A wooden box by Peter Peer. You can make it in a single day. And what a wonderful day it is, working at the lathe. Peer’s infectious enthusiasm for woodturning makes the experience all the more enjoyable.
A wooden box by Peter Peer, in my version, that resembles a beehive.
At his workshop in Eindhoven (the Netherlands), Peer has nine workstations available. Even complete beginners can leave with a beautiful little box, without a scratch. “Working at a lathe is safer than carving wood with gouges,” Peer says. “Wearing gloves actually makes the work more dangerous. You just need to tie back long hair.”
I chose a pre-cut block of elm, but there were other types of wood to choose from. The boxes made from ash could be finished to a wonderfully smooth surface.
Peer demonstrates each step and breaks the process down into stages that are easy to remember. One by one, you learn to use the different turning tools, starting with the roughing gouge to turn the square block of wood into an even cylinder.
A witch with a pointed hat
I attended with a small group from Guts en Klopper, a Dutch association of woodcarvers. One of our members recently installed a lathe in our workshop. I wanted to find out whether it might come in handy one day, even though I have no idea yet how carving and woodturning might be combined.
They can work together very well, Peer explained. Classic table legs, for instance, are partly turned and partly decorated with details such as acanthus leaves. But a turned bowl can also be carved with patterns afterwards.
A plate, a bowl, or a figurine
On other course days, participants make a plate, a small bowl or a little figurine in a single day. The art lies in suggesting as much as possible with the minimum of means. Peer himself showed us a whole collection of examples, ranging from a snowman with a tall black hat to a little witch with a pointed hat. It was great to see how much fun it would be to make something like that yourself.
Peer says: “I’m also going to start making fountain pens. People keep asking me about them. Quite a few people prefer writing with a fountain pen.”
Peter Peer and the group that succeeded to learn on a workstation in one day.
Our course turned out to be a wonderful day out, too. A mother and daughter who, like me, had never stood at a lathe before felt the same way.
A wonderful tip from Peer: accentuate the deepest grooves in your turned woodwork by letting an iron wire spin in them. As soon as little clouds of smoke appear, a super-sharp black line has formed.
When I took a group photo of all the participants at around half past three, the course instructor, Peer, seemed to be the proudest of us all. He had made a little pot with a lid that bore a striking resemblance to the dome of Florence Cathedral. At its very tip was a small round ball, still attached to an impossibly thin turned stem, no thicker than a cocktail stick. Masterful woodturning!
The Dome of Florence
But for someone who had never turned a box before, and had started without the slightest idea of how to go about it, I could also take my own beehive-shaped little box home without feeling ashamed. At home, I gilded the tip.
A one-day woodturning course with Peter Peer costs €195 per person (2026 price).
Jan Bom, 10 October 2026
