12 Apr 2022 – Hands on Night

On Tuesday 12 April, our group of willing volunteers set up the hall ready for our Hands on Night.  We saw a good turnout of 29, some of which were old faces we had not seen for a while who were warmly welcomed back and also some new members attending for the first time signed up to join our friendly group.  Though out the evening, John, Mick and Darren were kept busy on the lathes.  We saw John making a natural edge bowl, Mick doing some one to one tuition with a new turner and Darren made an elegant vase with a combined finish using a scorching technique and Hampshire Sheen green wax.

We must point out that Darren was specifically careful when performing this scorching technique taking precautions to reduce the risk as well as having a fire extinguisher in his tool box directly behind him.  Extreme care is required when using a naked flame from a blow torch to apply scorching to wood and this should always be performed outside and away from a dusty workshop and ensure a suitable fire extinguisher is readily available.  Question – Do you have a fire extinguisher in your workshop, if not, it is highly recommended to get one?

Continuing with the burning wood theme, Chris was set up for a pyrography workshop with several members bringing along their Pyro machines to share with others.  Some new to the burning art and others just wanting to improve their technique.  This activity seemed to go down well and we will aim to run it again at some point in the future.  If you would be interested in seeing anything specific on these nights, please get in touch as we are always looking for new ideas.

Zak set up the Clubs video equipment to demonstrate how it is set up and how to use it. This got a lot of interest from those wanting to get involved in creating their own video content for our online workshop activity nights or just to watch back and improve their technique which can be very useful. Zak has previously produced three YouTube videos on how to set up the free downloadable software, i.e. OBS and Touch Portal, you can find them here Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

The purpose of the Hands on Nights is to educate our new members just starting out in the craft and to improve the skills of those already turning. We encourage anyone to have a go and or use the opportunity to get some one to one help and advice from the Turners present. That is not just those on the lathes, but from any of the other more experienced members present. The Turners on these nights are not necessarily there to provide you with a demonstration, they are there to help you, so please use their experience, ask questions and if you want to, ask could you have to go.

To capture what goes on at our meetings, relies on normally Chris, Zak or Martin to take some photos or videos. Quite often we get tied up with other things, so we don’t necessary get time to capture all the action of what is going on the lathes etc. So we would really like someone to volunteer to take on the role as Club photographer and during the meetings take some photos/videos and send them through to us via Dropbox. That way we have plenty of pictures to choose from to share on this website, Instagram and Facebook. If you are interested in this job, please get in touch.

Thanks to everyone who made it a good night and we look forward to seeing you again next month.