At The Woodturning School, we've welcomed hundreds of students through the doors since January. Each one arrives with questions, leaves with skills, and without realising it teaches us something in the exchange.
Here's what we've learned:
Sharpening remains the great unlocking. We knew this already, but 2026 reinforced it. Student after student arrives struggling with technique, convinced something fundamental is wrong with their approach. Often, it's simply a dull tool. Sharpen it, and the "technique problem" vanishes. We've started every class with more sharpening time, and the difference shows in everything that follows.
We are looking at a course that can help people with their sharpening either at the school or through video assistance. It is a surprisingly tricky thing to achieve, but we are working on it!
Fear of the skew is almost always worse than the skew itself. Les Thorne's classes continue to transform people's relationship with this misunderstood tool. The pattern is consistent: students arrive terrified, leave confident, and wonder why they avoided it for so long. The catches they feared were never inevitable – just the result of specific, correctable mistakes.
People need permission to go slowly. The world outside the workshop rewards speed. Efficiency. Getting things done. Many students arrive with that energy, rushing through cuts, impatient with the learning curve. The lathe doesn't care about your schedule. It rewards patience, punishes haste, and teaches its own rhythm to anyone willing to learn it. Giving people explicit permission to slow down – telling them that taking twice as long is fine – visibly changes how they work.
Community matters more than curriculum. The content of our classes is important, but the connections formed during them might matter more. Students help each other, share discoveries, and maybe stay in touch afterwards and even join our Woodturning360 club. The craft grows through relationship, not just instruction.
Mistakes remain the best teachers. We say this often, but watching it happen never gets old. The student whose catch became a design feature. The off-centre mounting that created unexpected character. The "ruined" piece that taught more than a dozen successful ones. Failure, approached correctly, is just accelerated learning.
“What has your year at the lathe taught you so far?”
Class Recommendation: The year isn't over – plenty of time to learn something new. Browse our autumn schedule at thewoodturning.school