Experience Days
One of the benefits of membership in the Southern Fellowship of Woodworkers, is that you are able to attend many one-day courses, which we call Experience Days. These are taught by Fellowship members who have developed their skills in particular areas, and they kindly share their expertise to help those less experienced advance their woodworking skills.
Our courses are held at the Farnham School of Woodworking, or in our secretary's workshop (occasionally elsewhere - see individual descriptions for details). If you are looking for longer and more in-depth woodworking courses, have a look at what the Farnham School of Woodworking has to offer.
To ease our administration, we are now using Ticket Tailor to manage bookings on the Experience Days. Click on a link to sign up. You will need the access code that is made available to our members, and your credit card. If you'd like to become a member, click here.
If you are interested to see some examples of Experience Days we have held recently, click here.
2026 Programme
Veneered chessboard - leader Bruce Richardson
Tue 20 Oct •
Farnham School of Furniture Making •
GU10 5ER
Learn veneering by making a chessboard.
Tray and Box Making - led by Aidan McEvoy
Sat 31 Oct •
Farnham School of Furniture, Willey Park Farm, Alton Rd, Farnham •
GU10 5ER
Open to SFWW members only.
Make it once. Make it accurately. Make it again.
During the day, you'll learn how to set up and use different shooting boards to prepare timber and achieve precise, repeatable mitre joints using a bench plane.
You'll then put these techniques into practice, making a wooden tray and a small, lidded box from our stocks of hardwood.
Along the way, we'll cover efficient marking out, accurate preparation, fitting components, and quick glue-up and clamping solutions for small items.
By the end of the day, you'll have made your own pieces to take home, along with a set of practical hand-tool techniques, experience using workshop jigs and aids, and drawings of the shooting boards so you can make them yourself.
Steam Bending - led by Aidan McEvoy
Sat 21 Nov •
Farnham School of Furniture, Farnham •
GU10 5ER
Open to SFWW members only.
Solid wood doesn't bend on its own.
Over two hands-on days, you'll learn steam bending using heat, moisture and a bit of patience to turn straight timber into curved, flowing shapes.
You'll learn to prepare, steam, bend and shape wood, and get a feel for how timber responds to heat and pressure.
Along the way, you'll put those skills into practice, making two pieces to take home.
A fruit bowl and a table lamp, both steam-bent from solid wood.
It's a course about more than making two objects.
You'll learn to read the material, work with its character, and find out just how far a piece of wood will bend.
Photo: “Forming Morgan wheelarch inner structure” by Brian Snelson, CC BY 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FormingMorganwheelarchinnerstructure.jpg — Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/