Posted on by Alec Mutch

Report on our meeting 11-05-2023 organized by David Hobson.

Our meeting on the 11th May 2023 was organized by David Hobson he had arranged for Australian woodturner Jim Cameron to give the members a presentation on woodturning in Australia and also to do a slide show of some of his work along with some other work by Australian woodturners. Jim’s presentation was to last about an hour but such was the interest from our members that Jim’s presentation lasted for more than the time allocated which was fine with everyone. He gave a very comprehensive report on how woodturning got going in Western Australia and the amount of interest that it now receives, culminating in there now being 12 individual clubs with a membership in total of some 550 members, in the area of Western Australia.

This is Jim Cameron as he starts his presentation, a talk on the Australian woodturning scene.
During his talk he introduced us to his workshop by showing us these photographs.

After the talk Jim then showed some of his and others work, through a lap top operated by Susan Drew, he talked to us about every photo from a large range of turned items shown on the screens, he also dealt with all the questions coming from our members.

Here we see top left another picture inside Jim’s workshop. Top middle and right are pictures of a base Jim made for the cup. Bottom, some walking sticks that Jim had made.

The following pictures are all from a memory stick that he handed to me after the presentation, I’m not going to comment on all of them as I’m not familiar with all of the Australian woods although Jim did tell us what they were as we saw them, just enjoy looking at the pictures.

That concluded the picture show, we hope you found them interesting and inspiring.

For the remaining part of the meeting David had organized for a mini Show and tell to be held in order to let Jim see the range of artefacts our club members were producing, Jim had agreed to cast his eye over the items brought in and to ask questions about them, he was particularly interested in what woods were being used as he does not see many of the woods we in Scotland are familiar with, but first we were to have a cup of tea/coffee and a slice of cake courtesy of Richard Comfort.

With the break over Jim was keen to go and see the turnings our members had brought in, there was an excellent response from our members who brought in a large selection of artefacts and Jim asked questions and commented on a lot of them over the next 40 minutes or so.

Now at the show and tell Jim started to look over all of the items brought in, he wanted to know who made what and was particularly interested in the wood species we were using. He made a lot of very interesting and encouraging comment on various items he picked up.
As he moved on through the tables he picked up several again wanting to know who made them and discussing some of the finer points about them, his comments were always of a positive nature and it was obvious to us all that he really liked what he saw.
Left, this was the last item Jim picked up and asked questions of, it was a laminated bowl made by David Ross and Jim wanted to know how it was made, after a discussion with David Ross Jim ended his presentation. Right, A token of our appreciation being handed over to Jim. a bottle of single malt Whisky.

That ended our meeting slightly later than planned but no one was in any hurry to get away, there were several members who wanted to talk to Jim and he was more that accommodating to them.

Our next meeting is on the 25th May, it’s the 2nd competition of the year and the theme for this competition is multi axis turning and all 3 categories have the same subject matter, it’s being handled by Nick Simpson and we are looking to get a better response from the members than was the case for the last competition, good luck to all of you who enter.