Woodturners Newsletter, January 2024

Next Meeting

Program

Extended show and tell!

Bring one or two of your favorite / challenging pieces and tell us what you learned making it. You can also bring an inspiring piece you may have from another turner and share your thoughts about it.
This will be great fun and education!

Also bring the holiday gifts from the holiday party, and the maker, if present, can explain the making of the piece.

President’s challenge:

A turned tree, inspired by Kelly’s November demo. It could also be a mushroom or plant theme if you prefer!

Upcoming Meetings

• February: Finishing Part 1 – Sanding and prep
• March: Finishing Part 2 – Types and application

Last Meeting Review – Holiday Potluck!

Wednesday December 20, 2023

Notes by Laura Rhodes, pictures by Roman Chernikov

More pictures by Angela Gunn here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/aWGQahCgp5eBpL29A

We had a well attended (28 guests) Holiday potluck with more than enough food including appetizers, side dishes, turkey and stuffing, sweet desserts… Add to that a gift exchange and ornament raffle, and I believe all went home very satisfied!! Many thanks to master carver Edgar Whipple for his knife work on the turkey!!

Show and Tell

The gift exchange and ornament raffle brought out many interesting pieces. We hope to see those at the January meeting for a closer look.

President’s Message

Happy New Year fellow turners!

I hope you get to enjoy your craft and learn new things, make new friends!

The Palo Alto Adult School is now offering for the first time actual woodturning classes. It has been a long road to get there, getting enough working lathes (we now have 6), getting tools, grinding setups, chucks etc. Imagine how you set up your woodturning shop, times 6! Thanks to Tom Gaston and Tina for taking on the coaching and instruction. It is a great sign of the general interest in woodturning that, as soon as registration came online last December, all the seats were taken in a few hours! We even had too many people signed up, and had to refund a few! So expect to see new faces showing up at our meetings as a result.

I am looking forward to more joint event with our club, we will have more hands-on group events in the future. Let me know of any ideas for topics, techniques, skill building you may have in mind of learning.

Claude Godcharles

“As the Wood Turns” by Dave Vannier

For me, life is an opportunity to learn. The start of a new year is a good time to reflect on what I experienced this past year and think about what I might want to try this year. 

I bought another hollowing system and have spent a lot of time trying to learn how to make canvases to pierce and paint. I’m getting better, but still more to learn.  A few different experiments with inlays and epoxy made life interesting. Of course, lots of embellishments. 

I started this year with my first goblet.  Hard to believe I’ve been turning for over 20 years and never done a goblet.  I want to do more piercing and painting. Negative space has always intrigued me. I’ve had a few segmented ideas floating around. Assuming I can get the table saw cleared I’m going to try them. 

So what did you learn and what are you going to do this year? Oh ya, don’t forget the AAW Symposium this year in Portland, May 23-26. A great opportunity to make some new friends, connect with old ones, get inspired by some new ideas, and maybe pick up a few new skills.

Dave
www.daves-turned-art.com

WBW board members and committee chairs