I very rarely leave the house before 11am on a weekend but here I am on a Saturday morning at 9:30am cycling through the nearly deserted square mile, across an icy sunlit Southwark Bridge to get to the first day of my two day workshop at The Goodlife Centre where I will make a wood stool.
I walk into the workshop which is crammed with other eager students: a mix of men and women of various ages. Our teacher, Andy, introduces himself and his two assistants and we go through the usual cringey self introductions and find places to sit at the workshop benches.
Throughout the day we are guided through various techniques. We start by gluing two pieces of wood together with the extra support of wooden dowels to make what will be the stool seat, before planing the surface of the wood that will become the underside of the seat. I remember using planes at school, weighty tools, but satisfying to use, seeing the rough unhewn surface of the wood yield to a clean fresh newborn layer.
Andy, a fatherly gentle instructor, gets very enthusiastic about the smoothness of the wood and the characteristics within it, the dark knots and unusual grains in the surface. His obvious lifelong devotion to woodwork is infectious and permeates through the duration of the course.
Next we round the corners of the rectangular stool seats. First by sawing off a corner and then by using a spoke-shave plane - a sort of small two-handed plane that does finer work. It takes time to get a feel for it, but once I do, it has a very therapeutic quality to it, smoothing off the harsh edges of the wood.
At the end of day one I have a rectangular piece of wood with nicely rounded corners to show for six hours of labour. Though it has been a slow process it feels good to pay close attention and care to an object I am making with only the use of hand tools. I am not generally a patient person so this course forces me to pull back and wait for slow-paced results. It is a real antidote to general life and work and there is an undeniable sense of satisfaction in seeing the long-awaited tangible outcome.
On day two, the following week, we work in pairs to insert the stool legs into pre-drilled holes in the seat surface. Then come the stretchers - the wooden poles that join the legs to one another - and finally the long-awaited and best part: finishing the surface of the seat. Firstly we plane the parts of the legs that protrude above the seat surface then sweep the plane across the whole surface from edge to edge, working methodically from left to right until there is no unevenness.
With a little overtime for some of us, and a little extra help from Andy and the team, we all come away with a completed wood stool of varying heights and qualities. Walking through Borough with my stool held aloft, attempting to keep it distant from potential collisions with oncoming Saturday evening crowds, I feel tired but pleased, and excited by ideas of new woodwork projects.
