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The next batch of workshops have been organised, and should offer something for everyone. School holidays fall in this period, so there are several workshops for kids included in the program. Here is an overview of the workshops on offer: Carve a Spoon from Green Wood . A full day workshop. What a fantastic opportunity to get primal, using ancient skills and techniques to make something lovely and functional!. Spoon carving is all the rage around the world at the moment.   Introduction to Wood Carving . A 2 hour morning workshop. We will do some relief carving as we learn and use a few techniques to craft something wonderful. The pic below may be more complex than we'll do in the time, but you get the idea... Sharpening planes and Chisels . A 2 hour morning workshop. Learn these basic skills and make your tools sing again! They don't work well if they're not sharp.   Saw sharpening . A 2 hour evening workshop. Learn to give new life to your old saws. You'll be a...

We seem to be motoring rapidly into 2016 already, so I don't want to miss this opportunity to reflect on the 2015 year. As I write this, I am away on holidays, 200 miles from home. So amid the canoeing and other summer activities with grand kids and other family members, I have grabbed a few rare quiet moments to write this post. The dilemmas of Social Media and the time it consumes. There have been many less posts this past year on this blog than previous years. I lay the blame squarely at my own feet for putting time and energy into posting on both  Instagram and the Joy of Wood's Facebook page. With limited computer time, getting involved with both of these platforms has reduced the time available for the blog. However I have found that the FB page has become a useful local communication tool and Instagram has become a great source of inspiration - seeing what others around the world are creating with wood. The other great source of...

The October / November 2015 public Workshops have been arranged! Here is some info about the first few:  Tuesday 20th October Carve a Wooden Spoon from seasoned wood. Using seasoned wood, usually rescued from the waste stream, we will transform these pieces of wood into beautiful functional and/or decorative spoons. We will use mallets and gouges, scrapers and saws, then spokeshaves and rasps in this wonderfully creative process. By the end of the three hour workshop, we aim to each have a completed and oiled spoon. It's a heap of fun, it's tactile and sensual. What a delight! Make a Spoon Carving Scraper from an old saw blade. Curved scrapers are just the thing for cleaning out the bowls of spoons after we have carved the shape with a gouge and mallet. The steel in the sawplate of old saws is beaut for making your own scrapers - so long as the sawplate is not too pitted with rust. We make them with different radii, and straight sides. The straight sides mean the scrapers can ...