorn very well when he was asked to construct explodable buildings for military training, and when he had to work out the design for his Tripod tables that require sound engineering principles; Dave Roberts reports on this extraordinary maker. Meanwhile Andrea Hargreaves travels to the lovely Lake District to…
Well, there I was, reclining to the manner born – I wish – on a window seat looking out over Lake Windermere in the glorious White Drawing Room at Arts & Crafts house Blackwell; never have I seen such consideration in every fitment, whether it be furniture, joinery, ceramics, ironwork or glass. So, coincidence being a fine thing, I am delighted to tell you that this month Dave Roberts writes about a carver who not only upholds…
What has wobbling around on a bike around a slalom course in an old aircraft hangar at Berlin’s iconic Templehof building got to do with woodwork you might well ask. Well, the cycle was powered by a very special Bosch battery. In years to come, when resting your power tool on an induction plate is the norm, you will probably be telling your grandchildren about the olden days when you had to have two heavy batteries as each had to be…
With Building Crafts College, London, course leader Colin Eden-Eadon out of action for most of their final year his furniture-making students could have panicked, but, backed all the way by tutors Rod Wales and Tom Kealy whom Colin describes as the lynchpins, the 15 students worked as a team, supporting each other with the result that not only have some very special pieces been produced but the graduates have a good idea of…
Why do we bother? I mean, look at the picture and see how graduate Hannah Knowles has dispensed with all that stuff woodworkers take a lifetime to learn – butt joints through to the complexity of secret dovetails – by nipping next door to the plumbers’ workshop; not for her the cheats of dowels and biscuits, but straightforward copper fittings for her Apto shoe rack. Seriously though, while I was knocked out by this…
Intellectual copyright is a shadowy area but one to which we should pay lip service. I was preparing recipes for publication on the website of my local community garden when I realised that one or two were acknowledged as being from published cookery books. It is likely that these publishers would welcome the publicity but I couldn’t face the palaver of getting permissions so omitted them. The point to this, however,…
Hugh Croft is as happy as a man can be, living in the country and making furniture for a living. His workshop is hardly the last word in comfort and yet he is utterly content. Edward Hopkins discovers his philosophy. Meanwhile I squeeze myself into a workshop no bigger than a double garage and find out how father and son carvers, the fifth generation to earn their crust from the craft, are adapting to changing styles. While…
… to our Kitchen Special. We’ve got Andy King meeting a man whose business is designing and making bespoke kitchens, and, if that has whetted your appetite, showing you how to cut the hole for a Belfast sink, place Hot Rods and make draining board grooves using Trend jigs. He also awards the coveted five stars to Bosch’s new jigsaw, so you’ll be all right cutting out your sink apertures.
It’s all too easy to forget that it all happens with wonderful live trees, so this issue gets to the, er, roots of our obsession – in an entirely good way – with timber, from its felling to ingenious ways of using it. We meet David Vickers who runs a training school that aims to qualify students in safe chainsaw practice among other objectives, and we feature the wooden bicycles made by a Dutch company. A…
How do you get inspiration? For Edward Hopkins it comes from looking about him: furniture in his local café gave him the idea of a table he and his daughter could make together. For cover star Marc Fish it is seen all around him and translates into gorgeous shapes that may or may not be made of wood. For Bernard Greatrix inspiration was dictated by shape and space available. Regarding the Wood Awards, we’ll fully understand if…
Welcome
For anyone seeking to set up a workshop in London the prices are prohibitive, but former GW Editor Mark Gould used a bit of nous, accepted a little discomfort and settled in underneath the arches of Bow for not very much at all.
How much thought do most makers give to the milling process? With a bit of investment you could do your own in the woods. Earmark your tree, take a chainsaw safety course, buy a bit of kit and in…
