Another good club night - January 2006

WOW, I know I've used this term before but it express's the evening in a word. I had the usual last minute literally; bits to do for my competition piece, not to happy with it really but I learnt a lot. Plus all the extra things to take for the evening. I arrived early and put the instructions out for the tea making guys. I put this together for them to prove to help the volunteers in the future. We have a steady flow of tea guys now coming forward so its not left to the same people every month plus it gets people talking to others they wouldn't normally do.

I moved my seat to a prominent position, as I was to take the photos for the evening and needed to get to the demonstrator without tripping base over apex getting there. As it happens I sat next to the chairman, no its not me with ideas above my station, I was there first, but I did make sure we both had chairs with arms, well its hard work sitting there with a camera on your lap all night! There was some excellent gallery pieces tonight, we are fortunate enough to have some very talented turners at our club.

Before I knew it that hour before the evening got officially underway had passed, lots of positive chat about our open day and other turning related issues. Rick had passed round the appendix to our newsletter explaining the open day and that it has to be a joint effort from all the members. Various serious club matters where mentioned with dates and things so as I said in my last club night article, this is a very busy and important year for our club.

With Dons informative chat done it was over to Ken to introduce tonight's demonstrator Chris Pouncy representing Robert Sorby. He explained what he intended to do this evening and straight away we had our Bill chipping in with various comical remarks which was appreciated by the members. Now we get to the tricky part, how do I write about Chris's demo? The problem is this, tonight we had various tools explained, and with it all the associated technicalities along with many questions and answers, so to report on them in detail would take reams of paper and bore you to tears, You still with me?……………Fine, that's good.

Back to the demo, as I said various tools where used on a 50mm x 50mm piece of pine. Roughing gouge, Spindle gouge, Spindle master etc. Then we had a 5" cube of Sycamore mounted to show us hollowing and texturing, the hollowing I think was an excellent tool for the novice, perhaps for my next birthday? Again it was good to see them demonstrated as you get a better feel for the product. Last of all we had spiral work on a piece of Box wood, something that I guess will be for the future for most of us but its good to see how its done. Perhaps if this year goes as well as planed at our club we could purchase some of these tools for members to hire?

Chris's lathe was interesting; computer controlled variable speed, which I think was the envy of us all. At this point I would like to offer Robert Sorby the opportunity to give me a lathe to try and test as a novice. With the promise to report on it in say, two or three years time when Ive had a good chance to test it before they ask for it back. Am I taking advantage of my position as web master? Of coarse I am.

Chris's demo was excellent, the reason for this is that he clearly believes in the product and has many years of experience with the tools and wood turning, an ideal combination. Chris has been doing the shows and clubs for many years now and is a familiar face to many of us; you are always guaranteed an informative and entertaining demo.

Ken thanked Chris for his demo and was followed by the usual applause from the members. Chris mentioned a new demo and CD's relating to Eccentric turning and the products relating to this, on that note we will be booking Chris to come back and show us some when in the near future. Perhaps he will bring that lathe for me then? Don read out the competition results and thanked Cliff and Rick for doing the tea and coffee tonight, then we moved on to the raffle, a good show of prizes as usual but no ticket for me sadly. Then it was chairs, lathe, monitors and camera's away and a sweep up and there goes another good club night.

Boots - Jan 2006