Advice on Change of Career!

ooh, not going to be easy Smiler.
Funding will probably be a bit issue here due to your age. I doubt whether any colleges will be able to find the funding for you, however you might be able to pay for the training, (assuming you have sufficient funds available).
The only suggestion that I can make, is for you to ring up as many colleges as possible and see what is on offer. You might also try getting in contact with the CITB. (Construction industry training board). They might be able to help in some way.
Good luck.

 

Have you decided on what it is you actually want to do - construction (building type carpentry/joiner) or more craft work (cabinet making, making garden or country type woodwork) ?

If you want to get into the construction side, I would start off by doing some labouring work. It will give you a taste of industry working and let you pick up some skills as you go. You won't need to invest in a lot of tools only PPE and CSCS card.

If you want to go into the more craft side then you are looking at going down the more accademic side or start making things by yourself and grow a little business that way

 

I would start by trying to labour for local carpenters and joiners on private jobs, if you can build a rapport with a one man band or small firm you will learn quicker. Maybe approaching any local joineries for a part time job just helping out at first, then seeing what speed you progress at, start buying hand tools and learning how to use them.

Look up and buy Nelson Thornes Carpentry and Joinery books 1+2 and read them religiously time and time again until the words, names of different methods and job processes stick in your head. Don't buy any American books until you fully understand the metric way of measurements and all the English names for the different aspects of woodwork, you'll just confuse yourself otherwise and it will put you off.

Your age is a disadvantage so you'll have to concentrate on getting up to speed faster than the average bear, practise everything in your spare time, buy inexpensive (to start) hand tools and learn how to use them, get a decent tape measure and learn how to read it, buy a Jack saw and practise cutting timber in all manner of angles, learn about angles, Pythagorean theorems, and relationships of degrees between triangles, circles, hexagons, prisms, etc. Basically get ahead as much as you can then you may have more of a shot with a firm that doesn't think you won't be much use.

Doors are the single most requested job of a private carpenter so it makes sense to learn as much as you can about them, different styles, sizes, tricks of fitting, what you can and can't plane to fit, sourcing the tools required to fit one, all knowledge learned will help and maybe get you out of a pickle one day.

I wouldn't bother getting a CSCS card until you've had actual working experience of the trade for a while, building sites are are absolute shxtholes with no time to be shown anything unless your 16years old and until you know your way around a hammer and saw you'll get eaten alive and be put off learning any more. And most firms won't consider you unless you can drive.

Best of luck mate.

 

Its quite a Job change. It takes years to become fully knowledgeable and skillful at Carpentry & Joinery. An apprenticeship would be out of the question i would imagine, but not impossible.

The best thing you could do would be to secure yourself a position with a local Building Firm or Joinery firm as a laborer, build up your portfolio, take all the advise your given on board, you will be given small jobs, which will lead to bigger jobs down the line as your skill set improves, the money will not be fantastic but it at least gets your foot in the door of a new career.

Gather yourself some resource books, "the manual of site carpentry" by les goring, would good for you to brush up on knowledge, however it will be up to your employer when they let you loose on the tools.

We have all done it mate, been their and got the T shirt, everyone has to start somewhere.

I done a 6 year apprenticeship with the same firm, you only really start to make a living and good money when you break away from the firm when your time served, even at year 6, and even though you can still do the same work as the rest of the squad, to the same standard, your still viewed as an apprentice and your wages will reflect that.

If you want the change , you can make it happen, just make sure its a trade you want, otherwise you may end up regretting it, hating it, when you could of been putting the time in to something that really interested you as a career move

good luck with it all mate

Bertie