Our August meeting was a club day where anything goes. We had three or four lathes on the go. Howard brought his own lathe in and was showing us how he makes his vases with contrasting woods put together to great effect. We also saw a couple of attachments he has made for use with his router and a slow rotating motor driving the chuck when he applied his finishing coat of lacquer, a mix of plastic coating, hardener and because the mix is a little too thick he thins it using brush cleaner.

Keith was working on another lathe while Fred was describing how he makes pens.

Paul, usually on the big lathe was on his own small lathe complete with the new stand he has made for it which folds flat when disassembled making it easier to fit in to his car.

The club lathe was being worked on by Steve Bert and John and also Paul when an extra hand was needed, to raise the height. We have had several demonstrators complain that it is too low so these wise gentlemen put blocks under it to create a happy medium between too low and too high. So whinge no more Mr Demonstrator.

Later on Steve put it to the test and declared the modification to be sound.

In the afternoon we had a speed turning competition.
The object to be turned was a honey dipper.
Fred had made the sample to be reproduced and the time allowed was eight minutes.
My own attempt was pretty miserable and my second attempt was not much better. As you will have seen from the photo on the front cover Steve won the competition and received a prize of a jar of Kentish honey.


Not much else to say really so I will let a few pictures, in the gallery, tell the story of the day.

A message from Dawn
SAW 2015 ITEMS
Please can everyone bring along to the September & October Saturday Demo Days, the items they wish to be entered into this years SAW competition and for the 2 display tables in the main hall, especially those which have previously been reserved by Dawn in the previous months.
If you are unable to make these meeting then let Dawn know and she can arrange collection.

Members will then be asked to vote on both these days for the "Top Ten" pieces they would like to see as the Clubs entries for the competition table, and they also think meets the following criteria.

1. Stands out as "Pleasing to the eye".
2. Has symmetry and looks identical if they are a pair.
3. Is well finished

These votes will then be added to the ones collected at the August club day. Hopefully by the end of this we will have 10 "nice" pieces that we can enter. You still have a few weeks to produce something you think has a "WOW" factor so get turning.

Also we now have prices for the fish and chip lunch on Saturday 24th October. They are
Cod, Rock, Plaice, Haddock, Sausage or Chicken all at £5.50, or if all you want is chips they are £2 per portion.
Names and money at the next meeting please.

Our next meeting is on Saturday 12th September and Mark Baker is with us once again. Always a good day with him so let’s have a big turnout.

Graham.