Another Good Club Night - November 2005

At last, I arrived at 18.30 to find only one person there; this was our chairman Don. He was setting up the cameras and two monitors for this evening's demonstration. I have been trying to get there before everybody else since forever and now its done, I can now go back too nearly late again and relax. I found a seat and deposited my box of bits. By this time the other early guys where about so my busy evening had started.

I counted 56 members tonight which filled the hall nicely. The competition room was busier than usual, we had 6 advanced and 4 novice entries this month, very impressed with that, the numbers are going up slowly. This I hope will inspire others to enter, poor old Eric our judge didn't show his face till the tea break but having said that I went in for some photo's during the demo and he looked more than happy to be there. I had the usual chat about my entry, web stuff, committee bits, and of the hire of three video's for an absent member.

I offered to do the teas last club night, don't ask, it wasn't as good as the usual guys. We, that is Steve and I had it all set up OK but the demo finished for tea all of a sudden and we weren't ready. So this time I made a point of helping Dave as his was the only name down for it, the idea being if I could get it right and write out all the details for all the following tea guys in the future. As luck would have it another Dave turned up and volunteered so I pointed them in the right direction and everything was fine, I wrote my instructions out during the evening so its set now for the others.

As I always say, it's a very busy half an hour before Don calls order on us all which is a relief to those of us who are more involved in club matters. We had the usual welcome and announcements and with our club lathe set up Ken introduced Margaret Garrard. Now before I start I'm going to apologise to Margaret because I'm not going to bury myself in lots of detail about how she turns. I couldn't do it justice so best not to confuse, I did write as much down as possible but looking at it I think I've made the right decision.

Margaret had a good display of the sort of things she turns, they where very well made and very different to most turners, it is I think called inverluting, sort of inverted. Its very pleasing to the eye, the sort of ornaments I suppose you'd call them that you find yourself looking at for ages, trying to work out how its was done, that's good for selling. There was a lot of work in them and I guess that mass production was the best way so you set up to do many rather than individuals.

Margaret was using our club lathe so we had the usual looking around to see where the switches are and how the variable speed control works, and after a brief history of her turning and what she was going to show us we where away. Well not quite, no response, after a brief check on all the switching somebody noticed the connecting cable still coiled up under the table. As you can imagine this conjured up all sorts of comments which kept the guys amused till the lathe was turning.

Margaret had examples of the first project finished in different stages which made it very easy to understand, she didn't rush through it so it was easy to take in and it gave her the chance to give us more detail. She used a lot of clever tricks to assist the turning, which I think the audience noted well, the first piece 95% finished just for the purpose of demonstrating and Margaret showed us several ways to finish it.

Next turned was a napkin holder, this was in the shape of a bell, very clever idea and looks easy to make. Again we had all the ideas and hints as she turned. I think the most profound thing she said was "experiment, try something different" and it has to be said the more you look into woodturning the more there is. Well as all good demonstrations are it went far to quick. Ken thanked Margaret for her fine demonstration and received a warm round of applause from the audience.

Back to Don for the last few announcements which included to make for next month the Bell napkin holder that Margaret had just demonstrated, on then to thank the tea boys Dave and Dave, we then went to the raffle, I had the first out of the drum tonight Derek. That done with and it was the clearing up to do, lathe, chairs, tables and sweeping to do. The usual guys collecting all their turned items and chatting about next months project and then the goodnights. And there goes another good club night.

Boots - November 2005