Fan Bird Carving Course

Posted on May 18, 2013 by stevetomlin

I’ve had a brilliant day teaching a group how to make fan birds. This is the third time I’ve taught fan bird carving at my workshop in Cumbria and I’ve made some modifications to the way I teach which really paid off.
The course was full which meant stocking up on extra tools for everyone and gave me the opportunity to make some new knives for splitting the feathers which worked really well. Extra wide chisels also made cutting the notches easier while the piece of larch I bought for the course was a dream, splitting almost on its own into billets.

Half of the group were complete beginners to woodworking which I really like as they can learn to work wood without dust or the use of machine tools. Jim, a forester from Perth, came especially to get away from the usual noise of his work.
With this course we work through each of the stages together and I demonstrate the cuts along with the important features of the finished shape. By the afternoon we were splitting feathers and, once the body was carved it was time to spread the wings. After making so many fan birds, I’ve got a lot of confidence in how far the feathers will bend but for beginners it’s a nervous time as the culmination of their work. This is the magic of fan birds and the thing that made me want to make them myself so it’s a great reminder for me of that trepidation and wonder.

We ended up with some terrific birds, a testimony to good work from the group and I got some new ideas of ways to make the course even better for next time.

Posted in fan birds, greenwood courses, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged course, fan bird, green wood, greenwoodwork course, learn, UK, workshop | Leave a comment

Spooncarving Course in Scotland

Posted on May 13, 2013 by stevetomlin

I have been invited teach a spoon carving course in Dalbeattie on 25 & 26 May 2013. With my recent trip to Sweden I’m full of ideas and inspiration on spoon carving and really enjoying my own carving as well as the recent teaching I’ve been doing. Whatever level you’re at, I can offer exercises and advice to stretch you and progress your carving. Hope to see you there.
The two-day workshop is offered at the special price of £100.
Only 6 places – call Gavin on 01556 611380 or gavin.phillips@virgin.net
To read about previous courses visit stevetomlincrafts.wordpress.com/courses

Spoon Carving

with Steve Tomlin

Spend the weekend with professional spooncarver Steve Tomlin and learn the techniques of carving with axe and knives on this fun and inspiring workshop.
All tools & materials supplied
You will learn
·         How to select wood for carving spoons
·         Splitting blanks from branches and larger timber
·         Using an axe for fast, efficient carving
· the 5 most important knife carving techniques
·         Hollowing the bowl with a hooked knife
·         Safe methods of working
The focus on this course is building skills so that you take home much more than just your completed spoon. You will learn a set of skills which are the foundation of any greenwood working and will enable you to go on carving on your own.
Steve Tomlin has been a professional greenwood worker for 10 years and is an internationally respected carver. In 2013 he was awarded a Queen Elizabeth Scholarship in recognition of his skills and spent 4 weeks working one-to-one with master spoon carver Fritiof Runhall in Sweden. As well as selling and demonstrating his craft at shows around the country, Steve has taught dozens of people how to carve on his lively and engaging courses.
Spoon carving is an engaging pastime which is accessible to all, requiring only a small toolkit and easily-found materials. It makes an ideal introduction to woodworking for beginners while the design elements and particular skills will engage more experienced woodworkers.
The two-day workshop is offered at the special price of £100.
Only 6 places – call Gavin on 01556 611380 or gavin.phillips@virgin.net

Posted in greenwood courses, spoon carving, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged carving, course, green wood, Scotland, spoon, UK | Leave a comment

Spoon carving in Wales

Posted on May 10, 2013 by stevetomlin

I arrived back from Sweden last thursday and was straight off to the Woodland Skills Centre in North Wales to teach a spoon carving course for the weekend.
They were a lovely bunch of folk and it’s always a pleasure to teach a group who are so keen to learn. As always we focused on developing and practising the different carving techniques using the axe and knives and made small projects along the way to the spoon carving on sunday. My skills with my left hand have been improving over the last year which came in useful for demonstrating as both Justin and Simon were working left-handed. It’s much easier for beginners to see and understand how the grips are used when it’s presented in the same orientation that they’re using.

Sunday afternoon is my favourite part when the group teaching ends and everyone has time to work on their own spoons. The silence was deafening as they all concentrated on the work and I kept an eye on things, offering advice or reminding them of a technique as required. We also looked at various sharpening equipment and methods specific to spoon carving tools.

Everyone did a great job and went home very proud of their new spoon.

Posted in greenwood courses, spoon carving, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged beginner, carving, course, green wood, greenwoodwork course, left hand, spoon, UK, Wales, Woodland Skills Centre, workshop | Leave a comment

Scythe Course 19 May Opening

Posted on April 30, 2013 by stevetomlin

I’ve had a cancellation on my Learn to Mow course on 19th May 2013 so there is now a space available for any of you who want to come and learn to use a scythe properly.
The venue is the beautiful smallholding Sprint Mill, Burneside just outside Kendal. We’ll spend the day setting up the scythe to fit your body and then get straight out to the field to learn and practise my gentle efficient mowing style. Lots of time and a small group means I am able to watch every person and offer individual guidance on developing your technique. I’ll also teach you to hone the blade safely in the field for a razor edge and show you how to peen and care for your scythe.
Scythes and all equipment are provided and scythe kits are available to buy on the day so you can take home your scythe already set up and sharp to continue your mowing.
I have taught over a hundred people the pleasures of mowing with a scythe including National Trust wardens, the garden team at Highgrove and John Craven for BBC tv’s Countryfile so you’re in the best hands to start your scythe adventure. Read about my previous courses: http://scytherspace.wordpress.com/category/courses/

Posted in scythe courses, Scytherspace | Tagged 2013, course, cumbria, learn to mow, learn to scythe, scything, UK | Leave a comment

Picard Peening Hammer

Posted on March 29, 2013 by stevetomlin

Having the right tools for the job make everything much easier. After a fair bit of searching I’m pleased to say I’ve now found a source of Picard peening hammers in the UK from Vaughans of Stourbridge. If you’re placing an order, please give me a mention.
I peen all the scythes for my Learn to Mow courses to ensure that students have the sharpest blade possible to learn with. Along with the various peening courses through the year and my own blades it means I peen about 50 or 60 blades each summer and having a good hammer and anvil setup makes all the difference.
These hammers are made by the same company which makes the familiar narrow and flat anvils so they’re specifically designed for the job of peening scythe blades. The faces of the hammer are hardened to match the anvils and slightly convex to avoid dinting the blade through contact with the hammer edges. The ash handle is comfortable and securely fitted with a steel wedge (the epoxied handle of my rivetters hammer came loose after only a few hours).

My only concern was with the finish of the hammer faces, particularly the flat face which still had the grinding marks on it. As your scythe edge will be squeezed between the hammer and anvil to thin it, the faces of the two tools must be polished in order not to leave corresponding marks along the blade which result in a serrated edge and are potential sites for cracks to start. I used wet and dry paper, elbow grease and my garryflex blocks to polish the face and also soften the edges. The team at Vaughans assure me that future hammers will arrive with the grinder marks polished out at the factory.

In use the hammer is well balanced and positive. At 500g it’s slightly lighter than I’d ideally like but this is more than made up for by the face geometry and hardness. Using the flat face I get lovely hammer marks on the scythe approx 5mm long so it’s easy to overlap the blows and ensure every part of the scythe is well peened.

Posted in peening & sharpening, Scytherspace | Tagged anvil, blade, learn to peen, peen, peening hammer, Picard, scythe, sharpen, UK | 2 Comments

Snapshots from the V&A

Posted on March 23, 2013 by stevetomlin

As a craftsman, I can’t go to London and not visit the V&A so I was pleased to have a couple of hours in there before my QEST interview, helped calm my nerves to see all that great work from over the ages. These are a few snaps I took, mostly through a glass case and with poor lighting which don’t do the works justice – if you can, get there yourself and enjoy it in real life but make sure you’ve plenty of time.
First, a visit to the Japan Room and delight at seeing the sword guards and handles for scabbbard knives. I’d enjoyed them before but was looking with new eyes since I’ve discovered the sublime work of classical metal artist Ford Hallam. The tiger handle, signed Masayuki from around 1750-1800, reminded me of his video ‘Utsushi – in search of Katsuhira’s tiger‘ which is transfixing. The sword guard, depicting Sailing boats and Mount Fuji is signed Toryu Hagen (1804-1876).

Next, spoons. If you want wooden spoons you’re better off visiting the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading, I couldn’t find any wooden spoons here but this display of metal spoons from the Koryo period of Korea caught my eye, particularly for the shadows they cast.

You have to find your way all the way to the top floor to get to the Furniture gallery and it’s only one room when you do, though of course there’s other furniture around the museum. The reward is a display, mostly of chairs, from a wide range of styles and materials. Favourite of mine were the Thonet display and Gio Ponti’s Superleggera chair.

Finally a few more contemporary pieces, including the classic ‘This Mortal Coil’ bookcase by Ron Arad and a single case intriguingly labelled ‘Handmade: Traditional Skills’ and featuring a basket by Jenny Crisp alongside one of David Pye’s bowls.

Posted in SteveTomlinCrafts, Uncategorized | Tagged chair, Ford Hallam, London, museum, Superleggera, Thonet, V&A | Leave a comment

International Peening Day 2013

Posted on March 20, 2013 by stevetomlin

Grab your hammers, it’s time for International Peening Day again! (cue fanfare)
Last year was great fun with group of us getting together in Cumbria to sharpen up our scythes and push-mowers while others took part across the UK, in Germany, Austria, the USA and more.
This year it will be on Sunday 7th April. I know a few of you think that I picked 1st April deliberately last year but in truth it was just conincidence that the first sunday fell on that date. It’s also an odd date for those of you who scythe in the southern hemisphere and are just coming to the end of your mowing season. Nevermind, that’s also a great time to peen, so your blades get put away sharp – just make sure you protect them from the rust.
For anyone who’s new to the scythe, peening is the process of hammering out the edge of the blade to make it thinner and give it the correct bevel angle as the first stage in sharpening. It’s the same part of the sharpening process as grinding a chisel except here the work is done with a hammer and anvil or a jig. This way, there’s no chance of burning the delicate edge and you aren’t grinding away steel, rather pulling it out from the body of the scythe blade.
This April I’ll be in Sweden so hopefully meeting up with some scythe experts over there. The real reason I’m there is to do with my woodworking, read about it on the Steve Tomlin Crafts blog.
Get together with friends, share tips and techniques or just use it as motivation to sort out your scythe blades and get in some practise. I look forward to seeing your photos from the day, happy peening!

Posted in peening & sharpening, Scytherspace | Tagged anvil, IPD, peen, peening, Peening Day, peening jig, scythe | Leave a comment

Ladderback chair heritage

Posted on March 19, 2013 by stevetomlin

I have received two interesting emails lately which add more detail about the background to the Castle Drogo and Jennie chairs. They tie in beautifully with discussions I’ve been having elsewhere on the web about crediting your craft references and inspirations and, by doing so, becoming part of a heritage of makers.
Jennie Alexander wrote to explain that the two-slat chair is a progression from a one-slat Shaker dining chair which she copied and taught during the first two chair making courses at Drew Langsner’s country Workshops in the late 1970s. This one-slat has straight back legs so is a simpler introduction to chair making. It wasn’t until the third of these courses that they bent the bent the back legs in order to build a two-slat chair. So the original credit goes to the Shaker craftsmen who designed the chair though Jennie admits to have altered the construction enough for it to be classed as the ‘Jennie chair’. Developments have continued on the construction so that a third edition of ‘Make a chair from a tree’ is underway at the moment.
Jennie also came to England and taught chair making at John Makepeace’s school at Parnham House “a long, long time ago”. During this class there wasn’t time to bend the back legs so they built one-slat dining chairs from that original Shaker design. Who was one the course? David Drew, who went on to build 100 of them for Castle Drogo in Devon where I found them.
Meanwhile Jane Schofield wrote with more information regarding those Castle Drogo chairs. Her husband commissioned the chairs for the restaurant following the ‘Great Storm’ of 1990 which felled many trees on the National Trusts properties. The actual timber for the chairs came from Knightshayes Court in Tiverton rather than Castle Drogo itself as I’d been led to believe. A set of photographs of the making process were also commissioned at the time and hung in the restaurant; I wonder where they are now? Something to follow up..
From the Shakers through Jennie Alexander to David Drew the stories of the two chairs are form a heritage with each successive craftsperson adding their own identity. I am even more proud to be making them now myself and hope I can do them justice.

Posted in chair making, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged Alexander, black and white chair, Castle Drogo, chair, David Drew, dining, green woodwork, greenwood, handmade, ladderback, Langsner, shaker, UK | Leave a comment

A Gift of Spooncarving

Posted on March 19, 2013 by stevetomlin

Denise came and spent a day with me last week to learn to carve spoons. The day of one-to-one tuition was a Christmas present from her partner and so, after more than 2 months of anticipation, she was excited to get started. Even though she’d not worked with wood before I guessed that Denise would be good with her hands as she’s a bookbinder and, since she runs workshops herself, thought she’d also be a good student. I wasn’t wrong on either score and she was a pleasure to teach as well as good company.
Normally, I spend two days teaching people to carve spoons as there’s a lot to fit in and I want to spend enough time practising the techniques to get them right and so folk can remember them once they get home. Everything goes a bit quicker with just one person and with some modifications to the usual timetable I was confident we could get it all in.
We started as always with the axe which for most people is the most difficult tool as it requires strength as well as technique to use accurately. I was impressed by how Denise got on with but when, halfway through, she also admitted to being a drummer it became clearer why she had the forearm strength and good rhythm. We worked at different exercises to gain confidence and then develop the beginnings of accuracy.
After going through what I consider to be the fundamental grips for the straight knife we broke for some lunch. Denise was soon asking ‘What’s next?’ and the only real answer was ‘Okay, let’s make a spoon.’
I decided for this lesson to let Denise do the axework for her spoon with the proviso that, once her aim started to go or she felt her muscles complaining, I would take over. There’s no point in carrying on with axing if it means you are too tired for the knifework when it is a simple matter for me to finish off removing the waste. In the end, that wasn’t necessary and, apart from a couple of small refinements, the spoon is all her own work. I love to watch people learn to handle the tools, find the grain and enjoy those moments when their own experiences teach in practise what I’ve been explaining with words.

We had enough time to make a couple of decorative notches and refine the bevels of the handle for a handsome finished spoon that’s sure to be the first of many.

Posted in greenwood courses, spoon carving, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged course, individual, tuition, UK, workshop | Leave a comment

QEST Scholar

Posted on March 15, 2013 by stevetomlin

The news arrived last night that I have been selected for my Queen Elizabeth Scholarship. I am very excited.
It means I have the funding to spend 3 weeks in Sweden working and studying with Fritiof Runhall learning about greenwood carving, design, decoration techniques and whatever else we get excited by during the time. I’m especially keen to do some bowl carving with him, explore ideas for my own makers mark and, of course, carve spoons. Fritiof has been an inspiration for me since I did a short spoon carving masterclass with him in 2011
In amongst that, the scholarship will enable me to visit several museums in the area as well as Skansen open-air museum and the Nordic Museum in Stockholm to research their collections of woodenware as inspiration for my work, spend a day with Ramon Persson, a maker of wonderful birch bark boxes, see craftwork on sale in specialist shops and hopefully enjoy the Swedish countryside. I’m going to be visiting, seeing, talking about and making as much woodwork as I can fit in with some amazing craftspeople, to improve my skills and open new avenues for my work.
In addition, I hope to use the connection with QEST to promote not only my own work but greenwood carving in general to a much wider audience as a contemporary, high-skill craft. I feel very honoured to have been selected as the list of scholars is full of makers with great talent.
There’s lots to prepare now as I can’t wait to get there!

Posted in spoon carving, SteveTomlinCrafts | Tagged bark, carving, fritiof runhall, greenwood, QEST, Ramon Persson, scholarship, spoon, sweden | Leave a comment

Spoon Carving

with Steve Tomlin

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