John Lloyd Fine Furniture

Contact Name: John Lloyd

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Address:
Bankside Farm
Ditchling Common
Burgess Hill
East Sussex
RH15 0SJ

John Lloyd Fine Furniture

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This craft course provider has been awarded Platinum status for receiving 50 or more 5 star ratings from previous students.

The Students' Choice award ensures that course providers get recognised for their efforts in the teaching and practice of UK craft.

They also allow tutors to gain valuable feedback on their courses and for new students to find the course that's right for them.

About John Lloyd Fine Furniture

Over the 28 years I have been running a successful bespoke furniture making and antique restoration business, I have become passionate about passing on the skills and knowledge through my Woodworking School.

We have designed a range of educational long and short courses that have traditional hand skills at their core, the key requirement being simply enthusiasm and a thirst for knowledge.

John Lloyd Fine Furniture's Courses

Antique furniture restoration techniques in East Sussex

Antique furniture restoration techniques in East Sussex

In-person course

This course is designed as a practical introduction to working on and restoring antique furniture and will cover many of the main areas and techniques required for repair and refinishing. Ideally students will have some woodworking experience or have attended our ‘Sharpening and Tuning’ course, so that structural repairs and splices etc. can be attempted with confidence. This course is, however, equally relevant for the complete beginner who can use the course to enter the world of furniture restoration and gain the confidence of working on their own furniture in...

Beautiful boxes - Learning to laminate

Beautiful boxes - Learning to laminate

In-person course

If you have any sort of urge to move on from straight lines and get a few curves into your woodworking designs, Laminating is going to be the vital technique that you will need to master. In essence, laminating is a pretty simple concept, after all it’s just combining thin bits of wood with glue and holding them in the desired shape until the glue has set. As with most simple things though, there are tricks and techniques that will give you a head start and guarantee success. Moulds &...

Cabinet making - additional skills week

Cabinet making - additional skills week

In-person course

The Additional Skills Week is the perfect follow-on course to the Skills Week or Skills Weekend, if you have the basic skills under your belt, this will give you the chance to review and refine those critical cabinetmaking elements of planing, sawing and chiselling. We will then build on those skills with some new techniques, including some laminating and veneering, to make an elegant dovetailed jewellery box. The cornerstone of all cabinetmaking is accurate planing, a little revision of basic technique, some gossamer thin shavings, will be followed by preparation...

Cabinetmaking fundamentals in East Sussex

Cabinetmaking fundamentals in East Sussex

In-person course

You will learn: The fundamentals of cabinet-making will be covered, including the following: • Planing techniques, dealing with ‘wind’ and ‘cupping’, flattening wide boards and squaring narrow edges • Preparing a ‘face side’ and ‘face edge’ • Using shooting-boards to plane narrow edges • Using squares and gauges • Cutting and planing timber to a fine tolerance • Exercises to develop the effective use of saws and chisels • Setting out and cutting accurate joints Tools A basic set of prepared tools will be provided for the duration of the...

Drawer weekend - Making & fitting a dovetailed drawer

Drawer weekend - Making & fitting a dovetailed drawer

In-person course

This is not just cutting dovetails for sake of it, it’s more about training your hands and learning core cabinetmaking skills. Cutting dovetails happens to be a very good way of judging how you’re progressing in this quest which ultimately just relies on good, solid technique and an in-depth understanding of the process and the tools that are required for success. Having said that though, if you make furniture, it doesn’t matter how wonderful the design is, or how perfectly the veneers have been matched, if there’s a drawer to...

French polishing & modern hand finishes in East Sussex

French polishing & modern hand finishes in East Sussex

In-person course

What you will learn: Preparing wood for finishing Colouring – using stains and chemicals Grain filling – various methods and materials Filling minor defects – various types of filler Polish – making shellac & wax polish Polishing – shellac “French polishing”, heat resistant systems, wax polish Using modern finishes, oils etc. Blending defects and repairs – cosmetic colouring systems

Furniture making - joints week - make a table, all you need to know about joints

Furniture making - joints week - make a table, all you need to know about joints

In-person course

Time to make your first piece of furniture! Or, perhaps, time to make your first accurate, crisp, precisely-made, piece of furniture. This is a great follow-on course from ‘Skills Week’ but will also happily stand alone if you have at least a little woodworking experience. Successful furniture making is based on good design, well thought out construction, and accurate execution of all the many components and joints that will be brought together to create, not just an elegant piece of furniture, but an elegant piece of furniture that doesn’t fall...

Furniture making skills week - Essential cabinetmaking hand skills - 5 days in East Sussex

Furniture making skills week - Essential cabinetmaking hand skills - 5 days in East Sussex

In-person course

The Cabinetmaking Skills Week is the course you’ve been waiting for. If you’re a complete beginner this will give you the perfect grounding; if you’ve been woodworking for a while, this will be a great tune-up, sorting out any bad habits and reinforcing fundamental skills. Everything in Woodwork is based on Sharpening so this is the initial focus. You must have a sharpening system at your fingertips that works for you; we will look at angles, the exotic and not so exotic steels used for blades, high speed grinders, water-cooled...

Sharpening & tuning hand tools

Sharpening & tuning hand tools

In-person course

What you will learn: Tuning • Flattening and fine tuning the castings and various components that make up any plane • Setting up a cutting gauge and if necessary upgrading the blade Sharpening • Grinding bevels using bench grinder and whetstone grinder • Grinding / honing angles • Flattening bench stones • Honing techniques with bench stones – freehand and using honing guides • Making and using a strop • Techniques for sharpening shaped blades e.g. carving chisels, moulding planes • Sharpening a cabinet scraper The tools covered on this...

The 16 week course - the ultimate fast-track fine furniture making skills & techniques course. Train to professional standard in only 16 weeks

The 16 week course - the ultimate fast-track fine furniture making skills & techniques course. Train to professional standard in only 16 weeks

In-person course

This is the unique opportunity to acquire the critical skill-sets that are required to make exceptional furniture to a professional standard in the shortest time possible. Maximum Learning ~ Minimum Time ~ Affordable Price Although this course is perfect for the absolute beginner it is also completely suitable for the keen amateur or professional who has been working with wood for many years but who wants to raise their game to make high quality furniture. Whatever level or experience you might have, the starting point will be the same, you...

Veneering week - make a games board

Veneering week - make a games board

In-person course

No, actually there’s nothing wrong with veneer – this is not a cheap alternative to ’Real Wood’, Veneer is your big opportunity to make beautiful, decorative things using a vast selection of beautiful, sometimes outrageous, different woods from all over the world. Veneer allows large projects to maintain consistent colour and figure throughout, and the production of dimensionally stable panels that won’t be tempted to fight with any solid wood components in the near vicinity. In short, Veneer opens up a whole new world of woodworking opportunities, both structural and...

Vital jigs & really useful tools

Vital jigs & really useful tools

In-person course

Although we spend a lot of time and energy perfecting our ‘Vital Cabinetmaking Hand Skills’, when making things from wood, we also need some ‘Vital Cabinetmaking Jigs’ to help us in our quest for consistent precision and accuracy. There are also some ‘Really Useful Tools’ that, apart from being ‘Really Useful’, often aren’t available to buy, and in any case, they’re fun to make and really rewarding to use. Included in this course is our ‘Ultimate End Grain Shooting Board’, this jig has been tweaked and refined over almost 30...

Wood machining in East Sussex

Wood machining in East Sussex

In-person course

The main elements covered for each machine will include safe working practices, adjusting/setting up, choice of blade & blade changing, jigs and dust extraction: Band-saw Dimensioning timber components Cutting dovetails, circles etc. Design & use of a point fence Cutting veneers Cutting tenons Table-saw with sliding table Dimensioning veneered board material using the scoring unit Cross cutting and cutting short lengths using the sliding table Removing a waney edge Cutting timber to dimension using the rip fence Planer-thicknesser Surface planing techniques to remove wind, cupping etc. Using the fence to...