Category: General News

Our next meeting should be on Thursday 1st April 2021, this meeting has been turned into a virtual meeting due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions. The meeting was to be managed by Nick Simpson and Nick’s theme for the meeting was green woodturning. Green woodturning is using wood that is still wet or fresh cut, this can still be achieved with good results if you know what you are doing, It can also be very interesting to see what actually happens to a piece of wet turned work after it has dried out, sometimes it can be quite beneficial but on other times a complete disaster. If you do make anything with wet or fresh cut wood, try to cut it very thin, this will give you the best chance of making something that after it dries is still useable. Wet turning can be very good when making items that are natural edged, these can distort in the drying and because of the natural edge can be difficult to see the distortion.

Our virtual meeting on the 18th March 2021 was the Easter competition. The theme for the competition was to make Chess Pieces, the competition was arranged by Nick Simpson and was judged by Nick Simpson and Errol Levings. There were 3 categories for the competition, beginners, intermediate and experienced, each category had a different set of criteria set for them to follow, the beginners were requested to make a Chess Piece of any rank, the intermediate category were requested to make 2 Chess Pieces that were matching of equal rank, the experienced category were requested to make 2 matching Chess Pieces of equal rank from Rook (Castle), Knight or Bishop plus 1 Queen or King. Here are the results of the competition.

The Beginners category was won by Jeff Buttress for his Queen.

Here is an update on the recent Chess Pieces competition. The closing date for the entries passed at midnight on the 18th March 2021. There were 9 entries in total. 5 came from the beginners category and 4 came from the experienced category, unfortunately we had no entries from the intermediate category.

All the entries have now been passed on to the judges with the members names having been removed, the result of the competition will be announced here on the 26th March, the individual winners will be notified by email at the same time.

The judges for this competition are Nick Simpson and Errol Levings.

We want to take this opportunity to thank all of those who took part in the competition.

Our meeting on Thursday 4th March 2021 was all about making wooden goblets, the meeting was to be organised by John Ruickbie but due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions the meeting had to be turned into a virtual meeting. You were all invited to make a goblet or goblets and to send any pictures of the completed items to me for publication on our club web site.

I have to say that the take up was pitiful with only 2 members other than myself taking up the challenge, this was very disappointing as we were expecting more of you to enter.

Our meeting on Thursday 4th March 2021 has been arranged by John Ruickbie, John’s subject for the meeting is about making wooden goblets. This meeting has been made into a virtual meeting due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, that does not mean it won’t happen, it will take place only virtually. You are all invited to make at least one goblet, then for you to photograph it or them and send the pictures to me, do remember to give me some information about your creation.

It can be any size type or shape you so desire, made from one piece or from many pieces, it can be natural edged or even have a few rings in the stem, if your really adventurous you could create a stepped stem, it’s up to you, anything goes.

Here are a few pictures of some wooden goblets for you to view and take inspiration from, don’t just sit back and let others do the work, please take part, I’m sure we would all like to see what you have made.

Our meeting on the 18th February 2021 was to be all about dealing with snags and finding solutions to those snags, it was being handled by John Ruickbie but due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions it had to be turned into a virtual meeting. You were all invited to put something forward for this meeting, John did put in a very comprehensive report on a spinning wheel he worked on that threw up some problems he had to find solutions for. In addition to John’s report, Geoff Potter put in a suggestion rather than a snag that I thought warranted publication. I have also put forward something along the same lines as Geoff, Dave Line also put in a presentation for the solution of needing a drum sander, but we will start with John Ruickbie’s presentation,

Making a model spinning wheel

Our next meeting should be on Thursday 18th February 2021, this meeting had to be changed into a virtual meeting due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions. The meeting was to be arranged by John Ruickbie and John’s theme for the meeting was to be, Snags, Solutions & Ideas. I have already received some information from John on this meeting and some other input from another source. The feature picture at the top of this post deals with some of the information I have already, more will be revealed after the meeting date.

I’m sure most of you will have encountered a situation where you have met a snag and had to deal with it, let us know about it, tell us your solution and what other ideas you have to further your woodturning. I invite you all to tell me what snags and solutions you may have had in the past and what ideas you have for the future.