Summer School Woodworking Course

We’re bringing back our Summer School….

After a short hiatus, we are back with our summer school, opening up our entire knowledge base on hand-tools to give you information and insights that are usually only available to our 12-month students. Not everyone can commit a year of their lives to follow their passion, but two weeks of the right knowledge can get you a very long way indeed.

That is why we have taken everything we teach our 12-month students about hand-tools and packed it into an intensive two-week course this August.

What you will learn:

• The tools that you actually need – the Rowden essentials revealed
• Develop a deep knowledge-base with a daily lecture from head-tutor Daren Millman, so at the end of the class you’ll have a stack of information distilled from over 40 years of experience in one of the finest cabinetmaking workshops in the world.
• What’s better – buying new or vintage? – we tell you what to look out for and what to avoid.
• How the professionals set up each and every tool to give them precision instruments for precision work.
• The holy grail of hand-tool work – tuning a hand-plane for that super-fine shaving.
• Correctly sharpen everything, and keep it sharp throughout the job
• Practice practice practice. This course teaches select hand-tool projects that have been training cabinetmakers for centuries. You’ll learn precision making skills. There are no quick roads to making here at Rowden – just the time-honoured process of developing skill, patience and perfection.
• Finished? How the professionals use abrasives to correctly conclude a job and not just fix mistakes.
• Oil, French polish and wax. These ancient, natural and luxurious finishes are standard at Rowden – we very rarely diverge from them and we’ll guide you into using them the way the professionals do.

What makes this course special?

This course is an intensive as any at Rowden but we’ve added a few extra features over and above our usual courses, to make this Summer School program extra special:

• Our daily lectures will dovetail with the summer school subject – covering hand tools in depth – their correct use, applications and weaknesses.
• Lunchtime woodworking films – be inspired by some of the greats.
• A Classic Hand Tools discount for anyone on the course.
• Exclusive access to Rowden’s Heritage and Hand-made tool store with a summer-school discount.
• A copy of the last book our late founder, David Savage, wrote shortly before his passing – ‘The Intelligent Hand’.
• Course price: £1,550