Another Good Club Night - July 2004

As usual I arrive somewhat early to give me time to chat, I entered my competition pieces and got my raffle tickets. There where two bench drills for sale from a member at very reasonable prices, I'm ok in that respect but nice to have the opportunity to buy or sell on a club night with the potential of 6o plus members. Bill Thorne brought a trailer load of timber blanks to sell, which received a lot of interest.

The usual chairman's chat before Ken introduced the evening's turner; he was introduced as a turner/entertainer. And Ray Jones from Liverpool was certainly both of these, he chose to make a small child's chair this evening, very adventurous for an evenings demonstration I thought. He obviously has been producing chairs for some time because of the speed of which he drilled the holes, with holes in different positions and angles on a number of components unless you where very familiar with the process you would struggle, especially while chatting to an audience.

Well he chatted/entertained and he as most demonstrators do gave us his ideals of turning and teaching. The good thing about writing these reports is that I get to keep all my notes. I have records of detail I can go through and with any luck help me become a better turner, or as Ray says, to enjoy it more. Perhaps Ill put some of them together in an article? A lot of common sense stuff when explained but not so obvious to the novice.

We had a tea break half way through and Ray was busy chatting through that time to individual members. At the end of the demonstration with all the parts of the chair finished he proceeded to put them together. There wasn't a sound in the hall, you literally could have heard a pin drop, and as you would expect from an expert turner it all fitted perfectly and was passed around for members to inspect.

The drawing of the raffle prizes, competition details and the usual chairs away followed this. We helped Ray get his gear back to his car, swept up and club lathe away with just the goodnights to the helpers to conclude and another good club night was over.

Boots - July 2004