Two Pints of Cider and a Gardener’s Dibber.

My friend Mike Waldt came down to the workshop a few weeks ago, bought me a sandwich, and then spent the afternoon asking me about the last eleven years. He's put the conversation up on his channel. It runs to a little over forty minutes, so you may want to put the kettle on first.

It was an odd thing, talking through all of it in one sitting. Some of it I hadn't thought about in years.

It started with a dibber

On 29 May 2014 I was working behind a bar at an agricultural show. There was a chap turning on a lathe behind our marquee, and out of pure curiosity I asked if I could have a go. It cost me two pints of cider. The next morning, before the gates opened at nine, he helped me turn a gardener's dibber. It took about twenty minutes, and by the end of it I'd decided I was going to be a woodturner.

I was 38. I'd lost my photography studio not long before, and I was doing odd jobs to keep things going. Mike asked when I'd decided to make a career of it. The honest answer is that first morning. I've never been much good at doing things by half. Impulsive, perhaps, but I'd make the same call again.

The lump on the wall

My first lathe was a Myford, which did me proud for about a year until I wanted to turn bigger work. Most of what I learned in those early days came from YouTube, and much of it from American turners, because that was most of what was out there. I'd watch a video, go out to the garage, get a catch, then go back indoors and watch it again to work out what I'd done wrong.

In October 2015 a piece came off the lathe and hit me in the face, straight through a basic face shield. My nose still hurt at Christmas, so I'm fairly sure it was broken. A quarter of that piece now hangs on the workshop wall with a small plaque, and it's part of the safety brief whenever I teach. I'd stopped paying proper respect to the machine that day, and the wood made the point for me.

In 2016 I met Les Thorne, who put me straight on a few things. I share a workshop with him now and we talk about turning every single day. He's very old school and I'm rather newer school, and the two blend together better than you might expect.

Colour from the start

One of the first pieces I made on that Myford got dyed purple with food colouring, so the colour habit goes back a long way. If I'm honest, I find some woods a bit dull, and those become a canvas for me to work on.

Mike asked about the Intrinsic Colours, and the story is a fairly domestic one. They came together on a Sunday afternoon at the kitchen table, with a handful of bottles of concentrate, a pipette and a little board of maple. I'd drop a mix on the board, decide I liked it and give it a name. Forest Green and Ruby both came out of that afternoon. Nine years on, I'm still making them, and you can find them at Yandles.

The rest of the story

We covered a lot more ground than I can fit here. My first demonstration was at Axminster in Basingstoke in November 2015. It was probably too soon, and it was certainly a baptism of fire, but I enjoyed the weekend. Mike, Steve Toddell and I put the first UK and Ireland Woodturning Symposium together in under nine months, mostly over Skype in the small hours. On its first weekend in June 2016 we had six hundred-odd people through the ballroom doors at the Hilton in Coventry, and I still remember the queue on the opening morning.

I joined the Register of Professional Turners in 2018. It had been a goal from the moment I heard it existed, and I now sit on the committee. Since then I've demonstrated in the US, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, along with a weekend on the Isle of Mull that I still smile about.

Mike asked what was left to aim for, and I think my answer surprised him. I'd like more time for my own turning, and I'd like to keep sharing what I make, the way I always have.

What I'd tell myself in 2014

Take a lesson. If things had been different for me financially back then, I'd have had lessons from the very start. It would have saved me a broken nose and a great deal of wasted timber.

After that, be kind to yourself when it goes wrong, because it will. Learn to sharpen properly, since a sharp tool is a safe tool. Then spend as much time at the lathe as you can, on pine if you like. If you can get a good finish on pine, you'll get one on anything.

And spend proper money on protecting your face and your lungs. Most of us only get one set of each.

Thank you, Mike, for the sandwich and the questions. If you've got forty minutes and a cup of tea, the whole conversation is on his channel.