As I mentioned yesterday morning; it feels as though time is ticking on the remaining duration I have left in this workshop. Just browsing the internet a little while ago, I found myself searching for a ‘woodworking club’ in the Bristol area… It’s actually a dream I have; to be able to create and host a large workshop where anyone can come along to make something, to make use of the tools and equipment and to learn about working with wood. I’m not suggesting an idea where I would run my own college and courses. It would ideally be a ‘community workshop‘, where people might pay a membership fee, with the freedom to come along on their weekends and evenings.
If only there was an easy way to make it pay… Realistically, I dread to think how much of an investment it would require on tools and equipment alone. You’ve then got to factor in the maintenance (not forgetting the building and premises itself) and I’m sure there would need to be a HUGE emphasis on Health & Safety and meeting all the regular requirements and expectations… Sadly, I don’t think it’s a dream I’ll ever achieve while earning less than £7 an hour!
It’s another one for the ‘Lottery Winnings’ list, along with buying my own home and having a reasonably-sized workshop in my back garden (of course, I would need to start playing the National Lottery first!!).
One result I did come across, at the top of the list, was for the Avon & Bristol Woodturners (ABW). It’s an organisation I’ve come across before and they run a similar setup to my dream but focused entirely within the field of woodturning. If I am fortunate enough to end up in a place with a small garage (if, even, smaller than what I have now), I’d be quite happy with a lathe in one corner and a bandsaw for roughing out blanks (I think I will hang on to my turning tools anyway). But the AWGB are only a twenty-five minute drive from where I live and, even if I end up with nothing more than a few stacks of power tools in my next home, I could always join them for my woodworking fix.
I have always been curious about woodturning but, if you’ve seen images of my workshop then, the positioning of my lathe alone should give you an idea of how I approach it… Buried beneath my disc sander as a place on to which I can rest my saw horses!! It would always be warming the bench while my mitre saw and routers are making all the headlines…
It certainly won’t be the end! Thanks for reading.
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