Tomislav is a professional woodturner from Croatia. His journey started as a 15-year-old woodworking apprentice, specifically as a joiner. From the beginning he was lucky enough to be always paired with old masters of their trades; one was the last woodturning teacher in Croatia. He took Tomislav under his wing, who learned the basics in 3 years as an apprentice.
Up to 2019 he was working in various woodworking shops as well as in the same woodworking school where he learnt his trade – but this time as a teacher. At this point he was turning roughly once a week making furniture parts and so on. That year, his uncle passed away; they were very close, and that drove him to take up woodturning as a career. With the help of his lovely wife, he bought the first lathe of his own.
During that first year, he was an effective turner, but not efficient enough. He found himself working up to 15 hours a day, then spending some time with his kids, after which he wouldthen spend evenings and nights turning for another 6-7 hours. This was clearly unsustainable, so he had to justify his time away from family and make himself efficient and fast enough to put food on the table. Woodturning was never a hobby for him.
At that point he saw a Richard Raffan video on fine woodworking about turning a bowl. It was game changer for him: this video led him to contact Richard about advice and tips and from that point changed the way he turns and how efficient he could be. Richard became hismentor in the following years, and he stresses that “I would not be the woodturner that I am today if it wasn’t for Richard’s help”.
A few years ago, he started a woodturning YouTube channel, aimed at passing on his passion for the craft and teaching others what he has learned. He now has over 70,000 subscribers, making it one of the largest woodturning channels on the platform.