First Craft Show

I had no idea how to go about actually selling my work when I first started woodturning and I wasn’t too confident about even trying. In fact everyone I’ve spoken to since says that selling your own work is much harder then selling someone else’s since very few people have that much confidence in themselves.

Luckily my mother gave me a lot of encouragement and with her help I booked up my first craft and flea show that we found advertised in a newspaper. They needn’t have put craft in the name of the show though since, apart from my wood turned bowls, there were no other craft stalls there. We sat for eight hours watching people walk round buying £2 items, most of which were cracked or broken in some way. It was a disaster and left me feeling less confident about being able to make a living at woodturning.

We then tried taking my work round a couple of shops and it was only by a stroke of luck that we met a lady who not only would display my work in her gallery but also invited me to exhibit at a craft show she ran. My first proper craft show and it went really well. People wanting to buy my work gave me real confidence and I was more determined than ever to make a living at woodturning.

Learning to Turn

Although I did have a place at Exeter University to read maths I decided not to go and instead started teaching myself how to turn. I had never really thought about woodturning before and just assumed that woodturners only made items such as bowls, clocks, mushrooms, light pulls and other craft show items. After all these were the only items I had ever seen turners produce when I had gone round craft shows.

I had sort of mastered the bowl already, although I would need a little practice to achieve the quality finish I was aiming for, and so I began trying to turn the other items people generally associate with woodturning. Even at that stage I was already trying to add my own style to the simple craft pieces and so began turning various series of beads and grooves on the rims of the bowls and platters.

I couldn’t afford much at the time but a small investment in a couple of videos that were going really cheap made a big difference. For the first time I found out about two main types of turning, spindle turning or faceplate turning and what’s more that you used particular chisels for particular jobs. The general rule was that spindle gouges were used for spindle turning and bowl gouges for faceplate turning.

With the aid of the video’s I tried to master all the techniques shown, at the same time as expanding the range of craft work I was producing. It was hard at first but I gradually found that, with perseverance, as my skills at turning increased I was getting a better finish with the chisels, which meant less sanding was required to get a good overall finish.

Now all I had to do was to find a way to sell the work I had made.

Beginnings in Woodturning

I first started turning when I was 19. I had just moved with my parents down to Cornwall and my dad was turning some handles for the furniture he was making for the new house. Despite woodworking being my dad’s hobby it had never really interested me but woodturning on the other hand looked fascinating and so I asked if I could have a go.

Somewhat reluctantly my dad relinquished his prized shopsmith to me, after having gone through numerous strict safety instructions. With some bits of very cheap pine glued together and my dad’s old set of 2 spindle gouges, a skew and a parting chisel I was ready to go. I was going to turn a bowl.

I had no idea of how to turn and literally had to resort to trial and error, totally oblivious to the fact I should have been using bowl gouges as a opposed to spindle gouges. Despite this, after the first few catches that scared me half to death, I had worked out how to present the chisel at the correct angle to avoid any more. The constant fear of further dig ins probably aided me the most and I made each cut very gently and with the up most care.

An embarrassing number of hours later I had finally finished turning and sanding my bowl and I was pleased with the fact I had succeeded doing it at all. Ok so the finish wasn’t that good and there were turning lines in it but it was still satisfying to know I had created it. In fact I was so taken with wood and turning it that I realised woodturning was what I wanted to do for a living.