Rowden Articles

First published in British Woodworking Magazine July 2008 Pearwood is one of the most sensual and satisfying of hardwoods that a furniture maker can encounter.

This month we will be looking at chisels and marking and measuring tools. A few years ago now for another magazine, I did a test

In this article, the last of the series of three, I am talking about the last section of tools that a young apprentice cabinetmaker would

Last month we talked about making a cabinetmakers workbench. This month we are going to make and fit a cabinet maker’s end vice. The end

Good old PVA Now, I don’t know about you but until I became a cabinet maker the only thing I knew for sure about PVA

Parnham Fitting. This is a jointing method that in many small workshops is replacing Dowelling as a stronger more easily achieved joint. This method is

Scrapers are tools that you would use in the finishing process but are used after cleaning up with a hand plane, but before the application

Right, I am going to try to explain open and closed grain, once and for all. Why? Because it has taken me far too long

Constraints: Possibly the first and most fundamental constraint that anyone involved in craftsmanship experiences lies at the heart of the arts and crafts debate. I.E.

We recently had a question from an enthusiastic woodworker and former student at Rowden, about a coffee table he is working on. Head Tutor, Daren

Ah, the piston-fit drawer. These days, there aren’t many things that can’t be done by a really clever machine. And as the cost of these

We talk a lot about the importance of art and drawing here but one thing I haven’t touched on so much is technical drawing. This

Most of us use our eyes to avoid bumping into things; we probably are only using 20% of our visual ability. I had a student

I am frequently asked – how do I proportion a piece of furniture? This is really like approaching the Rolls Royce dealer and asking him

Every woodworker worth their salt, will tell you why their chisels are the best at the bench. Each is right too – as a chisel

Veneers Wood selection is arguably the most fundamental of decisions for a cabinetmaker. When planning a new piece of furniture, colour, grain patterns, use and

Rods… What’s a Rod? Once a design has come close to its final iteration all Rowden students are encouraged to find a suitably sized piece

Most of us have a bag of tools rattling around somewhere. At Rowden, we usually estimate a tool budget for a training cabinetmaker that starts

The most pressing question for any would-be cabinetmaker is almost certainly this; can I make a living as a cabinet maker? Here at Rowden, we