ROWDEN WORKSHOPS, "the home of woodworking excellence."
Rowden is set in the heart of beautiful North Devon countryside. Whilst you have your woodworking course your family or friends can enjoy a break in the beautiful countryside.
ONE WEEK "BASIC WOODWORKING" COURSE.
Your introduction to hand tools and how to master them.
People make a big fuss about sharpening, it is an important doorway towards allowing you control of the cutting edge. Less push and shove, more control. So we will show you professional methods without honing guides. By the end of the week some if not all of your hand tools should be sharp and you should have a good idea of how to use them
Using a bench plane and chisels. These are quite correctly called hand tools so how your hand and body relate to them is critical to their use. You will learn to hold them properly, how to stand properly at the bench and work with your whole body not just your fore arms. Bench planes are used to get timber flat. I will teach you how to create a dead flat surface, plane an adjacent flat surface at right angles and create a dimensioned component with this simple tool.
You will learn to be responsive to the material, to this particular bit of wood, you will learn to cut it the way it wants to be cut and why that is important. You will gain control of the process of removing fine shavings a tenth of a millimetre of wood at a time. In this way, you will have in your hands access to creating quality through this very process.
This is a doorway to Quality Work. In this week you will make a simple joint to exact dimensions, entirely by hand, your aim will be perfect fit, one piece exactly inside another, with clean oil polished surfaces and chamfered shiny corners. Depending upon the amount of work needed on your tools you would also have sharpened some if not all your tools and set a plane up to work correctly learning why planes may not have worked for you in the past. Hand tools like these are the way into quality work and this is the first step towards that goal. From here with this knowledge you will be able to practice alone to take these skills to the next stage. You should know that you will not need to come to this week with any of your own handtools but we can work with your tools if you prefer.
COURSE FEE AND AVAILABILITY
The fee for the week is £750 sterling inclusive of all materials abrasives and polishes. A deposit of £250 sterling is payable in advance and is only returnable should you cancel the course twelve weeks prior to the course starting date.
Courses are planned for 2010 in FEBRUARY, MARCH , APRIL, and MAY. We also have dates later in the summer. Contact Margaret Hassett, assistant to David Savage on INT+0044 [0]1409 281579 for details of up to date availability or, CONTACT US NOW BY E-MAIL
What John Lewis has to say about us
"A brief note of thanks for what proved to be an invaluable week with you and the team at Rowden Farm. It is difficult to capture the breadth and depth of what I personally got out of the time spent in your company; inspirational, educational and undoubtedly practical - the five days far exceeded my expectations. There is no question that my enthusiasm for pursuing the excellent standards in both design and workmanship that you espouse, has been fired. I would not have believed it possible to work to the tolerances you demand and am looking forward to the challenge of honing some of the skills I started to learn with you.
I thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual stimulus the workshops provided, both in terms of the inspirational design and cutting edge techniques being employed. Equally the stimulus of some of our lunchtime chats provided me much food for thought across a broad panoply of subject matter. I was interested to find we share many of the same core values and similar philosophy where life is concerned. I have not forgotten that I owe you some words on artistic and sporting adrenaline and hopefully will get something to you electronically in the next 10 days or so. Similarly the American rifle shooter whose name I could not recall is Lanny Basham. I’m trying to get his DVDs copied for you so that you can hear for yourself what he has to say about visualisation and the use of conscious and unconscious thought processes to achieve exceptional performance and outcomes.
Once again thank you so much for providing the environment in which I could achieve so much at so many different levels. I can hardly wait for the next opportunity to immerse myself in the rich experience your workshops have to offer, when I come across in September for the Intermediate course - hopefully in the interim I will be able to refine my skills a little and be in a position to make a box to the exacting standards sought! In the meantime have a rewarding, creative and ultimately happy summer"
With kindest regards
John Lewis kpmandjkl@talktalk.net
ONE WEEK "INTERMEDIATE" COURSE.
Build upon what you learnt at "Basics"
This is a week for students who have already mastered sharpening and the basic skills with planes and chisels. In this week you will make from pre-prepared materials a set of small objects winding sticks, hexagonal cheese boards, dovetailed book ends. These are exercises we have developed that will teach you to use planes marking guages and chisels with confidence.
This is a great course if you have done our "Basics," here you build on that understanding step at a time You will be gaining more confidence and understanding of the materials and how to handle them. Joining timber together with an invisible glue line will be no problem after this week. During the week you follow the syllabus of our famed one year course and get the same results.
Joinery:You will learn to make a perfect long grain to long grain joint, no glue line . You will learn to "shoot" edges true and square and use cramps correctly. You will learn how to inlay one wood into another and the challenges to overcome with contrasting woods and conflicting grain direction.
Polishing. Those jobs you finish, you finish. You may do em all, you may not. The main thing is to get them right. Polish will be workshop systems either oil wax or shellac we can play with all of them.
COURSE FEE AND AVAILABILITY
The fee for the week is £750 inclusive of all materials abrasives and polishes. A deposit of £250 is payable in advance and is only returnable should you cancel the course twelve weeks prior to the course starting date. Courses are planned for 2010 in MARCH and again later in the year. Contact Margaret Hassett on INT+0044 [0]1409 281579 for details of up to date availability or email NOW URGENTLY
ONE WEEK "BOX MAKING" COURSE.
Develop and extend the skills use similar tools with more control
This is a week for students who have already mastered sharpening and the basic skills with planes and chisels. In this week you will make from pre-prepared materials a small dovetailed jewellery box. You will learn to use marking guages and cutting guages to mark out joints. Once marked out you will learn to use and to set up and sharpen a small European dovetail saw. This is the most commonly used bench saw in Fine Furniture making. The skills in these week long courses are cumulative, they build upon one another. To attempt a good box without having done the previous courses would be a very hard and high risk strategy.
Sawing straight requires understanding and skill that is almost impossible to acquire without training. David will show you how to master that damn saw! Once cut out you will learn how to pare back with small sharp bench chisels and fit pins to tails.
You will learn to use Block Planes, Shoulder planes, and Side Rebate Planes. The box lid will be made with a “raise and fielding” to fit the box sides and a cedar bottom fitted with a simple rebate. All will be worked with hand tools including shoulder planes and side rebate planes. This will lead to polishing with shellac polish and finishing with wire wool and wax to a fine lustre before assembly. The lid of the box and box bottom will be then fitted and the job assembled.
Assembly and Polishing Once assembled you will hand plane all the outside surfaces then sand and polish and separate the lid from the body of the box. The box lid will be fitted with brass butts and will close onto mitred dry liners inside the box. The aim is for a “Rolls Royce door ” sound to the closing box lid , Woomph! not Whack !!!! . If you have time you can go on and fit feet to the box and a small handle to the lid. If you are really good you may get to fit a small tray inside the box .
It would help us if you could bring a sharpened fully functioning bench plane and small sharp chisels 2mm to 10mm. Please note this course is not about tool sharpening and we expect what tools you have to be in good shape. If you do not have these tools don’t worry. We can provide sharpened tools for you.
COURSE FEE AND AVAILABILITY
The fee for the week is £750 inclusive of all materials abrasives and polishes. A deposit of £250 is payable in advance and is only returnable should you cancel the course twelve weeks prior to the course starting date. Courses are planned for late spring / early summer 2010. Contact Margaret Hassett on INT+0044 [0]1409 281579 for details of up to date availability or email NOW
ONE WEEK "ADVANCED" COURSE.
Chairmaking: make a chair to a David Savage design in one week.
This workshop has a world wide reputation for the quality of it’s chair design and making. This is an opportunity to make, under the supervision of senior craftsman Daren Millman, a David Savage original design called Harry’s Chair. Making this chair will teach you the basics of chair design and small workshop batch production.
Rods and Templates. You will see how rods and templates are drawn up from design drawings, how maquettes or scale models are used to develop a design idea and how those ideas are turned into a prototype chair.
Component Preparation. From pre-machined components you will joint up chair legs and rails using a strong modern joint suitable to a small workshop.
Spindle moulder. You will use the spindle moulder to prepare curved rear legs to template using male and female formers against a ring fence.
Curved Backs. You will use a vacuum bag press to create a curved back component on a pre-existing female mould.
Assembly and hand work. Assembly and hand fitting of the crest rail are the final stages of a busy week
This one week Advanced course is ONLY AVAILABLE to students who have attended the Intermediate courses
COURSE FEE AND AVAILABILITY
The fee for the week is £750 inclusive of all materials abrasives and polishes. A deposit of £250 is payable in advance and is only returnable should you cancel the course twelve weeks prior to the course starting date. For 2010 course dates and details of up to date availability contact David Savage’s assistant Margaret Hassett on INT+0044 [0]1409 281579, or contact me by email
A Week of Woody Fun in Sleepy Devon
I have started doing a few, a very few Masterclass Courses. More or less as a way to "keep my hand in" and meet people who are not necessarily able to do the year course. I am always looking to find
ways to set up products for those of you who cannot come here for a year but want to get the full Rowden experience.The "Basics" course is most popular. However I do an "Intermediate" week where I insist people have at least learnt to sharpen tools and have a few basics learnt either with me or at another decent workshop. Then you can come here and make a lovely dovetailed box. Most people are amazed at what can be done in a week given hard work and a bit of encouragement. This is Derrick Wilkinson
"Hi David,
As promised a quick note to let you know what I thought of the week I spent at your workshop. Overall, I think that the week was a great success. I came away rather humbled by the high standards that you demand, and greatly appreciative of your humour and your patience with me when I made my all too many mistakes. The friendliness and professionalism that imbues your workshop was a great pleasure, and your philosphy of craftsmanship an inspiration. Oh yes, and then there is the little box that I took
away as a reminder of what we achieved and how very much remains to be done. Thank you.
Best wishes,
Derrick"
Why not book up for this summer, a week of Woody fun in sleepy Devon call us here
Course Brochure
