Stigmorgan
Established Member
Just watched last night's episode, the wrong person went home in my opinion.
Series 3: Britain's Best Woodworker
- Thread starter seanf
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Haven’t watched it yet. I do sometimes wonder if the producers apply pressure to keep some people over others to maintain diversity, especially in early stages of a competition.
He should never of attempted a river table in 2 days …plus he had little idea of how to do it. He should of ripped that slab down the centre and used with the waney edges as the river in the centre - but it’s a several days job done correctly
Stigmorgan
Established Member
True but the slab on sticks was an abomination and that's who I think should have gone home.
Agreed but she used her joker by making the best dice
I think she would have gone home had she not had immunity - that was quite strongly hinted at by the judges both in their discussion of the participants, but also in the way they phrased it when announcing it... bearing in mind that she couldn't go home the chap who did was the right person - he had zero idea what he was doing and did it badly... The concept of a routed river rather than splitting the table and using the waney edges was possibly a good idea bearing in mind the time constraints, but to attempt it without putting it in a 'tray' / sealing the wood / etc. first was a big mistake, might have worked otherwise...
curryjunkie
Established Member
thats half the problem with these competition type series, the production team try to inject drama into it by time constraints, and choose contestants based on personality, if you watched this hoping to learn something it wouldnt teach you a thing. id much rather watch a youtube video showing tools and techniques properly, although leo from hand i craft at least is a woodworker ,mind you theres plenty of youtube woodworkers with all the gear and no idea, you have to sift through the channels to find good ones. i watched a few episodes last year, the standard was godawful and i switched off. im a gardener and find the same annoyances with garden makeover programmes, any experienced landscaper could tell you the gardens they put together wont last or are badly constructed , its all about making it look finished for the cameras and to fit into a time format.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
It's all done for the show. In the jewellery programmes they showed disasters like elementary soldering mistakes and overheating and ruining stuff, but when you googled the contestants some were time served prize winning goldsmiths.
That is all part of the design process, a good woodworker would know what can be achieved in the given timeframe and make something accordingly. Then they would produce a good finished quality item.
Another aspect is to design for manufacture, as you are thinking about the cosmetics of an item and how it will look you should also be thinking about how you are going to actually make it. This will also have an impact on the available time, so maybe beautiful dovetails would be nice but maybe you need to settle for finger joints to ensure completion. They also don't seem to appreciate that woodworking has various streams, they just bundle everything in as one from turning to crafting and maybe a suggestion to really test their ability is to give them say a week to make something like a Carlton House desk and the tv program shows the highlights from that week rather than trying to capture the whole process of the build.
Generally the standard seems to be higher this series and the contestants actually do seem to have done woodworking in the past. There are far fewer screws being the main feature on display this time round and some nice looking results being achieved.
Of course it is all dramatised and time constrained to force errors and jeopardy. After all that seems to be the formula for TV programs today.
It’s a real winner though as it is swaying my wife to letting me loose with more materials for projects at home.
Of course it is all dramatised and time constrained to force errors and jeopardy. After all that seems to be the formula for TV programs today.
It’s a real winner though as it is swaying my wife to letting me loose with more materials for projects at home.
It's a bit like that 'money for nothing' show on tv. They put the crafts people on it as 'Britain's elite craftsmen/women', but I've seen the work of the elite and they certainly arent it
In fact many of the projects from people on this very forum, posted in what you've made is leagues ahead of most of the abominations they produce on that show.
" I covered this old chest of drawers in newspaper and stained it green. That will be £1600 thanks "
Admittedly some of them think they are elite with the prices they're quoting. Full of their own self importance I reckon, a bit like fixxie hipsters, who 3 years on a bike(in the warmer seasons) and they think the world revolves around them.
Phil Pascoe
Established Member
Maybe they should publish the names and addresses of the people who buy the stuff? I expect we've all got bridges we'd like to sell them.
An insider’s view to answer some of the comments.
No-one who was in the show was happy with the title “Britain’s best woodworker” and wouldn’t dream of making such a bold claim. The show goes out in other territories with much better names like ‘Good with wood’
The workshop was great with some lovely tools/machines although there seemed to be big or small and nothing in-between. Try using a small router bit fitted into a collet on the spindle moulder, very very scary. Also some of the big combination machines were 3 phase running on single phase so not great. Despite the edit plenty of people used hand tools during their builds. Try make a dining table true with only a 6” square. I can make stuff at home using much lower quality smaller machines much more easily than using some of the stuff on the show and I don’t have over zealous health and safety to worry about.
Technicians apart from the last episode are not supposed to help but they can pass you stuff, hold things, offer advice and hit the shutdown switches should you be doing anything sketchy. Health and safety on the show became a real problem for those of us who love a bit of danger.
A lot of us guessed at the cutting lists as there wasn’t any guidance for the novices. The wood is mostly prepared, but you still need to cut it down and occasionally mill it to your requirements as we all know PAR wood isn’t always exact. One contestant got berated for his table being too small but once he had cut the rot out of the timber he had no choice.
We all quickly realised once we were there primarily it was a TV show and the woodworking was secondary. Some of us entered for fun and others to propel their careers. The contestants had mixed abilities from absolute novices to skilled furniture makers. I suppose this gives a bit of drama and offer fall guys earlier on.
When submitting the designs we were planning to build some people were encouraged to create more complicated builds whilst others were told to simplify. Again more drama!!
Actually, building in short bursts of time over 3 days, not being able to use power tools when they were filming in the workshop and freezing temps that wouldn’t let glue dry was quite tricky especially to the less experienced. I don’t think any of us would dream of using CA and PU glue on a normal build.
Unlike the first series the judges had poor knowledge of the discipline often talking nonsense, misnaming joints and techniques. At least in Series 1 Helen was an amazingly accomplished furniture maker that was highly respected. It was difficult to tell if builds were judged on design, technique or answering the brief as the judges were inconsistent throughout.
All in all, it was a brilliant experience, the crew were great and all the contestants are in touch with each other regularly, sharing tools, support, advice and lots of booze. We have a proper little woodwork family so no regrets.
No-one who was in the show was happy with the title “Britain’s best woodworker” and wouldn’t dream of making such a bold claim. The show goes out in other territories with much better names like ‘Good with wood’
The workshop was great with some lovely tools/machines although there seemed to be big or small and nothing in-between. Try using a small router bit fitted into a collet on the spindle moulder, very very scary. Also some of the big combination machines were 3 phase running on single phase so not great. Despite the edit plenty of people used hand tools during their builds. Try make a dining table true with only a 6” square. I can make stuff at home using much lower quality smaller machines much more easily than using some of the stuff on the show and I don’t have over zealous health and safety to worry about.
Technicians apart from the last episode are not supposed to help but they can pass you stuff, hold things, offer advice and hit the shutdown switches should you be doing anything sketchy. Health and safety on the show became a real problem for those of us who love a bit of danger.
A lot of us guessed at the cutting lists as there wasn’t any guidance for the novices. The wood is mostly prepared, but you still need to cut it down and occasionally mill it to your requirements as we all know PAR wood isn’t always exact. One contestant got berated for his table being too small but once he had cut the rot out of the timber he had no choice.
We all quickly realised once we were there primarily it was a TV show and the woodworking was secondary. Some of us entered for fun and others to propel their careers. The contestants had mixed abilities from absolute novices to skilled furniture makers. I suppose this gives a bit of drama and offer fall guys earlier on.
When submitting the designs we were planning to build some people were encouraged to create more complicated builds whilst others were told to simplify. Again more drama!!
Actually, building in short bursts of time over 3 days, not being able to use power tools when they were filming in the workshop and freezing temps that wouldn’t let glue dry was quite tricky especially to the less experienced. I don’t think any of us would dream of using CA and PU glue on a normal build.
Unlike the first series the judges had poor knowledge of the discipline often talking nonsense, misnaming joints and techniques. At least in Series 1 Helen was an amazingly accomplished furniture maker that was highly respected. It was difficult to tell if builds were judged on design, technique or answering the brief as the judges were inconsistent throughout.
All in all, it was a brilliant experience, the crew were great and all the contestants are in touch with each other regularly, sharing tools, support, advice and lots of booze. We have a proper little woodwork family so no regrets.
Ahh but who does ? Same with anything you design really. Starts off with an idea then drawing etc etc and etc. You learn by experiencing in a trial and error process.
Personally I cant see how it would be, given the cutter speed is going to be less, far less on a moulder than in a router table.
Curved work on a ring fence. Now THAT is scary :lol:
Owd Jockey
Established Member
Hi Teeman, thanks for giving us that insight. I must admit I was infuriated with that first show, not only because of the name of the show, but those two judges were ar***les! I stuck with it for the first series but never watched anymore, simply because they kept the same name for the show. Anyway thanks again for those comments.
Rhossydd
Established Member
Let me translate that for you;
The production team exercised their statuary duty of care to ensure that participants didn't do anything that might hurt themselves or anyone else.
It's not clever being dangerous.
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thats one of the most offputting things about the show for me. i was trying to figure out why i had such a love/hate with it, i like watching the builds, i've no assumptons on the skill levels of those computing being the best woodworkers. but every year at this time i watch masterchef the professionals and love it, and i was looking at why, and this is one glaring difference, in masterchef, the judges are absolute masters in their field and when they jduge, you know its coming from a position of experience and expertise.
the two judges in this have no expertise, it's obvious they are being fed lines to say, especially the attempts to make the female judge comment on joinery at every opportunity when its obvious she has no idea what she is saying (and not bashing her, one look at her instagram shows she doesn;t do joinery in any of her work).
so no woodworker on the judges, an artist and a "design academic". no wonder that whenever any of the contestants doesn't get a bit of their design done it immediately becomes the most vital piece of the design, if you don't know what you are judging you'll take the easy pickings.
so i think its the overall format that is broken, you have a whole show that is focused on the actual build, but then 2 judges that can and do only judge on the artistic impact. one of those elements need to change to make the show align, either make it about the build or about the artistic merits of the end piece, but in its current format it doesn't work
To be honest judging on the design and ‘appeal’ of the project is probably a much better approach than trying to judge joinery that has been rushed to an arbitrary timeline.
I’m finding this series have improved year on year.
that was my point, the judges aren't able to judge it, don't know any thing about it, and are being forced into commenting on something they obviously know nothing about, so forget about it and focus on the artistic side. it would feel a lot less awkward.
i think they tried to go down the more serious woodworking path the first season, it didn't work, last season was much better, but this season is going backwards again for me
Owd Jockey
Established Member
I think the term that Paul B uses, namely "arbitrary timeline", can be applied to all TV show maker competitions, be it baking bread, sewing a dress, throwing a pot or blowing a glass, the inclusion of a time limit is purely for dramatic effect, which personally I have no problem with. What grates my cheese is crowning somebody with the accolade "Britains Best Woodworker" based not only on this time element, but on the 'say' of a couple of 'judges' who basically don't know what they are talking about.
