Martin Saban-Smith standing in a woodworking workshop with tools and equipment on the walls, including wood-turning lathe, chisels, and paints.

Woodturning as meditation, storytelling, and personal growth. Sometimes all at once.

I'm Martin Saban-Smith. Professional turner, teacher, and firm believer that craft grows richer when it's shared.

Whether you're picking up a gouge for the first time or you've been making shavings for decades, you're in the right place. I care less about perfection than I do about the process, the thinking behind the making, and the pleasure of working with your hands in a world that increasingly encourages you not to.

Pull up a stool. Let me show you around.

WHAT CAN I HELP YOU WITH?

Martin Saban-Smith demonstrating woodturning on a lathe to students in a workshop, with one student wearing a protective helmet and apron.

Learn to Turn

At The Woodturning School in Hampshire, you'll work on one of six full-size lathes with all tools provided. The space is designed for learning: proper extraction, good lighting, room to breathe.

Courses range from beginner sessions (where you'll be making shavings within the first hour) through intermediate projects to Sunday Studio Sessions for capable turners who want mentored practice time. You'll leave with finished pieces, new skills, and the confidence to keep turning when you get home.

Explore The Woodturning School

Read the Books

Woodturning: Form and Formula is 180 pages on how design principles can guide your eye and hand at the lathe. Seven step-by-step projects, the Rule of Thirds, the Golden Ratio, and a design approach that doesn't require a mathematics degree.

A Maker's Mindset: 30 Lessons from the Lathe is something different. Quieter, more personal. Thirty reflections on what woodturning teaches you when you pay attention — about patience, focus, and what it means to care about doing something well for its own sake.

Open book with a wooden box on the left page and an illustration of a wooden box on the right page, placed on a wooden surface. A second book titled "WOODTURNING Form and Formula" with a image of a woodturning tool and a wooden bowl on the cover partially covers the open book.
Read the Books

Watch & Learn

Nearly 300 videos on YouTube covering projects, techniques, tool reviews, and the very occasional design disaster. I stream live most Tuesday evenings — free, informal, and you don't have to sweep up afterwards.

For something more focused, I offer monthly paid demonstrations via Zoom for smaller audiences.

Martin Saban-Smith in a brown cap and leather vest demonstrates a woodturning process using a lathe in a workshop filled with various paints and supplies.
Watch on YouTube

Join a Community

Woodturning can be a solitary craft. There's real beauty in that solitude. But craft also grows through connection, through seeing how other people approach the same problems you've been staring at for a fortnight.

Woodturning360 is an online club meeting twice monthly: a professional demonstration on the first Monday, an open discussion on the third. Members from eleven countries, one shared passion, no hierarchy, no competition. £6 a month — less than a pint and a packet of crisps, and considerably more useful for your turning.

Logo for Woodturning 360 with a green background, blue outer border, and the text 'WOODTURNING 360' in yellow above the large number 360.
Join Woodturning360
Featured
TJ Episode 29: Wrapping Up the Season, Launching a Book, and a Week That Didn't Stop
TJ Episode 29: Wrapping Up the Season, Launching a Book, and a Week That Didn't Stop

I've been thinking a lot about Turner's Journey lately, about what it is, how often it should land, and where it goes from here. After all your generous comments and suggestions over recent weeks, I've decided to bring this first season to a close at Episode 30.

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The Neuroscience of Making: What Happens When Your Hands Create
The Neuroscience of Making: What Happens When Your Hands Create

There's a physiological connection between our hands and our wellbeing that goes deeper than psychology. Studies have shown that engaging in creative handwork reduces cortisol (the stress hormone), increases dopamine (associated with satisfaction and reward), and can even lower blood pressure.

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A Maker's Mindset Is Here, Teaching Days and Late-Night Recording
A Maker's Mindset Is Here, Teaching Days and Late-Night Recording

Some weeks in the workshop are about making things on the lathe. Others are about making things happen around it. This one was firmly in the second camp.

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A Maker's Mindset: 30 Lessons from the Lathe
A Maker's Mindset: 30 Lessons from the Lathe

If you've read Woodturning: Form and Formula (that talks about proportion, design, and the visual language of turned forms) and have enjoyed the more philosophical social media posts I’ve written recently, you'll know I like to think about the craft in ways that go beyond the technical. My new book one goes somewhere different. Deeper, I think. More personal, certainly.
PREORDER DISCOUNT AVAILABLE!

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Why I Started Woodturning360 (And What Community Means for Makers)
Why I Started Woodturning360 (And What Community Means for Makers)

Woodturning can be a solitary craft. There's beauty in that solitude – just you and the lathe, the quiet focus, the meditative rhythm of making. But craft also grows through connection, through seeing how others approach the same challenges.

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TJ Episode 027 Ancient Greek Inspiration and Honest Talk About Motivation
TJ Episode 027 Ancient Greek Inspiration and Honest Talk About Motivation

This week on Turner's Journey, it's been a mixed bag of workshop life. I've been filming a new video for the Byte-Size Workshop on tool rest height, prepping pen blanks (not my favourite job, I'll be honest), and I made the early-morning drive over to Sandon Woodturners in Essex for a demonstration.

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Your Brain on Wood: Why Making Things Matters More Than You Think
Your Brain on Wood: Why Making Things Matters More Than You Think

I've spent over a decade at the lathe. People sometimes ask what keeps me coming back, why I'm still as engaged now as I was on day one. The easy answer is that I love making things. The fuller answer involves what's happening in my brain while I work.

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TJ Episode 26: A Rainy Day, a Perished Hose, and Some Honest Thinking
TJ Episode 26: A Rainy Day, a Perished Hose, and Some Honest Thinking

Some days in the workshop are about grand projects. Others are about the less glamorous stuff that keeps everything running. This was one of those days.

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