Our August meeting was a club day where several things were going on and lots of mingling and talking being enjoyed. Paul brought in a large monkey puzzle log which he was determined to whittle down to fit on his lathe at home!

Howard was creating an onion pot. He also brought one in he had finished where he had brushed out the soft wood to raise the grain and then filled it with Gelcoat, a resin product used to repair fibre glass boats. If you want to know more about it ask Howard for I know nuffink ‘cept it comes in different colours!!

Geoff was turning pens using acrylic blanks. I think he also made some using wood and resin decoration as he used on his light pulls. I’m probably totally wrong but it sounds right.

We held a speed turning competition in the afternoon and the object was to turn a spinning top in under seven minutes and then hold a competition to see whose top spun the longest. Sort of!! The winning time was the length of time spinning minus the time taken to turn it so the top that kept going the longest was not necessarily the winner!
Fortunately I was not the one who had to make the decision on who the winner was. The winner was Steve Tredwell who beat Fred Taylor by 10 seconds

Our next meeting is on Saturday 8th September and we will have Stuart King with us. Stuart was with us last in 2009. His interests then were turning wet wood to produce very thin pieces. Will he do some of the same or have his interest moved on to other things since then?
Come along and find out. Whatever he does I am sure it will an interesting day.

For those that are going, don’t forget the fish and chip lunch on the 15th September.

Also we have a couple of events coming up in October.

Axminster Power Tools are having their show on the 26th and 27th and the SAW show at Mitchett is on Sunday 28th.

We will be there and we are hoping to show a variety of our best turnings. Last year we didn’t have enough of a mix of spindle and bowl pieces on display. Some judges only see bowls, (last year’s problem) while others it seems only look at spindle work. If you have that special piece to show please bring it along to the October meeting so that we can build up a good presentation.

See you all on the 8th.

Graham.



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