Once upon a time you had to be extremely fit to be a woodworker. In an age before modern woodworking equipment, furniture making involved a great deal of back-breaking physical activity. Nowadays, while every aspect of woodworking is much easier, it does still involve hard work – and that can lead to aches and pains. …
This week saw the start of Term Two for our professional course students, and marks a transition from mostly learning basic skills to designing and making their own pieces. It’ a challenging period because learning all the skills you need to be a professional woodworker in 30 weeks involves intensity and hard work. This term, …
In today’s throw-away world, it sometimes seems easier to chuck out the sofa when you change the colour of your living room walls. But it’s an attitude that’s changing, driven largely by a growing recognition that fine old furniture has an intrinsic quality that new furniture often doesn’t. But it’s also about the environment, and …
This term is when it all gets really interesting with our students now designing and making their first pieces of furniture. It’s the start of the creative fun, when students test themselves on how much they’ve learned and the skills they still have to practice. One student with something of a head start is Jacob …
Anselm Fraser, principal, The Chippendale International School of Furniture, is writing a monthly article for the prestigious publication, The Woodworker. Here’s his first article. Woodworking, and teaching woodworking, has been my life and all of us who are somehow involved in woodworking, either as amateurs or professionals, love the whole business of working with wood. …
The Chippendale school has an international reputation that attracts students from across the world – even for our introductory and intermediate courses. These one-week and one-month courses have proved exceptionally popular, with recent intermediate course students coming from Germany and Brazil. We’ve also had recent introductory course students from Taiwan, Italy, and Germany, with the …
