Woodcraft Allentown offers four-week woodturning course for beginners

Woodcraft Allentown is selling a beginner’s entry into woodturning that looks far more substantial than a one-off demo. For $350, the store’s four-week course with Ken Burton runs across four 3-hour sessions on April 15, April 22, April 29 and May 6, and the format is built around repeated practice, coached instruction and weekly projects that go home with the student.

That matters in a craft where the first hurdles are practical, not theoretical. Woodcraft lists the course as all-levels, but the real value for a newcomer is the pacing: one session to see the move, another to repeat it, and more time to correct grip, tool angle and body position before moving on. A single YouTube video can show the cut; this kind of class builds the muscle memory to do it safely at the lathe.

Woodcraft’s own calendar shows that Burton’s teaching is arranged as a skills ladder, not a loose collection of shop tips. The store also scheduled Woodturning Basics: Spindle with Burton on April 21, a hands-on class that has students turn a cove-and-bead stick and a vase while working with the roughing gouge, spindle gouge and parting tool. That kind of sequence tells beginners exactly what the next step looks like, from spindle fundamentals toward fuller projects.

Burton brings a long resume to the lathe. Peters Valley School of Craft says he has worked with wood professionally since 1984 and holds degrees from Bucks County Community College, Millersville University of Pennsylvania and the School for American Crafts at Rochester Institute of Technology. His studio, Windy Ridge Woodworks, focuses on studio furniture, custom cabinetry and wood sculpture, and he has also been described as a senior editor with Woodcraft magazine. He retired from teaching technology education at Boyertown Area Senior High School in January 2020 after 24 years in the classroom.

The Allentown schedule lands in a region that already has a turning community behind it. Lehigh Valley Woodturners meets every fourth Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Make Lehigh Valley Suite #103 in Bridgeworks Enterprise Center, 905 Harrison St. Suite 103, Allentown, giving new turners a nearby place to keep learning after class ends. Woodcraft’s calendar also lists other turning-related and skill-building sessions around the same period, including Learn To Turn, which reinforces that this is part of a broader instructional pipeline, not a one-night stop.

For a beginner who wants guided repetition, a real instructor and a project to take home each week, this is the kind of course that can justify the spend. For anyone looking only for a casual overview, the single-session spindle class may be enough.