Workbench RVA offers short-term classes, membership options, custom jobs and more. (Photo by Justin Chesney)
Richmond native Dalton Rudd picked up his passion for woodworking from a class he took in middle school. He spent the following years in his garage, working with hand-me-down saws, until he landed his first job as a cabinet maker in 2017. His interest expanded on the job; he’d go in early and often found himself alone in a maze of saws and planers.
“I’d think to myself, all this machinery is sitting here, waiting to be used,” Rudd says. “Why can’t somebody else use it, too?”
That’s when Rudd first thought to start a public woodworking class, but the liability risk was too great for the company’s management. Rudd was undeterred. In November 2021, he opened Workbench RVA, a community studio and educational center for learning the practical skills of woodworking.
After a short pause in operations, the shop reopened in January at 3310 Rosedale Ave., its new location near The Diamond.
There, Rudd offers a courses on the basics of woodworking and project-specific classes. Classes start at $30, while monthly memberships start at $139 and include full shop access and discounts on lumber.
“We can make picture frames, planter boxes, rolling pins. Somebody’s coming in next week to do wooden wedding rings,” Rudd says. “Members have 24-7 access to the facility ... with loads of machinery, all accurate, all clean, all sharpened.”
Another place to become project-oriented is at the Scott’s Addition studio of Harrison Higgins, a professional furniture maker. Since 2010, Higgins has offered a membership for weekly classes at a rate of $210 per month.
Due to size constraints and popularity, new customers must join a waitlist. Once approved, members keep their spot indefinitely — Higgins says one or two spots open each year.
“If you’re a beginner, we’re not going to let you tackle something that’s way beyond what you can handle,” Higgins says, “but as people learn, we’ve had students working on all kinds of things.”
Examples include a wooden wheel for a British sports car, repairs to a shutter from a historic home and a sailboat that two woodworkers who met in class spent 10 years together building.
At Workbench RVA, Rudd often sees attitudes shift over the course of the date-night cutting board classes. Couples experience the process from start to finish, from gluing wood strips together to sanding and staining the finished project, with an hour break for dinner while the wood sets.
“Speaking truthfully, a lot of people come in saying to their spouse, ‘Why did you bring me here?’” Rudd says. “By the end of the night, the skeptical one is always saying, ‘This is absolutely awesome.’”
As it was with Rudd, woodworking classes planted the seed that became the business Higgins runs today. “This all started because my grandfather took a woodworking class at Binford Middle School,” he says. “He was newly married and taking his wife to an interior design class nearby. They had one car, and he was like, ‘What can I learn how to do on a Wednesday night?’”
