Woodturners Newsletter, November 2025

West Bay Woodturners Newsletter is a monthly update on the club activities. This free resource is available to beginner and professional woodturners.

Next Meeting

Program

President’s challenge

Any turning which has used a scraper as the final step. No sanding allowed! Let’s see how fine a finish we can get just using a scraper. Recall Edgar’s nice demo of scraping techniques to help you achieve this, and remember a scraper does not only scrape!

Upcoming Meetings and Demos

• December – Christmas Party
• I’ll be broadcasting a link to a signup sheet if you would like to bring something.
• Arrive at 5PM and plan to eat around 6PM
• Turkey, gravy, and stuffing will be provided. Other nice dishes like cranberry and other traditional Thanksgiving dishes are welcome, or actually anything else you would like to bring.

President’s Message

It is interesting to think about what motivates our members, and all woodturners for that matter, to engage in this hobby. I think in our club we must have everyone on the spectrum, from those who just enjoy watching what others turn, to those who are interested mainly in the process and equipment, to artists, and to those you are in production mode as part of business venture.

Like many, I got into this because I had seen a lathe in action in high school, and recently on YT, and wanted to have the experience myself. It still seems a little magical to me to see a rough piece of wood turned into a bowl, box, or whatever. Who knows what hidden beauty will be revealed! Sometimes I just want to relax, enjoy the process, and make shavings. Often the meditative process has my happiest results.

So the bottom line is … just keep on turning, and above all turn safely!

Jon Bishop
WBW President

P.S. Unfortunately I am not able to make the next meeting due to an extended trip to NYC. Also, Tom Gaston, our VP is not able to make it, so Jim Koren, our Treasure, has agreed to run things.

Last Meeting Review

Wednesday October 15, 2025

Woodturners newsletter notes by Laura Rhodes

Announcements

• WBW Board nominations and election will take place at this month’s meeting. Our current nominations are:
  • President Edgar Whipple
  • VP Jon Bishop
  • Treasure Jim Koren
  • Secretary Alison Lee
• The WBW annual holiday party will be on December 17. It will feature a turkey, stuffing and gravy provided by the club (Jim Koren has volunteered to cook the turkey and gravy). Side dishes to be provided by club members. We’ll have our traditional gift exchange and ornament raffle. Doors will open at 5PM for setup. Eating will begin at 6PM, followed by the gift exchange and ornament raffle. A club group picture will be taken just before dinner is served.

Program: The Tomasic Refiner – Presented by Edgar Whipple:

Edgar has been following Richard Raffan and Tomislav Tomašić from Croatia on their respective YouTube channels. He appreciates that they often make small things with a limited set of tools. He admires their use of a specific type of shear scraper. Tomislav makes his own signature tool version of this scraper called the “Refiner”.

Edgar was inspired by club member Larry Maggi who made his own tool. Edgar looked at the Raffan/Tomašić refiner and thought he could make his own tool, too. He starts with a bar of high speed steel from Amazon (8 mm x 30 mm x 200 mm). He suggests rounding the edges on a belt grinder prior to cutting the tang. He reserves the bottom 5 cm for the tang and cuts it using an angle grinder. He traces the shape of the tool on the “business” and shapes it on the grinder, giving it a 45 degree bevel. He uses a copper pipe coupling cut in half for the ferrule.

Edgar discussed three levels of burr for the scraper. The first is directly off the grinder. This tends to be a bit rough. The second level is using a red 35micron diamond hone. The best burr is achieved using a burnisher, similar to that used to create a burr on a card scraper. Edgar made his own burnishing tool using a ¼” tungsten carbide rod from Amazon.

It’s quite an aggressive tool, so it should be used very gently. Edgar demonstrated how Richard Raffan uses this scraper to refine the bottom of the foot on a bowl and the outside sides of the bowl. It should not be used on the bowl interior.

President’s Challenge – Ornamental Turning:

Tom Gaston received a new KnewConcepts fret saw. The first piece he showed combined turning, steam bending, and fret saw use to create an orchid pot in the shape of a flower from a piece of birch. The second piece, also from birch, retained some of its bark for interest and had fret sawn petals

Dave Vannier made a stepped rim bowl using techniques shown to us by Mark Gardner. He also made a snow man, soon to receive puff paint buttons and eyes. His last piece was a vase that went “boom” and exploded into three pieces.

Bob Bley received some massive pieces of Norfolk Island Pine from Claude Godcharles. They had previously been soaked in oil to made them translucent. He had many troubles turning this vase – the tenon joint failed and flew off the lathe, he cut through the side near the base. He was able to patch the hole by glueing paper to the inside, covering it with opal, and finally doing an epoxy fill on the inside of the base, both securing the patch and giving the base some heft. The vase was finished with wipe on poly.

Claude Godcharles showed a basket weave vase made from pear wood turned green. He uses an index wheel to mark the longitudinal lines. The circumferential lines were burned in with a wire on the lathe and he used a wood burner for the longitudinal lines.

Show & Tell:

Jon Bishop made a small square plate from a scrap of walnut. He sanded the sides on a belt sander. Jon also showed a maple box decorated with black and white milliput, an epoxy putty that dries overnight. He finished the box with Tried & True linseed oil and then buffed it with carnauba wax.

Harvey Klein made some little boxes and vases and a pair of snowman ornaments.

Jim Koren has been on a series of wood harvesting adventures lately and showed off some bowls that resulted. He made a bowl from Redwood, one from walnut (harvested with Brad Bond), one from mulberry (also harvested with Brad Bond) and a black locust bowl (harvested with Edgar Whipple).

Kelly Smith made a set of 3 nested bowls from bigleaf maple. Dan Boehmke helped with the coring of the maple block. Kelly made a mushroom from a troublesome, cracked and termite infested piece of apricot. He showed a small boxwood flat-topped mushroom, several snowmen painted with white milk paint and topped with water-based poly, and a set of leaning Christmas trees painted in layers of milk paint and topped with poly.

Tom Mandle made a flat square ambrosia maple dish and a black acacia bowl. Both were finished with sanding sealer followed by Tried &True oil. He has recently donated some of his bowls to the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop in Los Altos – there are only so many bowls one can really use.

James Craig 3-d printed some large scale spindle gouge models for Tina Chou to use in her turning classes.

Dan Boehmke made a pair of hollow forms, one from camphor, the other from sycamore. He solicited advise from the group on how to finish the foot on the sycamore form.

Claude Godcharles rescued a bowl from his scrap pile. The bowl (likely of maple) had warped dramatically in the drying process Because it would stand flat on the table, Claude added a pair of legs to stabilize it.

Daniel Saal made a walnut bowl that incorporated some of the sapwood for interest. He also made a lidded bowl from walnut, cherry and African blackwood.

Jon Sauer showed some interesting pieces that incorporate unusual seed pods (Thika pod, Uxi pod, and rattan seed pods) and featured ornamental turning on the pedestal feet and finial tops. He also used pink ivory, African blackwood, and tagua nuts. To hold the seed pods for turning, he glued them onto a dowel.

Dean Caudle titled his vase (or is it a weed pot?), “The Flaw is the Thing”.

Vic Mitnick made a walnut bowl finished with walnut oil. Those who attended the Mark Gardner demonstration will remember that Vic had a chunk of wood from a neighbor’s tree that he was trying to identify the species. He now thinks it was deodar cedar and he made a small bowl from it. Vic also brought a turning book from the 1950’s that he found in a used book store: The Practical Wood Turner by Frank Pain.

Tom Gaston used some the wood from his stash to make a burl box and a chokecherry burl bowl. He dyed the base of the bowl.

Fred Colman received some oak from Edgar, cored it and turned a bowl from the smallest core. He also finish-turned a bowl, likely from maple.

Tina Chou traveled to Ireland for a class with Glenn Lucas. She showed one of Glenn’s bowls from spalted beech. While at the class, Tina finish-turned a bowl from spalted beech that Glenn had started. She also brought a bowl with her to get Glenn’s critique. Tina also showed a bowl that a friend had received as a wedding gift. She asked the group for advice – the friend wasn’t using the bowl because of its strong chemical smell. Could anything be done to get rid of the smell. Some members suggested that it was likely Norfolk Island Pine and had been soaked in oil and so the smell was likely impregnated in the wood.

Allison Lee received some walnut from Jon Bishop. From it, she tried turning a couple of boxes. For one, all that remained was a small shallow bowl with inlay on the side (made at the inlay workshop). For the other, the box and lid came out fine with the nice feature that the lid can be inverted and becomes a saucer for the box. Allison plans to pursue this form further.

Kelly Smith accidentally turned through the side of a bowl, creating a “crown”. He invites other turners to gift him their accidental funnels so that they can be glued together and then turned to create some sort of funky bowl. Kelly also announced he will have a sale this weekend in Sutter Creek.

Angela Gunn had an idea for turners to create their own unique beads and exchange them with other turners at club meetings and turning events such as symposia to encourage stronger relationships. She implemented this idea (along with her “co-conspirator” Noel from Sacramento) at the Rocky Mountain Symposium in September where it was a great hit. She brought along extra blank beads and a sharpie and got signatures on them from several of the demonstrators. The AAW WIT (Women in Turning) has even taken this on as an official initiative called “Turned Connections”.

“As the Wood Turns” by David Vannier

When WIT (Women In Turning) first started, i was the WBW rep. Don’t ask me how or why. I tried to find out, no one would fess up. But, having 2 daughters and looking at the club membership, i fully supported their goals. I had lots of ideas, but alas i did a poor job of making it happen. Life got in the way.  Over time, i twisted Tina’s arm to take on the role for WBW, and did the same with Angela for SVW.  I really didn’t have to work hard, they both took the roles on, and have done so much more than i even considered.

Just as a couple of examples, Angela got both WBW and SVW to make wig stands as a donation, in support of people going through chemo. It was sad to hear that Care Point gave out 30 wigs a month. This means that more than 30 women start chemo every month. Keep in mind, some like my wife don’t get a wig. I can tell you how much they were appreciated.  I hope we can make this an annual charity event!  

As you can see our wig stands are a big step up from the 3d printed wig stands that they had access too

Another example is the bead exchange that Angela developed, fostered, and had a successful exchange at the Rocky Mountain Symposium.   You can read about it here https://sites.google.com/egunn.com/turned-connections/home. Really cool i can call her a friend!

Tina, while not directly a WIT activity, drove WBW to have a slack channel.  I had my reservations, but will admit i was wrong. Email is clumsy. The web site, which Roman is doing an excellent job with, has clearly become a communication channel for non-members.  Slack is our intra club communication channel. Sharing work in progress, real time wood alerts, fun post, etc.

This kind of energy can be very contagious and helps make for a vibrant and active club. So here is the point, besides thanking Angela, Tina, and Roman what can we as a club do?  Long ago, we participated in the tool show, which died. Then we joined the Carver’s with a competition and show. Sadly, the local carving club stopped their show work. It was a lot of work. But surely with all the bright people in the club we can come up with something. Are you up to the challenge?

  Dave

www.daves-turned-art.com – updated 1/22/24

Woodcarving Demonstrations in the Bay Area

If you are interested in carving, here is the news: a local woodcarving club, Santa Clara Valley Carvers, has done quite a few demonstrations to the public in 2025:

Please review the recent woodcarving newsletter: https://santaclaravalleycarvers.org/newsletter-2025-10/

Happy turning,
Roman Chernikov, president of Santa Clara Valley Carvers

Woodturners Newsletter Editing Notes

WBW members, please let the newsletter editors know if you have a personal website and would like it included in the President’s Challenge and Show & Tell sections of our Woodturning Newsletter. Email us at info@westbaywoodturners.com.

WBW board members and committee chairs