Hands on Night – 12 Oct 2021

The monthly Hands on Night has come around again and we were pleased to be able to open up the doors of the Village Hall to welcome 26 attendees.  Good to see a few new faces and potential new members coming to see what we are up to.  Also, very pleased to see those members that have stuck with us over Covid, despite some not wanting to attend the online Zoom meetings and have remained members.  Hopefully, as confidence builds in people starting to go out more, we might encourage the rest of the membership to come along as well.

On Tuesday night, we had three lathes set up so that Chris, Zak and John could keep everyone entertained and to enable anyone wanting to have a go to try woodturning themselves.  Appreciate having a go on the lathe with an audience is not for everyone, but please ask any of our turners if you would like to.  The beauty of these evenings is that you can wander around looking at what each of the Turners are making, grabbing a cuppa, buying some raffle tickets, having a good old natter or popping out to the Club Shop to see what John and Mick have for sale.  Yet again, Mick has been out looking for some bargains and arrived with a car full of new timber to sell, plus also the stock previously obtained and of course the ample stock of items in the shop made for an impressive sight and many items were sold during the evening.  So if you don’t come along, see what you are missing out on!

Our resident spindle expert John was really pushing the boat out and showed his many talents by how he makes a Singapore Ball.  These are featured in a book by David Springlett who makes all sorts of these type of balls and they are amazing, so a big credit to him and John for sharing how they are made.  These require, firstly making an accurate sphere which is difficult to say the least and of course John made it look easy!  Then, the position of the 32 equi-distant holes need to be accurately marked out.  Using a compass set to 0.526 x the diameter of the sphere (using the average diameter measured in several places) will enable 12 points to be marked.  These 12 points form 20 triangles which the centre point of each triangle is then marked giving you 32 points.  There are various places online describing that much better, so google ‘making singapore balls’.  The sphere is then held in a specially made chuck to enable the holes to be drilled, firstly with a pilot hole with an engineers centre drill, then the main drill to a form each hole.  Using a homemade shaped chisel, the hole is undercut before repositioning for the next hole.  The little spikes are then made and inserted into the sphere.  Nice one John, thanks.

Chris, as usual, had a crowd around his lathe giving their opinions on what to make and how to do it, which of course Chris ignores but then it would not be Chris if he didn’t.  He kept his audience entertained with his wit and of course his expert turning skills.  He started with a bit of hollowing to form a nice little shaped vase or something made out of a piece of fruit wood, possibly Apple.  He then moved on to a piece of spalted Beech to show the making of a bowl and how to use the tools to Glen, one of our newcomers, who had a go and appears to be another natural turner, so watch out Chris!  Thanks Chris.

Zak had kindly brought along an impressive variety of items that we have seen him making during the online workshop nights.  Seeing the items in real life made them look even better and the Zoom computer screens are obviously not doing them the justice they deserve.  Well done Zak.  He had a busy night and I think he easily won ‘The most shavings made’ competition as the pile under his lathe was quite impressive.  His first item he turned was a small bowl from a piece of Apple wood. He then turned a live edge bowl from the other half of said piece of Apple. To finish, he made a couple of small snowmen out of some pieces of scaffold board with separate hats. During the evening he was also pointing out some of the chisels that he had made himself. Yet again another well delivered thought out demonstration. Thanks Zak.  Also thanks to Rob Smyth for your help with this post and for acting as Zak’s assistant!

Don’t forget to add the Workshop Night new dates to your calendar so that you don’t miss them.  Its been moved to the 3rd Tuesday of each month, so the next one is on the 19 Oct 2021.  This is because we have restarted the Hands on Nights in the Hall.  Our intention is to keep running these online nights so that those who can’t get to the hall or are busy can still take part in the Club activities.  Also we are recording the turning on these nights and will post them on our YouTube channel if all goes to plan, so that you can watch them whenever you want.

We still want to see what you have been making so please send me your photos so they can be added to our Show & Tell feature.  Not sure how to do that, get in touch via the contact form.

See you next week.

We are looking at putting on a Christmas Workshop, subject to the amount of interest we receive.  This will be a new event for the Club and will be limited numbers, so first come first served.  This will be a full day on 6 November 2021, 10am to 4pm.  We are planning to have the 4 Club lathes set up in the Hall and Mick Close will be teaching the lucky four attendees how to make a variety of Christmas themed items during the day, such as tree decorations, snowman, LED snowman and if enough time, a Hollow Bauble.  This will cost £45 per head for a days tuition and this will cover the cost of all materials used and teas & coffee.  You will need to have some turning experience already as this is NOT a one to one training session, where close supervision/assistance is being provided.  You will need to bring a packed lunch, mask to be worn when moving around Hall, a smock or borrow a Club one, tools (to be confirmed what is needed), your own eye/face and dust protection whilst using the lathe.  If interested, please contact us ASAP.  If we do not get 4 attendees, the event will not take place.  More details to follow if this is goes ahead.

If this event goes ahead, we will also open up the Club Shop, 10am to Midday for any Club members who would like to pop in to restock.

Over this last year, we have seen our membership increase in numbers which is great and far exceeded our expectations, especially with the Covid situation, so a BIG THANK YOU for supporting your Club.  We have noticed recently a gradual drop in attendance and are wondering why this might be?  We appreciate this can be attributed to the summer months and also as Covid restrictions are being lifted, people are finally able to get away for a change of scenery.  Hopefully, over the coming winter months the numbers will start to increase, but we would be interested to know your thoughts and answers to the following questions:

• What is your opinion of our recently published Program for 2022?
• Do you feel that the online Workshop evenings should continue for 2022? If “Yes”, would you be prepared to participate either live via Zoom or recorded using the LWWA camera system?
• Do you feel that the club are holding too many meetings each month?
• As physical Hands-On evenings are back, will you be attending?
• Do you think holding a hands-on session at the weekend during the daylight hours is a good idea?
• Will you renew your membership for 2022?
• Should the club plan for training sessions at the weekend? (if “YES”) what area of woodturning would you like to be covered)
• Do you have any suggestions to move the club forward?

Feel free to put your answers in the comments below this post or send via the Contact form.  As with all News Posts, comments are moderated, so will not appear until I approve it, so if you don’t want it to appear online, please can you annotate it at the start to say ‘PRIVATE’.  We will still get the info but it wont appear in the comments.  This would be the same for any comments against any New Post if you would feel happier in doing so.

We will be welcoming Phillip Greenwood to our Zoom screens on the 26 Oct 2021, so please support the meeting by coming along from the comfort of your armchair and see what he will be making for us.  PAYG Members need to be purchasing their ticket as soon as possible if you want to watch this demo.  Any problems with doing this contact us.