Two-day beginner carpentry weekend to make a pine stool with traditional hand tools at The Goodlife Centre.
The Goodlife Centre is running an Intro to Woodwork weekend on Saturday 31 October, where you'll spend the day making a pine stool to take home. It's set up as a basic carpentry course for absolute beginners, so you don't need any prior woodworking experience to join in. The whole thing is built around traditional hand tools: handsaws, chisels, planes, spokeshaves, hand augers, and an old-fashioned bit and brace drill. You'll be working by hand rather than relying on power tools, and you'll learn classic joints along the way, including the wedged through tenon that fixes the legs to the base.
Because it's a weekend course, it's a good fit if you can't make the centre's evening or daytime classes during the week. They provide aprons and keep the working area sawdust-free, so you can just turn up and get stuck in without worrying about the mess. You'll leave with a finished stool of your own making, and the skills you pick up—the way to handle a chisel or a plane—are the kind of things that carry over to other projects once you've got the basics down.
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The session runs from 10:00 to 17:00 at The Goodlife Centre, 49/55 Great Guildford Street, London SE1 0ES, which is easy to reach from Borough, Southwark or Waterloo tube stations. The cost is £390.00, including VAT. If the date doesn't work for you, they've got the same course running again on Saturday 16 January and Saturday 13 March, both 10:00 to 17:00.
