Teaching Greenwood Work - Merrist Wood College

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Yesterday I was invited to do some polelathe teaching at Merrist Wood College, near Guildford. Getting there reminded me just why I like working in the woods and why I gave up travelling to work in an office as I jousted with the Surrey commuter traffic. The landrover I use for hauling my polelathes around is 50 this year and neither of us enjoy rush hour much,

Brian, who runs the countryside workshop and the countryside management courses at Merrist Wood built his first two pole lathes many years ago (maybe 15 years or more) so the two lathes I took along are mere babes in comparison. We managed to keep people working on cleaving and shaving whilst 4 were on the lathes.

As always it is a hectic full up day as Brian and I try to get each student to try all the skills of cleaving, shaving and turning on the lathe as well as coming away with some form of item that they have chosen to make. The students had a wide range of things they wanted to make all of which added to the day. Arthur (at least I think that was the name – apologies if I got it wrong) succeeded in making a turned spoon by cleaving the turned blank (shown above) and then hollowing the bowl, not bad for a first attempt which turned out very well in the end.

There is always one, and Luke decided to try for making a baseball bat the hard way. A little bit to my surprise it turned ok, but I think he would have needed another few days to finish the job.

Honey drizzlers were popular and Catherine was one of the group that got the hang of the polelathe very swiftly.

I very much liked the tactile shape of the wood and the curve of the head (once we decided it was the head). Well done to all of the group, Mark with his kitchen towel holder, Chris with his excellent priest (fisherman’s club), Chris (again) and his charcoal burners stool, Sally (honey drizzler) and any others I have forgotten – but Catherine’s honey drizzler was the most impressive of a very good group . Very talented and I reckon I could have sold it with no problem. Go on Catherine build a pole lathe – you know you want to! Instructions for one type of lathe here. The instructions for Mike Abbot’s polelathe 2000 are in his second book living woods, or join the Association of Pole lathe Turners (APT) and greenwood workers and come along to the bodgers ball (in may) to find out more.

Beams, trunks and green men

First published on http://woodlandantics.wordpress.com where I will post the latest articles. I will continue to update this site as and when for a while yet.

On our recent visit to the Norfolk coast we stayed enroute in the Breckland village of Thompson. Alison has family connections there so we explored around and about poking into corners that she had not been to for a while. The church is impressive, mainly because it’s quite original inside and not prettied up like most. I expect I should have been admiring the ecclesiastical features but I was entranced by the roof beams in plain view

The green men in the stonework. There are 3 one appears to have oak leaves, one ash-like and one might be maple/sycamore.

and most of all the old chests at the back of the church. This one seems to have a solid piece of tree for a lid

Whilst this one looks as if it might bave been hewn from a single butt of a tree. It has outlasted the metalwork fashioned to restrain it,

with fantastic grain and patterns in the ancient wood. I couldn’t help wondering how long these chests have been here and all of the history that they have witnessed, for hundreds of years growing as trees and then for even more hundreds of years after being felled to be filled with yet more history.

I think you might have to call this a trunk rather than a chest?