Instructor Information


NameBio
Tom Boley Tom has been a hobby woodworker all his life and became a woodturner in about 1995. One of his joys in life is standing at the lathe, teaching the craft to others. He teaches in his shop at his home near Wamego. When an opportunity to make actual money in the woodturning business arose in 2005, he changed directions to focus on architectural woodturning. From December 2005 to July 2014, he was a full-time custom architectural woodturner in northern Virginia, making turned items for both restoration and new construction, numbering from a single item to sometimes hundreds of the same thing. Examples of that are new balusters in the same style and shape as old ones for the restoration of a railing around the porch of an old house. Newels, porch posts, table legs, and finials were also commonly requested turnings. As of August 2014, Tom mostly retired from that business and moved to Wamego, near Manhattan, the home of his beloved Kansas State Wildcats. Now, in addition to some commercial work, he very much enjoys working on the artistic side of woodturning as a hobby and participates in one or two craft shows each year. The hobby produces bowls, bottle stoppers, pens, sweater pins, and other items. Tom's favorite turnings are natural edge bowls in several different forms, specializing in square natural edge bowls and what he calls "log bowls." And he has started a woodturning club for local turners called Flint Hills Woodturners (www.flinthillswoodturners.org), a great place to meet fellow woodturners, and be inspired by the Show and Tell items they bring to the meetings and learn about the craft.