Meet Your Maker 009: J. Currie Designs

I've been a carpenter now for 20 years. Some of that was project management, then back into making again. I started my own workshop about eight or nine years ago, maybe ten years ago now.

We're woodworkers basically. We do anything in wood, with little bits of metal and other elements. We've worked across the woodworking board. We've worked in TV adverts, fabrication, furniture. And then I've kind of slowly been pushing into that speaker world.

I had an idea that I wanted to make my own speakers for myself first, and they are the ones I've got at home. That was kind of two years in the making before I actually started.

One of the most important things for me, through all the workshops I've been in, is music. People could walk into a workshop and just start working and it would just be silence. I like going into the workshop, putting the music on, and then that becomes part of your day. And it always has been part of my day.

Usually I have the big set on and play music through them all day, because that's what I built them for, for everyone to hear good music through. There's no point in having them stored away upstairs for a rainy day. They're there to be played.

I've been to loads of events where the sound was just so bad. It has to be perfect. If you've got these great people playing this great music, sound needs to be on top form as well.

The original Carnival sound systems, they'd just have to use what was available to them at the time, what they found, like old floorboards, to make the cabinets.

A lot of speakers are just black. They stand in the corner of a room and people don't pay any attention to them, because they just can't see the work that's gone into the internal workings. When you add the little bits of detail to it, it does lift everything.

We like working with hardwoods. We like ash, we like maple. It's just very pleasing to work with a hardwood. We tend to like things as they come. Something with a very pale natural oil, just as it is, and stop trying to make it into something it's not.

The workshop smells of the wood. When you're using iroko, it smells of incense. The whole workshop smells of incense. You can cut a bit of wood and smell it, and I can say, yeah, that's that wood by the smell.

We enjoy projects that maybe stretch our skill level somewhat. We'll add nice touches which people haven't paid for or I haven't quoted for, just because we think it would look right.

You're never going to be super rich when you're a carpenter, because if you've got a bit of spare time, then you just do a little bit more. If you leave something and you're not happy, you'll just kick yourself every day.