Woodworking careers: Furniture making
For many, a furniture making career feels like a distant dream. Although they have a passion for woodwork and design, many would-be woodworkers don’t realise that furniture making is a viable career option.
Woodworking Tips
A value for everything, and the cost of selling nothing
In the last of his series of articles on modern woodworking, Anselm Fraser, principal of the Chippendale International School of Furniture, looks at the thorny issue of how to price bespoke furniture. Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde, the 19th century playwright, would have understood the problem completely. In his play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, he writes …
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Choosing your tree to make flawless furniture
The Chippendale International School of Furniture, half an hour from Edinburgh, is situated in rolling East Lothian countryside close to fantastic mature forests of oak, elm, lime, ash, chestnut, sycamore and beech trees; an environment with all the raw materials needed to make flawless furniture.
“We teach students on our nine month course to plant a tree, choose a tree, fell it and plank it,” says Anselm Fraser, Chippendale Furniture School Principal.
“There is much more to selecting a good tree for furniture making than you might think. You need to understand the effects of shrinkage, defects in the wood and warp.”
The furniture design process: 10 steps to success
The spring term at the Chippendale International School of Furniture started with a design theme. Design is the very essence of a good furniture school and is taught throughout the course from many different angles, starting right from the very first day. Anselm Fraser, the school’s principal, says: “Our students learn how to conceptualise their …
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3 Tips for Practical Colour Matching
As most of us already know, woodworking isn’t all about making furniture. From time to time we will be called upon to do some furniture restoration. One of the most challenging tasks when it comes to furniture restoration is colour-matching. Here Graham Davis gives us a few tips on how to get the perfect finish.
