Router 101: Skills and Safety Workshop

Learn to handle, set up, and cut confidently with a router — one of the most versatile tools in a workshop.


POW Workshops
POW Workshops
4.9 (181)

6 hours

Class size 1 to 8 (public classes), 6 to 10

  £130 - £150 (Earlybird price of £130 applies if you book into a public session 14+ days ahead, otherwise £150 per guest when you book for 1 guest, £130/guest for 2+ guests) (PayPal Pay in 3 available)

Spend a full day mastering the trim router and the handheld router on this hands-on router skills course, built for makers ready to add a transferable skill to their toolkit.
This is a skills course rather than a single-project class, so instead of walking away with just one finished piece, you'll build real, lasting confidence with two of woodworking's most useful tools. You'll learn how each router works, when to reach for which, and how to keep things safe while still getting a clean, accurate cut – then move on to jigs, learning how to design, build, and use them to guide a router through your material with precision.
Across the day, you'll:
  • Understand router mechanics – how the motor, collet, and bit work together, and why feed direction is the single biggest factor in a safe, clean cut
  • Choose the right tool for the job – the trade-offs between a trim router, a handheld router, and a router table
  • Set up a router for repeatable results – dialling in material position, fence, and bit height
  • Read and choose router bits – straight, profile, and spiral, and how each changes your result
  • Get to grips with jig design – registration faces, clamping, and guide bushing offsets
  • Build a straight-edge guide jig from scratch – a simple, reusable jig you'll make during the session
  • Cut a template-guided recess – using a guide bushing and template to reproduce an identical cut safely
  • Bring it all together on a sample board – combining trim router, handheld, and jig-guided cuts in one piece
By the end of the day, you'll take home a shop-made straight-edge guide jig ready for your next project, plus a router skills sample board that shows off everything you've learned.

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Save £40 when you book with a friend
What you'll get
All timber, tools, and finishing materials are provided.
Knowledge required
Suitable for complete beginners — no prior woodworking experience is necessary.
What to bring
Wear comfortable clothing and closed-toe shoes or trainers. No open-toed footwear is allowed.
Location

POW Workshops, Standard Road, London NW10 6HF

Entry is via the driveway to the left of the red and white building, next door to Carrara Marble

Router 101: Skills and Safety Workshop location
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Your teacher


Brandon Harrison is a fine furniture designer-maker with an international formation — trained at Sturt Craft Centre in Australia and Yacademy in Italy — and a practice built around heirloom-quality work where the construction is part of the design. Steam bending, wedged tenons, and exposed joinery run through his own exhibited work, recognised at Craft + Design Canberra, Vivid Furniture Design Melbourne, Clarence Furniture Prize and Wood Review's Student Maker of the Year. He brings the same depth of thinking to the workshop.




Your teacher

POW Workshops
POW Workshops

4.9 (181)
female Women-owned

POW is a not-for-profit open access workshop that provides aspiring and experienced makers, product designers, carpenters, model makers, furniture makers, tailors, engineers, artists, sculptors, and everyone in between, with an affordable and high quality space, equipment and learning to be able to ideate, innovate and create.
We offer space, tools and machines to craft, and run workshops and training for hobbyist looking to get away from the day to day, or experienced artists and makers trying to improve their craft or grow their businesses
We started POW, to reduce the barriers of space, cost & stress for people trying to make and create
Our vision is simple:
Give everyone the chance to make it.

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