SHED BUILDING SKILLS - DUCK HOUSE - 29TH/30TH AUGUST 2026

I've just set up another shed building course at Perth Community Farm, for the weekend of 29th/30th August 2026. Cost is £199 per place - max 5 places so plenty of individual attention and everyone can learn at their own speed. Our practice piece for this will be a duck house - which is a bit of a memory lane venture for me as this was one of the first eco projects I made way back in 2008 with Sue and Tober at Tombreck Farm on Loch Tay. SHEDS AUG 26 ON EVENTBRITE HERE 

My duck house for Tombreck Farm, Ben Lawers in the background

THOUSANDS OF BABY TREES

I remember thinking, long long ago in my guitar making days, that it would be wonderful to have a tree nursery.... and that's as far as the idea got. So it's wonderful, after all these years, to be helping out on a very special project growing native tree species from seed gathered in the wild: DARROCH NURSERIES.

Moving seedlings outside to get used to the weather - they still have some protection from the wind though

TINY HOUSE NEWS

 We grabbed the opportunity in some of the very few dry days in Jan/Feb to crack on with getting Tiny House Two at Inverquiech wind and water tight. Here it is with all its roof sheets, door and the last of the charred oak supporting posts:

I was very glad to have Mary's help with the roof sheets - definitely a two person job!

GARDENING AND WOODWORK CLASSES COMING UP...

I've set up some classes for the first few months of 2026 - they're all ideal for people with little or no experience. My big mission is to help beginners to take those first steps - it's never as complicated as it can seem and I make it all as simple and fun as possible :-) All these classes are at Perth Community Farm, an excellent teaching venue if ever there was one.

HERE'S THE DATES, MORE DETAILS AND BOOKINGS VIA THE LINKS: 

FRUIT TREE PRUNING The basic why's and how's of fruit tree pruning - looking after trees and woodland generally - insight into working with natural processes.
Saturday 31st Jan 2026, £39 per place

POLYTUNNELS  Let you grow a much wider range of food  AND are excellent as workshop, teaching and meeting spaces.

Saturday 7th Feb 2026, £39 per place

GARDENING FOR BEGINNERS Everything you need to know to get started in growing your own healthy, fresh, delicious, local food and general garden management.

1st March 2026, £39 per place

WOODWORK TWO Go over basic skills and learn some more advanced ones - from inlay and fretwork to using greenwood poles and wood finishing. 

Saturday 7th March 2026, £118.80 per place

COMPOST MAKING Find out how to convert household waste into useful material for your garden. Sunday 8th March 2026, £25 per place

BASIC WOODWORK  learn to use simple, versatile hand tools for home and garden projects.
Sunday 22nd March 2026, £109 per place

TINY HOUSE TWO - PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

We've been making this second tiny house for Inverquiech over three shed making courses, two at Kate's and one at Perth Community Farm, so it was a bit of a relief when it all fitted together so snugly. 

Brilliant volunteer, Resourceful Dave, and I were lucky to get a three day gap in the recent storms. We made the last bits for it, the trusses and purlins, then put the whole lot together.

I'm smiling because however much I draw plans and check and recheck measurements its always a bit of a relief when things work in real life.

!! 50 YEARS LATER !!

In 2026, it will be an amazing FIFTY YEARS since my best friend, John Yellowlees, and I set up in business together. John, aka "Stone" or "Man", doing leather work while I, aka confusingly, "Man", or sometimes, "Other Man", made and repaired guitars. We shared a workshop and also a cottage at Gannochy Farm just outside Perth. I'm happy to say it all worked really well and we both got busy quite quickly with our trades, learned the nuts and bolts of business and had a lot of fun. Somewhere or other there are a lot of very silly photos from that time... although it was before the days of peoples' whole lives being photographed and broadcast every ten seconds... probably just as well in our case...

FIFTY YEARS AGO! We will have to celebrate with a mug of peppermint tea or something...

I mostly fixed guitars but other instruments came my way too

1976 was a restless year for me but one in which I picked up loads of the experience that has set me up in my working life.

At the beginning of the year I was working at John Birch Guitars in Birmingham. At the time, Birch's was the top custom guitar maker in the UK, making guitars for the rock and pop players of the day such as Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath and Dave Hill of Slade.

John Diggins, the guy who actually made these guitars rather than  John Birch, was one of the most amazing craftsmen, I've worked alongside. Birch was responsible more for the pickups - which have a particular powerful chunky-clangy kind of sound that's still much in demand

 
I found working at Birch's really heavy going... it was a dis-organised, unhealthy kind of place and I liked Birmingham even less. So I left in the Summer of '76 to live and work with some hippy friends from university on an organic small holding near Aylesbury. What a breath of fresh air that was...

... to be continued...

 WOODWORK TWO - MORE HAND SKILLS - INLAYING AND SHAPING

It was really nice to pass on some skills I've hardly used since my guitar making days some forty years ago. John got in touch wanting to try inlaying as a potential decoration for brilliant little boxes he makes. I'm happy to say I remember the tricks as if no time had passed at all. I used to work with ebony and mother of pearl - here we were working with reclaimed hardwood skirting board and sheet plastic from re-formed bottle tops (a legacy of working with Fiona McBain and Zero Waste Perth).

A great fit, well done John! The reformed plastic makes an amazing pattern

Me busy making a guitar sometime in the 80's - a bit more hair then...