13 Oct 2020 – Workshop Activity Night

On Tuesday 13 Oct 2020, we held our first Workshop Activity Night to feature three of our members doing live demonstrations from their own workshops streamed out to our members via Zoom.  This has to be a first for any Club that we know and deserves a massive THANKS and credit to Alan Buckle, Ian ‘Zak’ Flack and Chris Fisher.  These guys have worked really hard to get the technology to work and we are really impressed with the results.

Whilst Covid-19 has changed the world and the way we all do things in a bad way, for the Club, it has forced us to embrace the technology now available.  This is actually a good thing and will help us to take the Club to the next level and make it what has to be the best woodturning club ever and something proud to be a part of.  2020 will go down in history as a year we will never forget, but it also will be the year we see the club grow for the better.

We started the meeting with Mick and I providing a few announcements. It was good to see 34 members had joined us for the evening which is a brilliant turnout.  Still like to see more members taking part and interacting with each, so get chatting!  Unfortunately, Craig from Record Power was unable to join us, but we hope to see him soon.  That did not stop us having a good evening.

• The Club shop will be open this coming Saturday, 17 Oct from 10 am to midday.  It will then be open every two weeks up to and including 12 Dec.
• We have recently applied for a grant from the AWGB to support Clubs effected by Covid and pleased to announce we have been successful, so watch this space for news on what we intend to spend the money on.
• The Club now has a private Facebook Group open to paid club members where we will be sharing various things and gives you somewhere to show us what you have been up to, ask questions and have a chat, so please check it out.  Click HERE to go to the group, agree to the rules and request to join.  We moderate all the requests to join to ensure only paid members are allowed in.
• We also have a YouTube channel where we can share with you various videos either open to the public or private ones only visible to you with the relevant link.  Please subscribe to our channel HERE.  We have recently uploaded a few new videos, one of which is our resident Skew expert, John Liles, so go and check out his video which can be found HERE.  Also, we have Chris giving some tips on sharpening, check that out HERE.  We are planning to upload more videos soon, so keeping checking to see what’s new.

We then got on with our new feature ‘Meet the Woodturner’ and asked Rob Smyth, John Mitchell and Peter Barrack to tell us how they got into woodturning which is interesting to hear the different stories.  We nominate the first person and then get each person to choose the next person and so on.  So who will be next….?

With Alan, Zak and Chris ready to start turning, we headed off and spot lighted on Alan to start with, who was going to be making a square platter.  The hardest part with these types of projects is getting the thickness right at the corners, as most of the time you are turning air.  It is also very important to know where the corners are whilst it is spinning so worth marking the tool rest.  Chris was busy making a beech goblet that in his normal manner wanted suggestions on what to do next and what shape ect, so it was just like being back in the hall… the good ole days!  Zak had found an old ant infested lump of apple that he was going to be turning into a box.  During the demo it was suggested, how he could maybe make it into an actual apple shape with a lid and a stalk.  He had filled one of the holes that the ants had used for their front door with a brass in fill and stabilised with some super glue some of the bark which he wanted to keep intact.  During the evening we switched between the turners to see how they were each getting on.  We hope to see the finished pieces next time.  If you want our turners to do anything specific, please let us know.  Next time, we have the Chairman’s Challenge which he will be providing the guys with an identical piece of wood to go and make something from it.  It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

During the evening we asked our members to show us what they had been turning and yet again we were not disappointed. This month we had Dai Crawford, Peter Hallam, Stuart Lowe, Paul Tunmore, Darren Brown, Chris Fisher and Mick Close showing us what they had been up to.  Well done to you all, some fabulous pieces of work.  Here are a few photos kindly provided as zoom does not do them justice.

For Sale: Dust Extractor

Perform Code 2 1999,

Excellent Condition,
£60 or nearest offer,

Location: Mareham Le Fen

Name: Dave Welling
Tel No: 07483 805427

Don’t miss the Cindy Drozda live demo on 27 Oct 2020, 7pm start.  She is based in Boulder, Colorado, USA and this will be another first for our club to have a demonstrator showing us what she can do all the way from the other side of the world.  Check out her website HERE for more details.