Woodworking Course: Make a Perch Stool

The Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking (The Guild) was founded by Alastair Boell in 2007. After graduating from the world-renowned North Bennet Street School, Boston, USA, Alastair felt that there was a great need in Australia for an educational facility that focuses on traditional skills.The Guild is conveniently located in Blackburn and provides three different course formats:

• Our open courses offer ongoing morning, afternoon and evening woodworking classes for students of any level to undertake a project of their own desire.
• Our weekly project-based courses are geared towards beginners or anyone interested in a more structured class where everyone works on the same project once a week and where the start and finish dates are set.
• Our intensive project-based courses are for those who would like to immerse themselves in a project and have it completed in the shortest possible time. These courses range from a one-day course to an eight-day course.

Our student-teacher ratios are very low which enables each student to get some one-on-one instruction time from our highly qualified instructors.Our facilities include a fully equipped machine room, four classrooms with workbenches, numerous hand tools, hardware, finishing products and a variety of exotic salvaged timbers. We also offer onsite milling with our own mill and an in-house workshop milling service. For those interested in ‘Commission’ work, we have a gifted community of furniture designers/makers on the call.The Guild is committed to preserving and advancing craft traditions in furniture making. We are also committed to promoting greater awareness and appreciation of craftsmanship. In our classes, we emphasise the skilful use of hand tools and power equipment and informed use of appropriate materials and proportions.We are passionate about what we do and want to share information, ideas and skills with our extended woodworking community.We promise to do our very best to provide you with endless opportunities in a stimulating and supportive community. We invite you to take your place at the Melbourne Guild of Fine Woodworking!