Berkshire Woodturning Association Demo

On Thursday the 18th of this month I attended Berkshire Woodturners Association for an evening demonstration.

Thank you to member Don Mitchell who kindly took and sent me the pictures shown here. I did take my camera but the moral of the story is, make sure you charge the battery before such an event.

Before arriving I stopped off at Adrian Cobb's a fellow woodturning friend and member of the Berkshire woodturners club. It is always interesting to look around other people workshops to see how they work. A meal was laid on, thank you Adie and to your good lady, it was much appreciated after the long journey.

Then onto the club which was located in a rather posh conservatory show room. All around me were conservatories that I could only hazard a guess at the cost of each. It is amusing turning a fine inch piece of beech at 1000 rpm while only being 3 meters away from a glass building. Mind you they were top of the range so I guess the glass would have been shatter proof :-).

During the evening I demonstrated the offset hole lidded form shown above. The evening went well and appeared to be well received. Thank you all your your hospitality, a very freindly club and I hope to be invited back again in thre future.

At the end of the evening members were given details of how to obtain a copy of the PDF handout that covered the project for the demonstration. This is a fifteen page step by step article including pictures so that the members can go into their own workshop to tackle the project.

During the evening I was asked to judge work produced by the members and to award 1st, 2nd or third prizes. Critiquing and judging is something that I genuinely do not enjoy, mainly as I find it difficult to judge a piece of work with so little knowledge of the maker or their intentions with the piece.

Thankfully in this case all the work was of a high standard so my task was an easy one.

The project was finished with five minutes to spare with time to cover any points raised/asked.

Setting Up

Discussing the form

Hollowing out

Coffee break and time for a chat

Then onto the judging

Discussing techniques, I really must learn not to point. :-)

Thank you all again for a very enjoyable evening.