It might have been partway through furnishing an entire castle in Scotland—a job that included crafting circular built-ins for the rooms in the turrets— that Englishman Richard Williams began to dream about doing some smaller-scale work. Throughout his 35 years in the craft, Williams has always loved designing individual pieces, but for the last two decades he and his team of craftsmen—as many as 12 at some points—had been tackling increasingly large and challenging commissions all across Europe. So it was a bit of a homecoming when he began designing this collection of modestly sized pieces to be made in small batches in his shop just west of London. His stacking coasters, with their peaked cap, are turned from bog oak and lined with leather. The change trays, utilizing burr oak offcuts from a large job, are, like the rest of these pieces, shaped on machines and finished by hand. The quartersawn oak entry cabinet, with its cargo of keys and its fluted panels, was conceived to make the most of small pieces of stock. The design of the sushi tray was serendipitous: Someone plucked a thin, warped piece of bog oak from the scrap pile and wondered if it could be put on a base. It could. Replicating that lucky shape in batches has involved taking a cue from luthiers and bending the thin stock over a hot pipe.

—Jonathan Binzen

Photos: Trevor Beynon

From Fine Woodworking #305

	Inspiring heritage Through his work, Jomu Tariku hopes to change the world’s perception of African design.
	Poetic reproduction Every piece that Don Miller builds gives him an opportunity to experiment with woodworking history and traditional forms and techniques, and to make them his own.
	The bowl is a bird Dave Fisher turned a branch into a bowl, and a bowl into a wren.

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