Handmade Britans Best Woodworker 2023
Back in 2022 after a lengthy audition process I was accepted to be a contestant on the 3rd season of Britans Best Woodworker where myself and 9 other woodworkers battled it out over 5 weeks to be crowned ‘Britans Best Woodworker’.
My Story
Hi, I am a 20 year old Autistic Woodturner from Chester UK
How I Got Started
I first started woodworking in the summer of 2017 after I was introduced to the DT teacher at my school. The first project I ever made was a ‘kururin’ rolling stick on the school lathe from an old beech rolling pin. It took me a long time to turn and it didn’t look the best but it was my first project and I was really happy with it!
My DT teacher at school really encouraged me and helped me to get started in woodturning, so much so that in December 2017 I got my own lathe! Over the next few months I slowly got more tools until I had run out of space in my shed, so we cleared out our garage to use as a workshop.
My Lathe, Extractor and Disk/belt sander in the shed
All the tools in the garage
When we moved house about a year later I no longer had a space to work and had all my machines in two tiny sheds over the winter. I had to pull all my machines out onto our patio every time I needed to use them. Even so I turned my first segmented bowl, and then a segmented vase that I won the British Young Woodturner of the Year 2019 with!
One of the sheds at the back of the garden with my machines inside
My Segmented Zebrano Vase -Winner of the 2019 British Young Woodturner of the Year award
In March of 2019 work started on the new workshop. Construction was completed in early May 2019, before I immediately left for the Woodturner of the Year Award at the OXO Tower Gallery in London followed by Makers Central 2019 in Birmingham.
