Tom's Woodshop
The workshop

Hello, I'm Tom

I make things out of wood in a small workshop in St Albans, mostly in the evenings and at weekends.

The workbench with wood laid out and the tool wall behind
Where

One room and one bench

A few power tools and some hand tools in a workshop that is far too small to fit them all! Everything is made by hand at the end of my garden in St Albans.

Why I do this

To make things! My career is working with cutting edge technology companies and I've been lucky enough to work with some of the most exciting products doing the most amazing things. BUT, most of what I do is hard to quantify at the end of a day's work. Cybersecurity and AI are some of the biggest challenges of our time and I'm so fortunate to be a part of it, but when I've made a chopping board, there's a chopping board. It's right in front of me. I can see it! It's hard to rival that kind of satisfaction and the board will be used for hundreds of meals for decades to come.

Why hand-made

Mass production is brilliant, and it's the right answer for most of what you own. A factory will make you a chopping board flatter, more consistent and much cheaper than mine. If what you want is a board, buy a board.

What a factory can't do is connect you to anybody.

When you use something made by hand you're holding a set of decisions. Somebody picked that piece of wood out of a stack because of the way the grain ran, decided the pieces should run from dark to light, and sanded the inside of a box nobody will ever see because leaving it rough would have bothered them.

There will be some imperfections. A tool mark that catches the light. A joint that's a hair proud. Grain that changes its mind halfway round a bowl. I could sand and fuss until those disappeared and what you'd be left with is something that looks machine-made, at which point you may as well have bought the machine version and kept the money.

The variation is how you know a person was there.

How I work

Slowly and all by hand. No staff, nothing subcontracted. The wood mostly comes off the offcut pile at a sawmill twenty minutes from St Albans, which would otherwise be burned.

Because this is evenings and weekends rather than a full-time business, the lead times are real. I'd rather say eight weeks and mean it than say two and apologise later. And because I'm not trying to make a living from it, the prices are lower than a professional maker would charge.

If you'd like something

There are pieces finished and waiting, things I make regularly to order, and commissions from scratch. The last of those is the most interesting, so ask if you're wondering whether something's possible. If you're near St Albans you can collect, and I deliver furniture myself within about an hour's drive.

Go to the shop Get in touch
Around the workshop

Work on the bench

In the workshop
In the workshop
In the workshop
In the workshop
In the workshop
In the workshop
The wood I use

Twenty-three hardwoods

Most of what I make comes off a local sawmill's offcut pile. The exotics I buy in small blanks to minimise wastage, and they only go into very small items like pens. Every picture here is a pen I turned, and no two blanks are alike, so yours will have its own grain.
See the pens →

Everyday hardwoods

Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Oak
Oak
No supplement
Open grained and biscuit gold. The one most people picture when they picture wood.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Walnut
Walnut
No supplement
Chocolate through to purple-grey, often with a paler streak running through it.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Sapele
Sapele
No supplement
A mahogany cousin. Deep red-brown with a ribbon figure that shifts as you turn it.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Iroko
Iroko
No supplement
Golden brown, hard-wearing, darkens handsomely with age.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Maple
Maple
No supplement
Pale, close and creamy. The quietest hardwood here, but great for a prominent engraving.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Cherry
Cherry
No supplement
Warm pink-brown when new, deepening to a rich amber over a few years.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Padauk
Padauk
No supplement
Startlingly orange when cut, settling to a deep brick red.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Wenge
Wenge
No supplement
Almost black, with fine paler lines. Sober and modern.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Zebrano
Zebrano
No supplement
Pale gold with hard dark stripes resembling a zebra's pattern.

Exotics

Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Olive
Olive
+ £5
Wild, swirling grain in cream and olive-brown. No two blanks remotely alike.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in London Plane
London Plane
+ £5
Lacewood. Flecked all over with tiny pale rays, like a fish scale.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Bolivian Rosewood
Bolivian Rosewood
+ £5
Violet-brown with dark ink lines. Takes a glassy polish.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Chacate Preto
Chacate Preto
+ £5
Dense red-black African hardwood. Very fine, very even.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Chechen
Chechen
+ £5
Caribbean rosewood. Orange, red and near-black marbled together.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Pau Santo
Pau Santo
+ £5
Brazilian. Olive-brown with darker veining and a faint scent when cut.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Spalted Tamarind
Spalted Tamarind
+ £5
Cream and grey with black spalting lines, which are fungal tracks in the wood.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Tasmanian Blackwood
Tasmanian Blackwood
+ £5
Golden brown with a rippling figure. An acacia, despite the name.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Cocobolo
Cocobolo
+ £10
Orange, red and black in dramatic swirls. Oily enough to shine without a finish.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Leadwood
Leadwood
+ £10
One of the densest hardwoods on earth. Dark, heavy and beautifully smooth.

The rare ones

Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Amboyna
Amboyna
+ £10
Burr from the padauk tree. A riot of tiny knots and eyes in gold and red.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Pink Ivory
Pink Ivory
+ £10
African, and actually pink. Historically reserved for Zulu royalty.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Ziricote
Ziricote
+ £10
Grey-brown with black landscape figuring that looks like a coastline. Often said to resemble spider webbing.
Close-up of a hand-turned pen in Snakewood
Snakewood
+ £30
The most expensive hardwood I use. Red-brown, covered in fine black markings, resembling a snake's skin.

The everyday hardwoods come from a sawmill twenty minutes from St Albans. The exotics are bought in pen-sized blanks from established UK suppliers, to keep waste to a minimum.