Wood Workshops - Technical facility

Three dedicated wood workshops with a wide range of heavy duty woodworking machinery and hand tools. A range of wood stock is sold directly from the workshop, cut to size.

The Wood Workshops consist of 3 different areas that can be accessed 5 days a week with full technical support.

Our aim is to create a professional atmosphere within the workshops so that students from all courses can achieve their full potential by using industrial standard machinery and equipment to bring their projects to life.

Once the students have successfully completed training on the equipment and processes, the workshops are open for them to produce their work to the highest standards.

The workshops within the area are: -

Wood Workshop 1
Wood Workshop 2
Finishing room

Wood Workshop 1

This workshop sees students from all corners of the campus, studying a wide variety of courses using the machinery and making themselves at home. Designer/Maker, Industrial Design, Fine Art, Engineering, Surface Decoration, Foundation Art and Design students all utilise the wood workshop equipment and the technical support.

Bandsaws – We have three bandsaws within the workshop that are setup to allow different techniques and outcomes to be achieved by students. Whether you want to cut thick Oak lumbar into planks or intricate shapes into thin birch faced plywood we have got you covered. Even though students may have never used a bandsaw prior to attending Staffordshire University, full training is given to all students by a fully trained Technical Specialist with many years of industrial experience.

Sanders – There are three floor mounted disc, belt and bobbin sanders in the wood “shop” that are used for a multitude of different tasks. These, along with all other machinery in the room are connected to a powerful LEV system that ensures any dust is contained.

Drills – The wood workshop has two floor mounted pillar drills (also referred to as drill press machines). They are versatile machines that can be used by students on a wide range of materials where single hole drilling is required.

Lathes – Separate training is given on the wood lathes by our trained specialist. Whether you want to produce a simple form, or something much larger and complex, the two lathes we have will allow students to take designs from the sketchbook to a tangible, professional grade final piece.

Scroll saw - Not everything has to be done on a computer and laser cutter or CNC router (although we have that too), with the scroll saw you can cut extremely intricate and accurate shapes into wood, plastic and foams with speed. With patience and practice, complex shapes and patterns can be created allowing the user the freedom to create whatever form they want.

Wood Workshop 2

The second workshop in the area is primarily used by the technical staff to cut and prepare materials for the students. We can offer students a large stock of different FSC certified sheet materials as well as an extensive choice of soft and hardwoods, dowels and model making foams.

To compliment the wood workshop the students have free access to, this second “tech” workshop has equipment that students can ask Technical Specialists to use for them to achieve certain tasks.

Table Saw – Primarily used to cut down large sheet materials into smaller, more manageable sizes that can then be used by students on other equipment. The table saws (sometimes called a bench saw) circular blade can be raised or lowered depending on the thickness of the material, plus canted over at an angle to cut a taper or mitre on something like a canvas frame or plinth.

Compound Mitre Saw – Also known as a chop saw, this hand operated circular saw is used to make accurate crosscuts and mitres in a workpiece.

Thicknesser/Planer – Once a piece of timber has been ripped down to a notional size on the table saw, sometimes it is necessary to remove the saw marks to have a more attractive finish. The thicknesser and planner is a rotating drum with blades on it that, once a piece of timber is passed over (or under) it, will shave off a very thin layer leaving a perfectly flat surface.

Router table – With the addition of different shaped cutters, the router table can be used to cut chamfer, radius, and rebate shapes into workpieces to whatever depth or width specified by the student’s project.

CNC Router - Our Mantech CNC router has a bed size of 1200mm x 1200mm which now allows students to have work machined at a much larger scale ‘in house’. Using VCarve Pro software, we can take any vectored file and machine it into many different materials at thicknesses up to 50mm and repeat it over and over again.

Finishing Room

Next to the wood workshops, we have a dedicated free access workshop that we call the “finishing room”. Once all the cutting, sanding, and drilling has been completed in the wood workshop, students can access the finishing room to put the finishing touches to their projects.

Fitted out with built in benches, the finishing room offers a space where students can use hand and power tools to continue to shape and sculpt their projects before using the fully filtered spray booth to apply paints and finishes.

The finishing room boasts an extensive LEV system with downdraught tables and Nederman arms to ensure any dust that gets produced by sanding is contained.