Professional Turners

I was born in Middlesbrough in the north-east of England and after leaving school served a 4 year fabrication apprenticeship in the chemical industry. In 1988 I saw a woodturner at a local game fair and thinking it looked fun decided to have a go. Fatal mistake!. A workshop and lathe soon followed and in 1995 I decided to change career and moved to Cornwall to take a 1 year course in cabinetmaking. To help ends meet after the course finished, I took on small woodturning production runs and gallery work and I also started teaching and demonstrating woodturning . I am now a full time woodturner and have work in private collections all over the world. I love the process of passing on my skills and knowledge and get a great amount of satisfaction when I can see that I have fired up someones enthusiasm or imagination.
I am on the Register of Professional Turners in the UK.

I have been woodturning for about 28 years and sell my work through select galleries and the National Trust.
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I use storm felled or otherwise damaged trees which I convert myself.
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I am proud to have been accepted onto the Register of Professional Turners. I am also proud to have been given the job of Editor of the internationally renowned Magazine Woodturning which I held for two years. I now write regularly for this and other magazines.​

I have demonstrated the craft of woodturning in USA, New Zealand and throughout Europe.
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I enjoy teaching my craft to beginners and can offer useful advice to the more experienced turner. I run woodturning courses both in my own workshop in Devon and at West Dean College in West Sussex.

Working with wood and woodturning has always been an important part of Dave Appleby’s life. He spent many hours as a teenager, working in a shed in his family’s back garden on a small lathe, which had an electric drill as motor and drive centre.

Although woodturning was not Dave’s main career it was an integral part of his life and he took every opportunity to increase his skills. His workshop developed over the years and he now has three lathes his favourite being his VB36 Bowl Turning Lathe. In 2001 he made the decision to immerse himself in his woodturning as a full time business.

Dave Regester began turning full time in 1974 and is self taught. He sells in David Mellor and Divertimenti in London and Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Devon. David has written many articles for Woodturning magazine and five books. He taught at Parnham College and has demonstrated and taught in Britain and abroad.

David Springett is a woodturner but don't expect bowls. His work is turned from wood, on an ordinary lathe (his self imposed constraint). Using a basic lathe he has devised ways of turning cubes, tetrahedrons, dodecahedrons, twisted polygons (&more) as well as more regular spheres, objects turned within spheres, elliptical forms, in fact a wide variety of unexpected shapes.
David has been a professional turner since 1980 and has written 5 books on woodturning. One book "Adventures in Woodturning" is now out of print.
It is the challenge that drives David forward, often searching for inspiration outside the discipline of woodturning. It is always useful to be jolted out of the rut of repetition by accepting new concepts and ideas.
You will be surprised by what David can produce on an ordinary lathe.

I have been woodturning since 1977 and now produce a variety of work of the highest quality, mostly from trees grown in Cornwall and Devon.

My work can be found in New Zealand, America, Canada, Australia and Europe.

I work mainly with timber, which is either dead or storm damaged.

My bowls and vases are partly turned as soon as possible after obtaining the tree, they are then left to air dry for a period of 2/3 years, before being returned to the lathe and shaped to a high quality finish using mainly Danish Oil.

Gary has a customer base of approximately 400, some of these are supplying such places as Harrods and Liberty’s and has also produced work for the homes of the Duke of Westminster and British celebrities.
Gary has also produced tools for the woodturner, notably his round skew chisels which come in different sizes, lightpull drive, Box Scraper and his Easybead tool. He can turn his hand to spindle turning, bowl turning, hollow forms and twists and says that he will make anything from a lace bobbin to a billiard table leg.

Gary has been asked to teach on numerous occasions by Craft Supplies and has been teaching at Craft Supplies in France past two years. Axminster Power Tools plus many individuals. You can often see him taking a Master Class at various shows and has taught for three days at Axminster but due to the demands of his production business does not always have the time.

My passion for wood started at an early age, and with the love and encouragement of my family I started woodturning as a hobby. My parents were very supportive enabling me to attend Parnham House for weeklong courses. Leaving school at 17 I attended Buckingham College in High Wycombe from where I graduated aged 21 with a BA HONS in Furniture Design and Management. After being made redundant I took up a position that enables me both to teach my turning skills but also to hone and develop them further. I have now been there for nearly a decade. I now make a range of turned items ranging from commissions to craft shop regulars; each is produced to the same exacting standards. I create a range of functional items such as fruit bowls and light pulls to purely decorative items such as boxes and other abstract pieces. I also produce solitaire sets where each ball is hand turned in a different timber.

Jimmy is not your ordinary woodturner. Upon a first meeting one would think of him as a renegade, a free thinker and not within the stereotypical image of a woodturner. His charming British style, unending wit, creative mind and magnetic personality are only some of the attributes that make him popular in the woodturning demonstration circuit.

Jimmy is on the Register of Professional Woodturners in the United Kingdom and a member of the American Association of Woodturners. He has over 22 years of experience in woodturning and woodworking. The demand for his services as a freelance demonstrator and teacher takes him all over the world including his homeland of the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, Belgium, Australia.

Joey Richardson is an English artist known for her delicate wood forms. Born in Lincolnshire England, she grew up in the heart of Twigmoor Woods on a small farm. Here, the magnificent trees subliminally rooted within her a deep love for the woodland and she began turning and carving reclaimed local timber.

In 2005 a Worshipful Company of Turners bursary and seven years later a Scholarship from The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) and Carpenters Company, funded development studies in America. Her MA in Fine Art (University of Lincoln 2018) augmented her craft skills with a theoretical depth born of intense inquiry through extensive research. There is often an autobiographical element in her work which has strong links to the history of the place and the origin of material. Joey’s practice investigates the emotional and symbiotic relationship humans have with trees. She often incorporates mixed media, transposing the material to add another layer of conceptual reasoning.

Les Thorne has been on the Register for Professional Turners since 2001 after spending the majority of his life involved with wood in some capacity.

From his workshop in Old Alresford in Hampshire, Les is primarily a production turner and works on a huge variety of jobs and with many different clients.

The turning point in my life (sorry no pun intended) came in 1989; relocation to Yorkshire with the firm I was working for as an accountant or redundancy and a new career direction? I choose the latter and with the aid of the Government Employment Training scheme began training with a professional turner. During this period I took second prize for turning in the National Eisteddfod of Wales; first prize went to my tutor!

I began by specialising in high quality turned decorative and functional bowls and individual vessels using simple designs to bring out the natural beauty and variations in colour, texture and figuring of local timbers. As each piece of timber is an unknown quantity before being turned I worked with the wood. A cliché maybe, but it is a relationship that develops between initial ideas for a piece and inspiration drawn from the timber as it reveals itself.

My work is free flowing of simple form, I believe that it should evolve from the here and now from the initial idea to completion. I may have an idea about what I am going to create, beyond this my mind is kept open and receptive to changes that evolve along the way, on occasions it may take a different path than intended.

This method allows me freedom as I work, often an unexpected change happens for a reason and should be embraced, this is a major part of the creative process and for me the difference between freedom of expression and constraint.

Wood, mixed media, texture, form and colour feature in my work which is influenced by Far Eastern philosophies, cultures as well as the natural forms and textures found in nature.

Nick Agar has become one of the most sought after instructors/workshop leaders and seminar presenters on the world woodturning stage. He is one of the most creative makers in the field and has an unsurpassed knowledge and understanding of the many processes that are now used in this creative medium.Specialising in surface enhancement and renowned for his wall sculptures, his award winning work often incorporates carving, airbrushing, ceramic and metal effects. Nick has inspired many woodturners with his work and has travelled across the world to demonstrate his skills.

With more than 25 years experience He has a great understanding of his medium. Choosing burrs and intriguing or figured timber for the majority of his work; exposing natures treasures beneath the bark.

Nikos specializes in combining turning and carving to create artistic sculptural forms using mainly local woods from the island of Crete where he has lived all his life. He takes his inspiration from the sea, which he lives close to, as well as being influenced both by the beautiful natural environment he lives in and the classic forms of Ancient Greece. He has a vast range of woodturning experience as he has supplied his own gallery in Rethymno for the last 30 years and has helped in restoration projects of Venetian and Turkish buildings in the historic old town of Rethymno. In addition to running his gallery, he holds woodturning courses in his workshop, writes articles for Woodturning magazine, has designed a deep hollowing tool for Hamlet Tools in the UK and demonstrates and teaches each year in various places in Europe. More recently he has set up the first Greek woodturning club and started demonstrating in schools to help encourage young people to take up woodturning.

Paul Hayden has been making chairs since 1989. His six day Chair Making Courses are held under cover in the woods of Westonbirt, the National Arboretum. Pole lathes and benches are set up to create a traditional chairmaker's workshop where Paul and his team teach more than 100 people each year to turn freshly felled ash logs into chairs that will last for generations.

Phil Irons has turned exquisite vases for many years, and created some wonderful one-off masterpieces from his studio workshop in the Warwickshire. His expertise in the field has led him to write books on the subject, travel the world demonstrating and teaching his techniques. He also runs several successful teaching classes, from the beginner hobbyist to more advanced masterclasses on the lathe.

Richard Raffan is woodturner, well known for his turned bowls and boxes, as teacher and demonstrator, and author of classic woodturning books and DVDs. Tens of thousands of woodturners have learned the craft from Richard’s books and videos.

He is a retired Police Inspector who became a proficient amateur turner before his retirement in 1989.

Following his retirement he won several National competitions after which he started to demonstrate, judge and write for National and International magazines. His reputation grew at home and abroad. He is now well known and admired in international wood turning circles for his variety of work, fresh ideas and spiral work, he travels widely attending seminars and exhibitions as a sought after teacher and demonstrator.

Stuart’s work often features some form of spiral work, an example is his popular twisted goblet first produced in 1969 and his twisted hollow form with a twisted finial, his work is collected throughout the world by private collectors and museums alike.

Tobias is a self-taught craftsman and the originator of Sounding Bowls. Born as the second son of a Bio-Dynamic farmer in rural Ireland he was brought up in Sussex woodlands and had a Waldorf education which was followed by a good deal of travel. His passionate interest in what makes the world go round led him through a wide diversity of experiences and studies while working in various countries in building, forestry, computing, horticulture, hospitality, child care (including special needs) and on to become a self-employed sculptor using the lathe as a principle tool.

Tracy is on the Register of Professional Turners and has won many awards in National shows over the last twelve years for his innovative turning. He also writes articles for Woodturning magazine. Having established himself as one of the few woodturning professionals to derive his sole livelihood from woodturning Tracy specialises in green (or wet) wood turning of bowls and hollow forms to produce unique one off pieces. Green wood is used as the wood moves when it is drying and adds character to the piece. Tracy also likes to add texture to his work which is achieved with sandblasting, carving, chainsawing, colouring and the use of the Robert Sorby texturing tool which he invented.