The Story Behind The Craft.
Hi, I’m Phil, a Bolton craftsman and independent maker. I build handcrafted woodwork for the home and garden, digitise old VHS tapes and other media, and record and produce voiceovers and audio. Every project gets the same patience, precision, and five decades of creative passion.
At A Glance.
Media Archiving
Your family tapes deserve care. I digitise each one myself, checking every transfer so your memories are kept safe.
Voice & Audio Production
A warm northern voice for radio ads and idents, plus mixing for producers who send me their own voice and music files.
Woodcrafts
Bird boxes, garden pieces and gifts, all made by hand in my workshop and built to last.
Pencil Art
Where it all started. A few of my favourite hand-drawn portraits.
Growing up around craftsmen
The Spark
My journey began in a busy kitchen in Bolton, watching my dad, a local artist and master French Polisher, turn blank canvases into oil paintings and old tables and chairs into beautiful furniture.
That stuck with me. By thirteen, I was sketching constantly and by my twenties, I was splicing reel-to-reel tape together for radio broadcasts. I’ve always loved the puzzle of making things: how a few lines, a few pieces of timber or a few sound waves can be shaped into something that means something.
Audio, Video and Preservation
Audio has been a lifelong obsession. At three years old, I was listening to Bohemian Rhapsody on a tiny record player, fascinated by how the layered vocals were put together.
That curiosity led to an HND in Audio and Video, years of broadcast experience, and then five-years at a local radio station, where I specialised in advertising production. I worked directly with businesses to write, edit, and produce radio-ready, 30-second commercials.
Today, I bring that same broadcast-standard care to modern multi-angle video editing and to preserving old media, from VHS tapes and Digital 8 to audio cassettes.
Your memories are irreplaceable, and I treat them that way. I can even lend my voice to your project.
Woodwork and Pencil Art
When I step away from the screen, I like to make things with my hands. It started years ago as when I turned a battered garden gate into a bird table and garden bench.
Since then I have built garden gates and heavy duty garden benches, my signature, British-themed bird boxes (including a custom TARDIS and classic red telephone boxes) and character-filled cartoonish wooden animals, all from quality timber from my local yard.
Before the woodwork, I drew pencil portraits. That’s where Phil’s Arts and Crafts began, and you can see a few of my favourites on the Pencil Art page.
It’s an eclectic mix of skills, but they all share one common foundation:
Crafted with passion, engineered with precision
Let's Create Something Together
Whether you’d like handcrafted garden furniture, your old tapes digitised, or a voice for your radio ad or project, I’d love to hear about it.
Drop me a message and we’ll talk it through.