West Bay Woodturners Newsletter is a monthly update on the club activities. This free resource is available to beginner and professional woodturners.
Next Meeting
Wednesday, December 17,
5 pm at Bridges Church,
625 Magdalena Ave,
Los Altos, CA 94024
Arrive at 5 pm to help set up and plan to eat around 6PM.
Winter Holiday Party and Gift Exchange
Arrive at 5 PM and plan to eat around 6 PM
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 challenge
Come alone, with a significant other, or a friend. Bring a handmade woodturning gift for our gift exchange.
Upcoming Meetings and Demos
- January: TBD
- February 18, WBW monthly meeting: TBD
February 14 (Saturday): Chip carving demonstration by Roman Chernikov at 1 pm at the Woodcraft store, San Carlos, CA. Read the article about the chip carving demo in 2025.
Non-President’s Message
Hi everyone,
Jon is away on a trip this month, so I’m honored to step in and share a few notes as we close out another successful year.
We’ve turned countless beautiful pieces this year, from delicate bowls to intricate ornaments, and learned new techniques from each other and guest instructors like Scott Hampton and Mark Gardner. Flip through our past newsletters here to see the year’s highlights in photos: spot your own turnings on the show-and-tell and President’s Challenge display tables! Let us know how many turnings are yours in the comments 😉
Please join me in welcoming Edgar Whipple as our president for 2026. Edgar has been very active in our woodturning community since the early 2000s, whether demonstrating techniques, managing event cameras, serving in leadership roles, or carving a holiday turkey for our gatherings.
Edgar’s dedication to sourcing and sharing quality wood with fellow turners has helped so many of us. Thank you, Edgar, for stepping into this role!
A huge thanks also goes to all our officers and committee chairs for another year of service, and a warm welcome to Alison Lee, our new secretary.
One thing I’ve been thinking about: Our club’s mission states here:
The purpose of the West Bay Area Woodturners Society is to promote woodturning education of the membership and the general public and to generate a broader understanding of woodturning as an art form.
Yet we haven’t participated in any public events since 2015. I’ll never forget our previous public show we had in 2015, it’s where I first discovered our club and joined on the spot. Let’s bring woodturning to the public again next year! It can be a craft fair, library workshop, or community demo. Can you volunteer or help organize it?
Finally, thank you to every member who contributed to our club by volunteering, donating wood and tools, or simply sharing your passion. And a special nod to those wearing name badges: they’re incredibly helpful for making connections! (Though if yours is walnut with laser-engraved letters, your name likely is not readable, a perfect excuse to admire the walnut’s natural beauty 😉
Here’s to a bright new year ahead. Let’s keep turning wood and turning heads.
Happy turning,
Roman Chernikov
Last Meeting Review
Wednesday November 19, 2025
Woodturners newsletter notes by Laura Rhodes. Photos by Roman Chernikov.
Announcements
- In the absence of the president, Jon Bishop, WBW Treasurer Jim Koren presided over tonight’s meeting.
- Guests: Elena Atluri
- Jim Koren reminded that 2026 dues are payable now, $40, cash, check, Venmo or PayPal.
- The following slate was elected by the membership to be the WBW board for 2026:
- President: Edgar Whipple
- Vice President: Jon Bishop
- Treasurer: Jim Koren
- Secretary: Alison Lee
- Roman Chernikov volunteered to be the librarian for the club.
- Dean Caudle announced that Kirk DeHeer will be returning as a presenter this year. Date TBD.
- The WBW holiday party will be on Wednesday, 12/17/2025. Dinner will be served at 6pm. Jim Koren will be cooking two turkeys. Club members will provide side dishes and desserts (signup coming soon). Guests welcome.
- Alison Lee is organizing a Vicmarc buying order. Members must finalize any orders by 11/23.
Laura Rhodes wrote an article about Mark Gardner’s woodturning demo in September 2025. Please read the article here.
Program – Chuck-a-Palooza:
Many members of the club shared their favorite work holding solutions:
Tina started things out with the question, “What is a chuck?”. Its official name is “4 jaw self-centering screw chuck”. She showed all the components of a disassembled chuck. She indicated that you need to get a chuck that fits your lathe’s spindle. A question was asked about chuck maintenance and lubrication. Dave Vannier indicated that he lubricates his chucks with white lithium grease or spray dry lube. Dennis Lillis uses camellia oil.
Kelly Smith brought in a Dux Chuck, used for offset turning. Angela Gunn provided more details about the dux chuck. It was devised by Jim Duxbury and it’s an eccentric Chuck used for offset turning. It fits in the four-jaw chuck with two of the jaws removed and then you use double-sided tape to hold the workpiece to the Chuck.
Claude Godcharles made a cone for serving as a jam chuck for live edge hollow forms. When making his own custom chucks, he uses a Beall tap to create the internal threads to match his lathe spindle. Claude showed a compressible chuck with a hose clamp to hold the work. He showed some pin chucks (a Shank with a flat and a pin in a keyway) and the “Hub System” interchangeable face plates
Joe Martinka showed some 3D printed offset jaws he made them out of PETG with no infill (solid plastic) but he’s a little afraid to use them because the depth is not very deep.
Vic Mitnick brought a specialty chuck used for turning spheres made by Rubber Chucky Products. Vic also showed some homemade cup centers he uses for making spheres and some tips for a live center to protect the work made of HDPE.
Chip Krauskopf brought some homemade vacuum chucks. He either uses a nut to be able to screw it onto the lathe spindle or creates a tapped hole. He uses Fun Foam to help provide the seal.
When Kevin Lee started turning, he wanted to make a chess set. His first chuck was a homemade screw chuck for this chess set. It uses an aerospace locknut and includes a hole in the side for a Tommy bar. Kevin also showed a Morse taper to headstock homemade dead center for turning beads and a light pull drive which he thinks is part of a Nova live center kit.
Angela Gunn purchased step jaws to hold her nativity set pieces. She is thinking about buying a second chuck and was asking for advice. Someone noted that Rikon chucks are compatible with Nova jaws. Angela also showed a Nova faceplate ring and a 90° live center
Dean Caudle brought a collet chuck and a whole set of collets that are very useful for holding small diameter works such as finials.
Tom Mandle brought a jam chuck with 3D printed holders to replace Cole jaws.
Dave Vannier brought Vicmarc Stronghold Cole jaws. His favorite Vicmarc chuck is the one with the 68 millimeter inside diameter. It’s an old design originally by Woodworkers Emporium out of Las Vegas. He doesn’t use the newer Vicmarc 85 millimeter because it doesn’t have the diameter range that one can get with the older style jaws. He also showed some step jaws and discussed their cons. Dave brought a homemade donut chuck help hold a bowl to finish off the bottom.
Allison Lee brought a donut chuck made with Cole jaws.
Dennis Lillis is in the process of making birdhouse ornaments for the holidays. To make use of each precious scrap of wood, he drills a hole in it and mounts it on pen jaws or he super glues a sacrificial block onto a faceplate. He sometimes uses a Tenon cutter to create small Tenon. Dennis showed custom jaw inserts to hold the square piece that he was using for his birdhouse ornament roofs.
Show & Tell:
Dave Vannier wanted to make some bells. The first one looked more like a goblet, so he made it into a goblet. He didn’t like the handle on the second bell. The handle of the third bell fits his wife’s hand.
Edgar Whipple made a camphor (or was it carob?) bowl with a natural edge that smells terrible. He showed a box to hold wax to lubricate his lathe’s bed ways. He had another box with lots of wax pieces labeled “Whipple’s Ways Wax”.
Dean Caudle showed 2 bowls he made from some firewood.
Daniel Saal brought a three-bowl set of made of walnut that was part of that massive slab. He also showed another bowl with a ring of different wood added.
Jim Koren put out a request on Next Door for fruit tree wood. Someone contacted him about an old plum tree that was cut down. Jim showed a bowl made from plum wood. He also showed a bowl made from a piece of burl he had purchased 30 years ago.
Kelly Smith, as always, has been busy turning. He made an Acacia bowl, a too thin bowl/platter from a piece of mystery wood, a Chinese Pistache bowl, a cherry bowl, three birds beak vases, a cherry knot vase, a Christmas tree, a Redwood bowl/platter, a Hollywood juniper vase, a Redwood plate, and an oak plate. From a cedar tree stump with lots of heavy bark, he made a big platter.
Chip Krauskopf has been playing with lasers. His walnut bowl had an ugly crack he wanted to reinforce with bow ties. Chip first tried using the template method with a router (as demonstrated by Claude Godcharles) and then decided to instead use a laser that he has access to. In addition to excavating for the bow ties across the crack, he lasered bow-tie shapes around the bowl’s rim. The bow ties themselves, made from maple and African Blackwood, were also cut out using the laser. Not to be stopped, he made a platter with a laser engraved rim, filled with crushed red coral from Craft Supply.
Vic Mitnick took up the “no sandpaper” challenge and made a bowl from coast Live Oak. He made an ash bowl, and he showed a cute little puzzle where the object is to remove the walnut piece without picking it up off the table. (The secret answer is to blow into the the puzzle and the walnut pops up).
Kirsten Mouradian brought a little box made of walnut, a mushroom, an olive branch bowl, 2 bowls from apricot (that she got from Kelly Smith), and a walnut bowl. She also had a box where she didn’t use sandpaper.
Resources
The club has a vast collection of DVDs containing woodturning videos. Those disks are stored at our meeting place and available to club members for borrowing.
Exciting news for West Bay Woodturners!
The Santa Clara Valley Carvers just announced that their book library is now open to our members. The library contains books on woodcarving, woodturning, and woodworking, as well as other topics such as woodburning and sharpening. Click to open the December 2025 woodcarving newsletter and read about the library, workshops, scout merit‑badge recap, display‑case tour, a Zoom sharpening session, and a fresh gallery of woodcarving projects.
Read more details about the library and the full announcement here: SCVC Woodcarving Newsletter, December 2025.
“As the Wood Turns” by David Vannier
It looks like I will make our December club meeting this year. So often it conflicts with when my daughter gets into town, but won’t this year. So…. I’ve got to get something ready for the gift exchange. This is an opportunity to spend some time with other members, and their spouses if they can put up with all our shop talk. I like to think of the gift exchange as an opportunity to collect other turners work. Do your best, and keep in mind that could be very different for different people. But none the less, the piece will be special.
December is also a good time to look back over the past year. Every year bring new opportunities to challenge yourself and grow your skills. The president’s challenge is to reinforce the past demo’s, or challenge you to try something you wouldn’t normally do. It is too easy to get caught up doing the same thing over and over.sometimes we do it because that is our comfort zone. Other times because we are chasing that small imperfection that bugs us. Make no mistake chasing the perfect form is as challenging as anything. I don’t think it gets the respect that it deserves.
See you on the 17th.
Dave
www.daves-turned-art.com – updated 1/22/24
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
President: Jon Bishop
Vice President: Tom Gaston
Treasurer: Jim Koren
Secretary: Laura Rhodes
Member at Large: Dean Caudle
Meeting Program Coordinator: Claude G acting
Visiting artist Coordinator: Dean Caudle acting
Anchor seal: Dennis Lillis
Craft Supply: Tina Chou
Librarian: Kelly Smith
Audio Visual: Curtis Vose, Edgar Whipple
Website: Roman Chernikov
Woodturners Newsletter: Angela, Jon, David, Laura, and Roman
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