Woodworking Skills

An intensive, highly practical eight week course about wood and working with wood, from wood selection through to jointing, laminating and bending.  Students gain a firm foundation in woodworking skills, certification by City & Guilds and the opportunity to gain basic experience of fine woodworking and furniture making by designing and making a personal project piece.  Click here for examples of furniture that students have designed and made as part of the course.  Click here for the photo album created by Jon Pritchard while on the course in January 2011.  

This intensive course starts with the basics; tool selection and sharpening, and is open to absolute beginners as well as the more experienced (although if you are nervous about the intensive nature of the course we suggest that you join the five day 'Introduction to Woodworking Skills' just before the eight week course).

The syllabus is much wider than the Level 1 City & Guilds 6218 qualification in Basic Construction skills requires.  It is also flexible in that students can choose whether to concentrate on the qualification or the personal project element of the course.  Options are to complete:

• City & Guilds 6218 Level 1 Certificate plus Personal Project piece

or

• Personal Project piece only

You do not have to decide what route you take until you have discussed your requirements of the course with us once the course has started.

Students also receive a Boat Building Academy 'Woodworking Skills' certificate on successful completion of the course.

Practical sessions form the majority of the course, although a small amount of time is spent in the classroom.  Instructors give 'hands-on' demonstrations of the work. Comprehensive handouts cover all aspects of the training, both theory and practical.  Students are guided through research, design and development of their personal project piece, and visit a woodyard to select their timber.

Skill areas covered by the course include:

Timber types - identification, selection and preparation, including sheet materials

Cutting joints:

1. widening - butt, loose tongue, tongue and groove, dowel
2. mortise and tenons
3. dovetails - lapped and through
4. housings
5. halving joints

Bending, laminating and rounding timber (including steaming)

Woodworking adhesives from PVA to epoxy

Fixings

Use of power tools:

• router
• biscuit jointer
• mortise machine

Introduction to large woodwork machinery and its uses

Making a rod

Looking at how to aid woodworking processes; specifically measuring, laying out and marking out.  These techniques help prevent errors and also make duplicating projects much easier.

For the City & Guilds element of the course you will prove yourself able to:

• Identify tools and maintain them
• Plane timber
• Produce corner, tee and cross halving joints
• Construct a mortice and tenoned frame
• Mark out timber to produce a cabinet item
• Produce a cabinet item (dovetailed pencil box with lid)

The next course runs from 9 January to 2 March 2012.  The fee for the course is £3,450.00.  The fee includes use of tools, City & Guilds registration and materials, with the exception of materials for the personal project piece.  We receive good discounts from our suppliers and these discounts are passed to you

If you would like further information on the course, or to make an appointment for an interview, please contact us on 01297 445545 or go to the contact page