davidjoseph

Thanks, Jeff. Great advice - I will contact both.

It was my visit to Sheffield College and their insurance nervousness that prompted me to post my request. I am looking for a workshop with a range of larger fixed equipment, like the college or a commercial joinery works. Eccleshall Woods is a good idea and I will contact them, but any businesses out there who could help me out please ? My needs will really be only very occasional and visits very brief, entirely at your own convenience.

Thank you for the suggestion, Mike. I don't need thousands of pounds worth of my own machinery to do the very occasional small cutting and sanding task. Nor do I have the space for it. I do this work charitably and I was rather hoping for slightly more considerate and generous responses.

I am a recently retired construction manager with decades of personal hands-on building trades skills experience. I have been working for 2 years as a volunteer wood workshop technician in a special needs community in North Yorkshire where we make toys and furniture and I also personally will repair anything made in wood that has been broken. I have been fully retrained to use the full range of woodworking machinery and hold a current safety training certificate for all machine types, from Leeds College of Building, as well as a valid CSCS card at Contract Manager level. In the last 3 months I have developed a problem with my back that has meant that I cannot go up to North Yorkshire, so no longer have access to woodworking machinery. My back problem prevents me from using much effort with hand tools in my own small workshop at home, but I continue to get many requests for little jobs to repair wooden things, especially toys. I would like to find someone with a small (or large ?) joinery workshop who would very kindly allow me to occasionally pop in for a few minutes and use a band saw, belt-sander, etc (which I can use by standing still and not bending my back), to make small replacement parts for my repairs. Is there anyone in Sheffield who is not nervous of their own insurance risk and would trust my experience and training for me to do a tiny job safely ? I would be entirely prepared to write a formal letter of indemnity to state that my safety is entirely my own responsibility and that the machinery owner would in no way be held responsible if anything terrible should happen (never has in 40+ years).