Welcome to the First Turn website

Jonathan Deacon started his apprenticeship as a wood turner with Dougal Beedie & Sons of Dundee in 1971. After a year he moved back to London for three years to study Furniture Design & Cabinet Making at the London College of Furniture gaining a distinction in his Diploma.

After a brief spell working for Harrods and then at Tudor Oak (Kent) Ltd, in 1976 he went into partnership with Michael Sandys as Deacon & Sandys - designing and making a range of traditional oak furniture which was marketed all over the world. This led to Jonathan becoming head of marketing, a role in which he no longer made furniture and did precious little wood turning!

In 2006 Michael offered to buy the business which offered Jonathan a chance to specialise in wood turning again. First Turn was established in early 2007 and forms the backbone of Jonathan's desire to continue woodturning and make furniture with the strongest commitment to sound design, highest quality manufacture and client satisfaction.

Architects & Designers

A new digitally controlled hydraulic copy lathe, capable of turning wood blanks up to 480mm diameter by 3.4 meters long makes the reproduction of large load-bearing columns and one piece large diameter turns possible

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Furniture Manufacturers

From the smallest knob to giant bulb turned four-poster bed legs, all are reproduced to the highest standards on a modern digitally controlled hydraulic copy lathe

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Builders & Joiners

Your pictures or drawings of a newel post or spindle are used to produce a CAD drawing with which to produce new templates or, working from an existing turn, as many accurate copies as required can be reproduced quickly and cheaply.

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