Meet the Makers
Here at Woodland Craft Supplies we have been working with blacksmiths, toolmakers and crafters from around the world for around 25 years. Our goal has always been to bring a great range of tools into the hands of our wonderful customers.
Over the last few years we have started to work with numerous up and coming tool makers to add exciting new items to our range. Here is a bit of info from some of the independant makers/suppliers/friends we are working with...
James Wood
James started blacksmithing around 15 years ago at his Dad's hobby forge, and it quickly became evident it was a craft he wanted to pursue professionally. The joy of having a valid reason to work with fire and bash stuff, combined with the opportunity for creative and artistic expression still fuels his enthusiasm to create today.
James has a real eye for detail, producing beautiful and incredibly well made sharp edge tools. After stocking his lovely carving axe for a few years, I approached James to start working with us on a billhook project. He put his amazing skills into action and is now making a great range of hand forged billhooks for us, to the high praise of coppicers and hedgelayers around the country.
It all started when Oscar was 13 years old and he was shown the very basics of spoon carving. Over the next few years he dove head first into green-woodworking and craft, and then got the idea to have a go at metal work. So at around 15 years old Oscar purchased a forge from e-bay, and spent the next few months restoring it and learning how to use it. At this point he was forging artistic pieces, hooks and other beginner projects. Then at around the age of 17 he made his first woodworking tool, a drawknife, and although very crude, he used this drawknife to create a pole lathe.
After turning some bowls, he then got into bowl carving, and so the need to forge his own adze arose. After a year of practice and progress, he had crafted some beautiful one-off adzes.
It was around then I first met Oscar at a Bodgers Ball event. After admiring his offering of adzes and axes, I started talking to him about supplying a range of adzes for Woodland Craft Supplies. Following a year or two of regular updates and lots of progress as Oscar worked hard to standardise the process, he created the amazing short production runs we stock today.
Wood Tools
Wood Tools is the venture of a father and daughter, Robin & JoJo Wood. It all began while Robin was teaching spooncarving courses. He grew frustrated by the lack of a perfect beginners carving axe and so set out to get his own made. With 25 years of using, forging and teaching tools he knew exactly what he needed.
The axe would need to work for one and all and that is where JoJo came in. At the time, a 17 year old budding spooncarver, she was skilled but lacked the physical strength to wield larger axes. If they could find an axe that worked for both of them, it would suit most people.
Now eight years on they are the perfect father & daughter tool design team. They love playing with tools, and love old quality tools and so want to make tools that give years of trusted use, becoming the valued antiques of the next generation.
We have been stocking their tools for around 7 years now. It is really great to be able to pop to their workshop in Sheffield, only an hour away, and chat to Robin and the team, enjoy a cuppa with them and see what new projects they are working on!
Ray Iles
As part of the renouned Iles family of Shefffield tool makers, Ray, son of Ashley Iles, has tool making in his blood. After learning his craft tin the family business, Ray moved away from the chisel based offerings and into the growing craft of greenwood working tools. Many were hard to come by in the early days so Ray set about making well made but affordable tools that have helped grow the craft to where it is today.
Ashley Iles
A well known, originally Sheffield based family company that have been making excellent turning and carving chisels for generations. The comapny is now run by Ashley's son and is based in Lincolnshire, where they continue to make exceptional sharp edge tools.
Bodgecoats
A Derbyshire based maker of hand-made tool coats! Working with fabric, leather and an inherited 1970s Friss and Rossman sewing machine they make tool rolls and sheaths to protect those lovely sharp edges. These high quality items will help keep your prized tools not only safe and sound, but stylishly dressed as well.
Joshua L Burrell
Josh is a traditional blacksmith and toolsmith based in Loughborough, Leicestershire. He is the latest generation of a long lineage of craftsman from master builders, ceramicists, boat builders and finally both his prents being metalworkers.
After growing up around his father Graham Burrell's forge, his formal training with his father began at the age of 17. From there, his experience widened to include a number of heritage crafts throughout the UK. Josh soon focused on creating beautiful and effective hand tools; especially those associated with heritage trades such as traditional oak timber framing, stone masonry and boatbuilding.
Functionality and aesthetic beauty go hand in hand with all of Joshua's products, and this has attracted worldwide attention from professionals and hobbyists alike.
I was lucky enough to share a few beers with Josh at SpoonFest where we hatched a plan to offer a range of adzes. After a period of product development, Josh started supplying us with small bacthes of his beautiful hand made adzes.
Matty Whittaker
Matty has been working with wood and steel for over twenty years now. What first attracted him to these materials and the crafts of the Greenwood and Forge was their immediacy, the need for a very few tools in order to be able to create practical, everyday objects.
Many of the devices and tools he uses in his green woodworking, he hand makes at his blacksmiths forge onsite. He has used this knowledge and experience of using the tools, to create his own range of bowl turning hooks that fit a pole lathe turners needs perfectly.
I was at the Northern Bowl Festival - a celebration of bowl turning that Matty organises every year - and was looking for a supplier of bowl hooks that I could offer - so people wouldn't need to learn blacksmithing as well as pole lathe turning!After seeing Matty's amazing turning and forging skills - it was great to be able to set up a supply of his brilliantly designed and crafted tools from him.
Sean Hellman
Craftsman Sean is renowned widely for his skills in green woodwork. He runs an artisan-led production business, on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon. Among other things, he produces a range of edge-tools and tool-sharpening kits for woodworkers and other craftspeople.
We are proud to stock his well thought-out and very effective sharpening products. In addition, we also stock a range of self published books by Sean on shave horse design, corracle making and his incredible opus on his favourite subject - sharpening tools!
Svante Djarv
S. Djärv Hantverk AB is a family business that forges and makes tools in small batcehs, by hand. All their tools are developed together with experienced wood crafters and professional craftsmen. They make over 140 different tool models and in total around 3000 tools per year.
They are a husband and wife team - Svante and Elsa - who make all their specialist tools by hand, from wood boards and steel bars, to handles and sharp edges. In the end, every finished tool has been treated many times before being delivered to you as a craftsman or wood crafter.
Woodland Craft Supplies was one of the first importers of these lovely tools to the UK many years ago, and we are proud to continue to stock them for your carving pleasure!
Thomas Fliinn
Another of the Sheffield greats, this family company was established in 1923 by its namesake Mr Thomas Flinn. Sheffield was, in those times (and for many years) a city where the majority of people were employed in something related to the steel industry and it’s by-products.
Still family run and still in Sheffield they offer a great range of crosscut saws, the biggest being up to 8 feet long!
Yoav Elkayam
Yoav was introduced to greenwood working while travelling around the UK in 2013. A year later he came back and took a bowl turning and tool forging course with bowl turner and now good friend Sharif Adams and attended the biggest spoon carving gathering and festival - Spoonfest.
Meeting some of the best craftsmen and learning from them, really made him want to take his skills to the next level and make it his full time occupation. In 2015, Yoav took the plunge and went full time into the world of greenwood crafting - with a lot of time spent turning beautiful bowls and then mastering end grain cups on the pole lathe. This has led to a deep understanding of the use and needs of the tools and led him to craft his own range of refined bowl hooks. Now happily stocked by us here at Woodland Craft Supplies!
Ash & Iron
This is the company of Adam Ashworth. Since childhood he has had a passion for making things with his hands. A few years ago he discovered the world of green woodworking and through that gained a new respect and love of tools. During his time at university, he balanced his workload with his love of green woodwork. As he started thinking of his future more and more found the pull of working with his hands a lot more enticing than working behind a computer in an office.
He went on to work with friends who taught him the basics of forging and knife making. With their encouragement he decided to take up knife making full time. He is now an experience and accomplished knife maker.
Adam specialises in slojd knife making, in his own unique style.