Charles Sandford

Woodturning is in our DNA.

You don't get asked to turn the wooden base of the Melbourne Cup, or huge beechwood columns for London's Royal Opera House, if you don't know your way around a lathe. Charlie Sandford's experience and skill in woodturning is unmatched in Melbourne, and he's passed on everything that he's learnt to our team of craftspeople.

We have all of the tools required for traditional construction techniques – for example, long-hole boring and dovetail slotting for pedestal tables – as well as heavy-duty lathes that can turn massive pieces of timber.

All of our pieces are custom-made to your specifications, and we can copy a sample, or work from your drawings, in a variety of timbers. The list of objects our woodturners can produce is huge: spirals and barley sugar twists (up to 450mm in diameter and 3m in length), Victorian window ornamentation, verandah posts, columns, balusters, newel posts, finials, handrails and dowels, knobs, spindles, stools, bowls, eggs and balls, cabinet feet and more.

The Enkei table, designed by B.E Architecture, appears as a perfect, cohesive piece of highly polished timber. In fact, it was constructed from painstakingly crafted and matched wedges of pine, and turned by Charlie himself. Click the link to view a fantastic "making of" video created by the architects.
The timber component of Coco Flip design studio's Coco Pendant light is crafted to order in our workshop from Victorian ash timber.
We can reproduce architectural and furniture components using all traditional woodturning techniques, for everything from large-scale restoration projects to replacing damaged or missing timber window treatments, turned furniture legs, verandah posts and balusters, or creating cabinetry to match the style and materials of an existing building.
This custom-designed planter is one of several created for Bergman & Co.'s Angus & Bon restaurant fit-out. The planters, which are 450mm in diameter, 600mm high and turned from Baltic pine, are inserted into niches around the interior, and bring a strong sense of the handmade to the fit-out.