Learn Woodcraft and Experience the Joy of Wood
The Joy of Wood’s focus is teaching traditional woodworking hand skills and techniques – the kinds of skills used for centuries. We love to provide woodworking experiences for people of all ages, though our workshop programs, private tuition, and work in schools and festivals. To create with our hands is wonderfully empowering, so come and enrich your life as you experience the Joy of working Wood the traditional way!
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Learn Traditional Woodcraft Skills
We love to share the joy of woodworking the traditional way, using the tools and techniques which have been used through the centuries. Wood is a fantastic natural material, a gift from the Trees, and making things from it using our hands and some simple tools is a delightfully physical, tactile, and enjoyable experience! With no screaming power tools, we can talk and laugh together, so we gain more from the experience than just the lovely wooden items we have crafted.
For most of our workshops and classes, no previous woodworking experience is required. However we can also offer Master Classes for those with more experience in woodworking.
Sadly, as from 1 January 2023, our Heritage Woodcraft Centre is temporarily homeless. We have lost our place where we had been, behind Timbecon for nearly 8 years. We are currently looking for a new home.
So we currently do not have a dedicated teaching space, set up for the running of our Public and Private Workshops and Private Tuition.
However, we do run the Stirling Women's Shed in Scarborough, in a partnership with the City of Stirling. So all of our work with women and with kids is now taking place in that wonderful facility.
For info about workshops for women, go to www.trybooking.com/eventlist/woodwomen
For info about workshops for kids, go to www.trybooking.com/eventlist/woodworkingworkshops
We are also mobile, taking the Joy of Wood’s woodworking activities out into the community in various locations and events. Come and be part of the fun!
Attend a Woodcraft Workshop
Real skills. Real tools. Real wood.
Woodworking traditions are as old as Humanity itself. Over countless generations the tools and traditions have evolved in all cultures and societies. Most of the tools lining the walls of our Heritage Woodcraft Centre reflect European technological developments over the last thousand years. We teach green wood spoon carving in the techniques developed over centuries primarily in the forest cultures of Northern Europe. Our axes, adzes and drawknives reflect the advancements in technology developed by the Vikings. We make stools and chairs from green wood using the pre-industrial knowledge, tools and techniques taken for granted by traditional craftspeople through the Ages. Many of the saws, planes and other tools we use were developed and refined during the Industrial Revolution and into the 19th and 20th Centuries.
We appreciate old hand tools, and we value their history. When we use them we are part of this great continuum and of their story. Good tools, when cared for and used properly, will last for generations.
We teach people of all ages how to correctly use hand tools. This makes them more efficient, so it is easier on our bodies and on the tools. We like to draw on the wisdom of the Ages. These are part of the essential skills in traditional hand tool woodworking. They are also the foundational skills. When you have these you can make and fix just about anything made from wood.
We have a passion for wood as a remarkable low energy, sustainable, renewable, recyclable natural material. We teach about the biology of trees and wood, as a greater understanding of this material greatly improves our woodworking experience. Different trees offer up wood with different properties, traditional uses, and characteristics. We are committed to wood recycling, and believe that no wood should be going into land fill. Rescued from going into land fill, pallets and packing crates from Europe and North America provide us with some beautiful softwoods which are relatively easy for kids to work. Wood recycling is good for the Planet and good for the Soul.
