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North Wiltshire Woodturners Association |
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June 2008
Apologies for the late update this month. That's the sort of thing that happens when you go on holiday. Never mind, I'm back now complete with a rather fetching tan, although I expect that'll come off in the bath! First of all, then, we have a report from our Club Night Meeting on June 4th. For those of you who are wondering how the demo day went with Jason Breach in May, I've also included a page covering that event.
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*** STOP PRESS - LATHE WANTED *** I've had an enquiry from a prospective member who is in the market for a new lathe. He'd like to spend somewhere in the region of £300 and wants to upgrade from his current Draper machine. He prefers bowl turning but would probably want to turn between centres later on. If you can help then please contact me by placing an Enquiry via this site (i.e. click on the Enquiry button on the left). Thanks. |
Club Meeting - June 4th 2008
The Club Meeting was one of our “Do It Yourself” affairs with a number of our members making much appreciated contributions to the evening. The first star of the show was Ian Shepherd who kicked off with a demonstration on woodturning design software. Some of us like our designs to develop as they're actually being turned, others of us like to have at least a rough idea of what we're making before we actually start turning. And then there are those who won't go anywhere near a lathe unless we have a fully-dimensioned drawing, possibly even with a “rod” and/or templates. No matter how we design our work, woodturning design software has something to offer to those of us who don't mind getting our heads round a few “bits and bytes”. Click on the following links to take a tour around some of the design software available to us today. . .
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Creative Woodturner | |
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Woodturner Pro | |
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Segmented Turning |
And if you're feeling really creative (and have the right hardware specification), you might like to take a look at Google's Sketchup.
In addition to Ian's valuable contribution we also had a demo from Ken Crittle on his "bowlsaver" device which enables the user to produce a set of nested bowls (or simply a series of bowls) with very little waste. Here are one or two pictures of Ken in action:
So first of all you mount the blank on the lathe . . . . . . Then when the blank is cut to a rough shape, you can mark it up to and approximate size and set to work with the bowlsaver . . . . . . and you end up with a load of thin-walled bowls. Easy eh? Trouble is that Ken has a knack of making it look easy.
In addition, we had an explanation on how to fume oak from Michael Rigby and a treatise on Bog Oak from Pete Duckett, as well as Brian Oram's explanation on how he made his elephant (see picture below). It really is inspiring to see how much time, care and attention to detail goes into club members' work. Many thanks to one and all for a thoroughly informative evening.
Show 'n' Tell As
explained at the Club Meeting there is to be a change to the Shown 'n'
Tell section of our evening. It was felt that some members would
appreciate some constructive criticism of their work in order to
enable them to widen their skills and improve their output.
Accordingly, after a vote, it was decided that we should have two
Show 'n' Tell tables each month and members would be welcome to put
their work on whichever table they would like. Work on one table will
simply be commented on and discussed without the offering of advice
or criticism in any way. Items on the other table will invite
constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement from other
club members. Hope this works for you – all feedback appreciated.
Now for this month's Show 'n' Tell offerings.
First
up this month is Brian Oram's elephant. It was fascinating listening to
Brian's creative journey - particularly as this piece ended up at the
Worshipful Company of Turner's competition. Thankfully it was
exceptionally well-behaved and we didn't have to clear up after it!
During Jason Breach's demo day back in May he showed us how to turn a sphere. Pete Kelly decided to have a go. Pretty good eh?
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Here's a little something to fascinate the kiddies. Colourfast woodworking markers are available to produce this effect on spinning tops. I wonder whether felt tips would do just as well. . . |
Silence in court! Here's another of Ken Crittle's famous pieces. This one was purpleheart - and the finish on this piece had to be seen to be believed.
I
loved these light pulls - they look like yew to me (which, for those of
you not properly awake, is a thinly-disguised and quite blatant pun).
Looks like someone learned a thing or two from Joe Kerrawn's demo on
light pulls a couple of months back. Yet another example of how the
club helps us inspire and learn from each other.
And, finally, a couple of baby's rattles. Such items are often associated with memories of "when the kids were babies" and are kept for the sake of those memories. I wonder where these two will be in 25 years time. (A final plea: Remember to use appropriate timbers and finishes when making items for children. You wouldn't want a baby chewing on a piece of yew for example would you?).
All-Day Event with Jason Breach - May 3rd 2008 To see some photos of this event, please click here.
Club Display at North Swindon Library For several weeks now our club has had a selection of members' work on display at North Swindon Library
(click on the link for more information on the library itself). Many
thanks to those members who contributed items of their work. Thanks
also to the library for being willing to host our work. Here are some
pictures of the display for those who haven't been able to visit the
library to see the display "in the flesh", as it were.
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Club Library You may wish to note that the Club Library page
has now been updated and shows the latest titles we have in stock. In
particular Allan has bought a series of Dennis White DVDs which will
hopefully interest some of you. I currently have one of them and can
thoroughly recommend it. I look forward to having a look at some of the
others too. Yew for Sale The
club has a large quantity of unseasoned yew for sale to club members at
approximately a quarter of the market price. There is a large range of
planks from 1.25" to 3" thick and logs of various diameters. Please see
Ian Hooker or Ian Murray-West who have price lists of what is available.
Back Copies of Making Shavings Back copies of our newsletter Making Shavings are available here. Next Meeting
Our next meeting will be on July 2nd 2008 when we welcome Nigel Porter on Finishing and Polishing turned work. Should be a good evening. Our
evening includes a Show 'n' Tell session where we bring a piece of our
work to show others and chat about techniques, how we made it etc. (see note above on changes to our Show 'n' Tell sessions. If
you have nothing to bring with you or you don't have the time, the
skills or the inclination to make anything, that's absolutely fine -
just bring yourself. Click here for a location map. Future Meetings Club
meetings have now been scheduled until the end of 2008. Please click on
the "Club Diary" button on the left for further details.
Entrance fee is £2.00
on the night and light refreshments will be provided. (Members who have
not already done so will be required to pay an annual susbscription -
see a committee member or log an Enquiry on this site for further
details). The evening runs from 7.30pm to 9.30pm - it's best to arrive
in plenty of time to make sure there's a parking space.
Buying and Selling If any
club members would like to advertise anything for sale, or if there's
something you'd like to buy, please let the webmaster know (better make
it woodturning related - I don't think it would be right to be
advertising your old sofa for sale on the club website!).