Can you teach yourself woodworking?

Many years ago when I first set up a workshop I knew a man called Ken, also in his late twenties and who also was self-employed as a joiner/furniture maker. He was self-taught and I remember thinking at the time, impressed though I was with his work, it seemed a very slow way to learn and in my experience (which included working in a furniture factory), method and speed were just as important as accuracy and crucial for making a living from woodworking. In those days we rented rooms at £5 a week, in fact Ken took over my room in a shared house when I found a property to renovate.

Obviously anybody can teach themself almost anything; I am self-taught as a guitarist and have such engrained bad habits that limit my lead performances because I learned the wrong way.

High Backed Rocking Chair in ash by self-taught designer Jeremy Broun

If you teach yourself you still need to read books which of course today have been largely replaced by YouTube videos, but which videos are good and deliver sound knowledge?

Some videos demonstrate unsafe practice and others painfully slow, backwood looking practice.

But the choice is yours. Somewhere along the line it helps to be inspired, which can be a matter of luck and timing.

It would be wrong to suggest every woodworker should receive tuition. You certainly dont need a university degree to become a cabinetmaker although the trend is for that status. But in my own case I received the best possible training in cabinetry on and Advanced wood course at Shoreditch College (now long gone of course).

When I set up my own workshop I survived as a self-taught designer developing my own style that was no artistic whim but evolved from my limited tools and resources.

After three years I decided I needed a professional design training so I took a year off on a post-graduate course at High Wycombe college (late Bucks college). It was a course designed for the mass production industry so I was an oddball as a solo designer maker. I had already sold numerous rocking chairs (that were to become my trademark). I took one to the college to show my tutor (who probaly had not earned his crust from making) and he negated my style. So to cut a long story short it was a disastrous year but with a silver lining to it which I will expand on in a future blog.

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