carpentry school

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.”

A Strathclyde police officer’s first impressions as a Chippendale Furniture student

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A blog by Sean McManus, furniture design student

Rapidly approaching the mid point of my course at the Chippendale School of Furniture I find myself reflecting on what has gone and, with some trepidation, to what has yet to come. To use the old cliché, it does seem like only yesterday I visited the school for the first time and was taken aback by the results achieved by the previous year’s students. Their furniture designs were on display for all to see in the great hall, open to criticism from anyone with an opinion, and the acid test awaits… ‘will it sell!’