ArtisticWoodturners
October 2007 Newsletter

Another month has come and gone. Seems just like yesterday I did the newsletter. I hope that you have been doing some turning keeping your skills honed. In the meantime the turnings you made please bring them to Show and Tell and show everyone what you have been doing.

The club needs your feedback from the past few meetings. Questions do you like the mini demos, and what do you want to see? Let us know so the committee can plan our agenda.

James as our President implemented a portion of the meeting known as “The safety minute” which I believe is a viable few moments to reiterate how to maintain a safe environment for yourself. Please bring in some of your safety items that you practice and let the rest of the members become aware of the dangers of turning a piece of wood at high speeds or breathing dangers associated with turning and sanding wood without taking the proper precautions.

This is the time of the year that we need to be thinking about making items for the Optimist Club to sale at their annual Christmas tree drive to help raising money for needy children in the Pensacola area.

Mr. Fred Bond will conduct the demonstration for this month. He will be showing how to turn a small box with a finial for a top.
Come and watch Fred do his first live demonstration. Jack Diamond will be ready to show you some of the things he didn’t have time to do last month. He said some folks wanted to see him do a finial for the ornament he did last month. This is providing we have time to devote to Jack.

 Recruiting keeps the club growing and by staying actively involved keeps you from being bored. So bring your friends and show them what keeps you going. See you at the Meeting the third Saturday of every month.+

Photos from our last meeting

Thanks to Russ Revels for the Photos.

Here the Prez is doing his thing steering the meeting. Passing out the latest info to the members. introducing the Show and Tell portion.


Looks like someone built a fire under Bill he has three new turnings. He may be finished working on his new shop. Bill has started using dye to enhance his turnings, nice touch


Darnell keeps the turnings coming, staying busy on his lathe. I see one is Cedar and since I missed the meeting you will have to call Darnell to find out what the second one is made out of.


Durk has turned a small lidded box. He is turning and learning. We hope that other members are learning some new tricks from our mini demos and are inspired to bring items for show and tell.


Another nice piece of wood turned into a usable vessel for Tarla.


Floyd is keeping busy with his lathe and has the patience to make segmented bowls, I guess when you are retired you have extra time to cut out small pieces to make the extra nice turnings. Nice going.


Jack shows off his ornament that he made using his new indexing tool. Jack sure is getting fancy. Nice ornament.


Leland has his own S&T table. He brings in plenty for you to see. I believe he is really motivated and likes what he is doing, keep the ideas turning. I look forward to seeing what he has been up to every month.



Les holding his latest Turning. Keep the thing turning and soon you will have made yourself a very proficient turner.


Les turned a box with a finial for the cover. Fred Bond will be showing the club how to turn a small finial box, be sure you come to see Fred do his first Demonstration.


Here Frank Strong holds up An ornament and I believe he made the hanger too. Nice job!



Ralph has been hard at work as you can see from the photographs. Their house should be about filled with his turnings. Maybe he is one of the lucky turners that sells his work. He works very hard out in his shop coring, drying, finishing, ask Ralph for his formula for finishing his bowls. 


Floyd S&T bowl, he keeps them coming month after month. He is becoming an expert on the segmented bowl.


Another segmented bowl from Floyd the shapes are getting more symmetrical and pleasing to the eye.  Looks like it is very thin, good job.


Jacks contribution two different ornaments. I believe he used his new indexer (his clock) to lay out one of these. The rest of us need to get busy and make some ornaments for the Optimist Christmas tree sale. The donated ornaments were sold by the Optimist last year and I believe they made over $900 from the sale.


Ralph's natural edge bowl. Looks very delicate and all the bark still remains. The finish is a mat finish I'll bet he used his own concoction to achieve what you see.

Now on to the auction do I hear a bid.


Our auctioneer Ralph gets more out of the bids for the wood I believe we have a keeper.


Since I missed the meeting I don't know what this item is.


Looks like a nice wormy piece of wood. I hope to see some nice turning from this piece of wood. 


Another piece of turning stock. Do I hear $5.

On to the two demonstration by our two club members Jack and Frank dueling lathes and two different ways to make Ornaments. Take it away Jack.


In this corner it is Jack Diamond with his jig and scrap wood. Here Jack has mounted one half of the ornament ball and he is carefully shaping the outside.


And in this corner we have Frank Strong making an ornament from one piece of wood. Here Frank starts on the finial.


Here the ball is taking shape with his skew used like it should be used.


And we have Frank cutting his  ornament ball in two halves so he can hollow them out. On the left you see he has cut a tenon to be held by the chuck and notice on the right he has enough room to cut the bottom finial.


Its neck and neck as Jack hollows out the first Half of his turning.


Frank has mounted his top half of the ornament, and is feverishly hollowing the inside.


Jack works on the second half of the ball.


Frank has the ball all hollowed out and glued back together with the bottom finial almost completed with a little more sanding. Then all that is left is cut the top finial and sand to match the bottom.  I have just run out of photos of Jack but it looked like a photo finish Jack and Frank running neck and neck. Hope you have liked the new format we now have, if so let the committee know if you liked the last few meetings and if you have any new ideas, please pass them along. SO LONG FOR THIS MONTH.