Another good club night - April 2005

As mentioned before things are usually set up before I arrive despite my early arrival, this month I was home early so I thought now is my chance to be even earlier and help set things up especially as it was a turn in with three lathes working. To my surprise as usual all but a few minor bits it was all done, well done Ken and the handful of members who obviously camped outside for days in order to get there before me.

By the official starting time there were about 60 club members gathered. Three lathes had been set up and Bill had organised his two bench grinders to demonstrate the grinding of tools. A number of items set up in the gallery section, the library of books and video's were on the table along side the competition pieces. The raffle prizes laid out and tickets on sale and this months newsletter on the table.

Ken stood in for the chairman tonight and welcomed us all including some new members; there were the usual odd bits of info before introducing the various club members who were to be our demonstrators for the evening. Dave Comley was on the club lathe and demonstrated multi centre turning; he turned a collection plate as apposed to the usual candlesticks. John Hilton turned an 8" dia bowl especially asked for by myself as I always get bouncing and ribs when turning the inside, Ill keep you posted on any improvement, if you don't hear anything for a while them I'm still working on it. Bill Thorne as I mentioned earlier did a surgery on tool grinding and Don Smith showed us his skills at turning long stemmed goblets with captive rings.

As I had asked specifically for this item I spent most of my time with John and the bowl. He showed us that nearly every stage of turning has a multiple choice of mounting the piece on the lathe. In a box was a chuck with all the necessary accessories to suit all applications, I need to research this as I'm seriously thinking of getting another chuck but hadn't seen a box of goodies like this before. I took my bowl gouge in for John to try and it raised a number of issues worth looking into. My thanks to John and hope I can remember all his good advise.

All the demonstrations had a constantly changing audience throughout the evening, imagine demonstrating and being the only person in that corner of the room! It would give me something else to write about though wouldn't it? We had the usual mid way coffee/tea break. Ken thanked the demonstrators and got the raffle underway, there was the usual good selection of prizes on the table tonight and I had two numbers come up which doesn't seem to surprise anybody any more. The usual tidying up crew leapt into action sweeping and putting things away, guys were collecting their turned items and coats with the usual goodnights, and as if by magic the hall was quiet and deserted like we'd hadn't been there at all. And there goes another good club night.

Boots - April 2005