woodworking courses

[radicalwood]

Hi Guys,

Went to sign on for a city and guilds cabinet course at Dudley collage Birmingham last night, only to be told that due to the lack of skilled people to teach the course it had been canceled .

There must be someone out there that is willing to pass on there skills and teach this. It was only for one eve a week 3 hours.
No wonder we are getting a skill shortage in this country.

Ok thats the whining out of the way

Did manage to get on a general woodwork course at a local school, hopefully this may help me get better as I have only learnt from books and you lot :lol:. But having some one looking over your shoulder putting you write is invaluable IMHP.

Cheers Neil

 

[Gill]

Hey - I've just found an evening course in 'proper' woodwork in my locality : http://www.ne-worcs.ac.uk/index.php?tb=2&pg=37&uid=307 Is this the course you're talking about, Neil?

Now I'll have to unlearn all the bad woodworking habits I've developed over the years :? .

Gill

 

[radicalwood]

Hi Gill,

That looks good and its closer to me that dudley. I have booked on this one http://www.dudleycol.ac.uk/courses/sear ... asp?ID=468 for ten weeks, so will see how it goes.

If its not very good I might drip you a line and see if your one is better.
I want to have a go at a couple of Ash tables, with the legs mortised through and held with wedges. I am not sure my skills are good enough hence the course. but the wood was fairly cheep even though I missed the auction last weekend. Managed to pick up some Ash 7" x 1.5" x 9' 8 pieces already planes up which made up for it :wink: :wink: .

Cheers Neil

 

[Gill]

Your table projects sound interesting, Neil. For myself, I'm thinking of converting my ash into a workbench and perhaps this course might be a good opportunity to do so.

I wonder what the tutor would say if I turned up with David Charlesworth's book and said, "That's the sort of bench I'd like to make" .

Gill

 

[Travis Byrne]

Hello Gill and Radicalwood
Years ago my brother took a woodworking course. At the first meeting, the instructor told the students that the school had made arrangements with local lumber yard for a discount on wood purchases. He continued to receive the discount long after school was finished.
This might be worth checking into.

Travis

 

[Gill]

Having made enquiries, it appears the course I'm interested in is on Monday evenings from 6.30 to 9.30 at Brook House, Lakeside, Redditch. It'll cost £295 and lead to an OCN Certificate Level 2, which is roughly comparable to an 'O' level, in old money. The course emphasises the use of bench tools, so I'm going to have to build a bench sooner rather than later.

It sounds good to me - all I've got to do now is persuade my financier .

Gill

 

[Anonymous]

Forgive the following ramble but I thought I would mention that you need to look carefully at what your getting for your not inconsiderable £290 plus possibly additional registration fee ! Not trying to put anyone off as I enjoyed it but as with anything else find out what your getting the facilities etc are not all equal and where I went was seriously under resourced.

I attended a woodworking course for two years and was a great introduction

First year was great intoducing hand tools. First lesson use a knife not a pencil and how to cut various joints by hand before using a machine. We buillt a small frame with a different joint at each corner mortice, half lap, dovetail and bridle, this took up at least the first term (13 weeks) after that you could build anything you wanted, normally based on what you could fit in the car) once taught how to use the machines you could use them anytime as long as the teacher was present. Fantastic experience of how to operate the machinnes safely ie great big wadkin planer with about six foot beds on either side, seperate planer thickneser morticer RAS etc. Second year went a bit wrong

1 you had to do C&G qualification which involved 3 projects one with housing joints one with stopped housing and one with morticing so you better like shelf units :lol: . I personally was not intrested in gaining a qualification I've got a career this is a hobby and having to draw anger, and serenity etc was not at the forefront of what I wanted to learn but that's probably just me having a slight bee in my bonnet about the qualification mafia

2 Due to Health & Safety we weren't allowed to use some of the equipment eg the thicknesser. We could ask the teacher who would get an assistant to thickness it to whatever dimension for the following week. This was a real pain as it caused delays, and he was not as likely to love that wood as much as you (having forked out a small fortune for it) so he might not take pay as much attention to grain direction or take a final light cut to leave the best surface possible, plus at the inevitable mistakes you want 22mm oh well you got 20mm

At one point it was muted that we would have to complete specific set projects but the teacher obviously smelt revolt (or is that ing)

 

[Mdotflorida]

I'm enrolling on this one. It's 3pm-9pm on Mondays and the cost is only £35.

http://www.colegsirgar.ac.uk/english/co ... h?view=678

Jeff

 

[Gill]

Wales sounds like such a lovely place to live - nice scenery and cheap woodwork courses. Have fun.

Gill

 

[radicalwood]

Hi Jeff,

Is that per week at £35, if not it sounds good to me. bit far to travel though :lol: :lol: .
Sticking with the one at Dudley at the mo. Looking forward to it stars next week.

Neil

 

[Mdotflorida]

I'm off to enrol later today so I will confirm it then, but I checked again and the registration fee of £35 covers the whole course.

I suspect extra costs may be involved if the are textbooks etc and I would also expect some further additional costs to cover any materials needed for the practial work.

But you can't complain at that eh ?



Jeff

 

[Mdotflorida]

Hi Jeff,

Is that per week at £35, if not it sounds good to me. bit far to travel though :lol: :lol: .
Sticking with the one at Dudley at the mo. Looking forward to it stars next week.

Neil

Just been to enrol. Sorry Neil, I was misled. It's not £35 It's only £31 for the whole term :lol:

30 weeks of 3 - 9 starting next Monday. Additional costs for the materials that you use.

As you would expect, the course is going to be well attended. The classroom facilities look good and the workshop is large and well equipped with lots of machinery and bench space.

Jeff

 

[Gill]

For that price, Jeff, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the bandsaws are operated by a foot treadle. In fact, I'm so jealous I almost hope they are :wink: .

Gill

 

[Alf]

For that price, Jeff, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the bandsaws are operated by a foot treadle.

If they are, I want pics! :lol: