In addition to the up-to-the-minute DVD releases shown on our Recommended Videos page we also offer the range of video productions shown below.
Click here to see the extended range of videos listed in our new basement area.  These are classified by subject, covering: woodturning, wood-finishing, a wood encyclopaedia, machine woodworking, sharpening, routing, woodworking projects, wood carving and pyrography.

NB: Video Format Selection: Most of the videos we offer are available in a choice of formats. Residents of Europe, including the UK, should normally select the PAL/VHS format. Those based in the US, Canada and Japan should select the NTSC/VHS format products. Our DVDs are multi-region format unless otherwise stated.

Focus on Specialist Woodturning Tools
&
Focus on Robert Sorby Woodturning Tools

"Focus on Specialist Woodturning Tools" is published in two parts and is designed to introduce the user to most of the specialist tools produced by Robert Sorby for turners.  Part 1 covers the Hollomaster, Chattertool, Spindlemaster, Multi-tip Hollowing Tool and the Sandmaster.  Part 2 gives advice on the use of the Stebcentre, the Easybeaders, the Hardwood Scraper and the various Sorby Sharpening Jigs.

"Focus on Robert Sorby Woodturning Tools" includes close-up shots of many of the standard Robert Sorby tools in use by professional turner and teacher, Chris Stott.  Additional use of clear graphics helps to give a better understanding of how the tools work.  Methods of sharpening, with useful tips, will help you to get better results from your tools.  The projects have been carefully selected to cover basic tools and techniques, but also includes specialist tools for the more ambitious woodturner.

Chris's relaxed presentation style makes this informative production easy watching and an excellent foundation in the craft.

Focus On Starting Out Woodturning
with
Robert Sorby

Focus On Thread Cutting
with
Robert Sorby

Click here to see the extended range of videos listed in our new basement area

Allan Batty is an time-served, and obviously very accomplished, turner.  He is also a very nice bloke.  And if you have ever caught one of his demonstrations, especially if son Stuart is in attendance, then you have probably witnessed as close to slapstick as you will ever see in a woodturning shop - within the bounds of safe working practice.  Take those qualities of skill, communication and humour, add in  some skilled camerawork and you have the key elements of an important new series of videos from Allan, The Allan Batty Masterclass.  Each production takes an aspect of woodturning and explores and explains it thoroughly and succinctly.  The videos are accompanied by a very useful aide-memoir "notebook" which makes it very easy to take the lesson into the workshop.  By starting with two of the "taboo" subjects of turning Allan has shown his consummate skill in taking the mystery - and lets be honest, for some, the dread - out of woodturning. 

The Skew Chisel
an Allan Batty Masterclass

I have a friend who tells me he has mastered the skew chisel: he has put it in his tool rack and vowed never to take it out again.  At least this way, he says, the tool never needs sharpening either!  Now whilst I can't agree with the strategy, I can understand why he, and so many, many other woodturners, feels as they do about the skew - arguably the most feared tool in the woodturners armoury.  Well, the antidote to that fear is here at last, in the guise of Allan Batty's Masterclass on the use of the skew - and of alternatives to its use.  For this video not only covers the skew itself but also its close relative the beading and parting tool, the parting tool itself and even the humble spindle gouge.

The video, with its conversational style and Allan's superbly relaxed presentation is very easy to watch.  This is one that you'll end up watching just for its entertainment value.  (Even my wife watched it!)  Maybe that is the key to success with the skew - relax and let it do its job.  The video contains all the hints and tips that a lifetime in turning have taught Allan and which he now generously shares with turners everywhere.  If you have ever battled with, feared, hated or locked away your skew chisel, then this is definitely a video you should be watching.  See below for purchase details.

Hand Thread Chasing
an Allan Batty Masterclass

In fact the first of the Allan Batty Masterclass series was this production, which established the informal but informative style which makes these productions so watchable.  The chasing of threads by hand has become very much the woodturner's "holy grail" in recent years, maybe initiated by Bill Jones's expose of the black art in the pages of Woodturning magazine.  Now, master turner Allan Batty shows us all, in close-up detail, just how this task should be approached.  The video covers everything from timber selection and preparation through spigot sizing, thread fitting and adjustment to tool care and sharpening.  To put these theories into practice, Allan rounds off the video with an acorn box project which you see taken from a timber blank to glorious completion.  Like the Skew Chisel production, above, this package also includes a FREE neat ten-page booklet describing the processes of thread chasing, complete with diagrams.

Click here to see the extended range of videos listed in our new basement area

A superbly shot and produced video which takes away the fears and prejudices that surround the noble art of sharpening turning tools.  I always advocate, when asked, that any budding turner should take a course of instruction, but should do so only after having ascertained that a major feature of such a course will be tool sharpening.  It is an absolute truism that once the tools are properly sharpened - and are kept that way - turning itself is no real problem.

Unfortunately many would-be turners cannot take instruction, for a variety of reasons, and so suffer many trials and tribulations, completely unnecessarily, in their development as turners.  I like to think that it is partly as a result of my nagging (let's call it encouragement!) that Mick has produced this excellent demonstration of sharpening on video - and has priced it very fairly too so that no-one has any excuse not to know how to sharpen their turning tools.

Whilst sharing a title with the companion book, I would suggest that these are not alternative forms of the same material.  Some of the project work shown on the video is explained in the book, but the book also includes information on the structure and drying of wood that I have never seen better - or even equally - presented elsewhere.

The video contains what I  consider to be the finest action shots of turning available in this format today.  The opportunity to see those shots again in static close-up shots in the book is an unequalled triumph of production. Whether you intend to practise green turning or not becomes academic when videos of this quality are available: buy it for the joy of watching a master at work, sharing his knowledge without reservation.

Many have struggled to master the use of the O'Donnell swept-back grind gouge: struggle no more.  Both book and the video show as clearly as anyone could want exactly how to handle the gouge.  Maybe we should expect Mick O'Donnell to be able to explain the grind he "invented": expect it or not, he most certainly can.  Simply superb.

©1997-2006 P. Hemsley.  The information on this website is the copyright property of Peter Hemsley.  Coeur du Bois and The ToolPost are trading styles of Peter Hemsley.  Whilst reasonable efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of information presented, no liability can be accepted for errors in this information nor for contingencies arising therefrom.  If you are inexperienced in any aspect of woodworking, we would strongly counsel that you take a course of formal instruction before commencing to practice