Another Good Club Night - October 2004

About sixty members turned out tonight despite the heavy downpours we've been having and I managed to get all my gear in without getting too wet. I entered my competition piece and got the novice's wood displayed. I had a large piece of spalted Plane as an example of what I had come across in case any body required a bit. I had four takers there so I'm of to the sawmill to get it ASAP. Lots of chat followed by the chairman's welcome, the usual informative detail from various guys and we're into another good club night.

I apologise for repeating myself but once again Ken has done us proud. Tonight's demonstrator was Roy Wood from Wokingham. Roy doesn't profess to be a good woodturner in the sense that he doesn't get on very well with the turning tools. Now you're wondering what's he doing demonstrating at our club, well, truth to tell, on display for all to see was some twenty exquisite examples of his work. Each single item required time to study, first you found yourself almost open-mouthed at the unusual design of the piece and then you wondered how on earth did he do it.

To begin Roy gave a brief history of his working life and how he came upon woodturning, he then moved on to show us specific projects he has been asked to make. The first on display was a socket, as in spanner; this was for a shop display. Nothing to get exited about your thinking, wrong! This socket as about 9" in diameter and an exact copy in every detail. I asked jokingly was it AF or Metric, he replied AF and it was. Now as you can imagine we were all very impressed with this but you can imagine our surprise when he produced a ratchet wrench to accompany the socket. This wrench was about 5ft long and was a fully working replica of the original; he had a clear sheet over the mechanism so you could see the ratchet and reversing parts in action. At this stage we all new we where in for a good night.

Roy explained that he loves geometry and mathematics and usually makes a number of drawings before he starts anything, he is also very inventive when it comes to jigs. There is always a plan "c" to fall back on because as with most new projects you can guarantee to get a number of those "how am I going to do that" moment that seem to appear from nowhere. No matter what the challenge he will adapt to suit, in his own words, it's a bit like synchronised pole vaulting on ice.

He has a sense of humour and was shown in a number of his pieces, sadly being quite subtle they can be missed but never the less a nice touch. He's not afraid to experiment with a project; method or painting, which explains his wide variety of items on display. For example, on display was a glass container that's shape was half way between a foot ball and a rugby ball, there was a hole in each end of the glass and passing right through this was an arrow, inside the container was an apple pierced by the arrow. The ends of the arrow and the apple where bigger than the hole in the glass? So the question is how did he pass the arrow end and the apple through the hole and the apple must have been formed in a similar manner to a captive ring. Now that's patience if ever I saw it. Other helpful attributes he admits to include being devious and obstinate.

Roy has entered a good number of respectable competitions and has understandably won prizes to suit, it seems to me he has become part of the inner circle of recognised turners, and quite rightly so. He is very matter of fact and modest about his turning and is an inspiration to us all. He showed us a beautiful jug he has made for the next competition and we wish him well with it; I will follow this with interest and report the details on this site. His demonstration ended with the usual questions and answers as you can imagine and received a well deserved round of applause.

There was the usual mid way tea break provided by John our chairman and I didn't see whom else, a bit more chat and of to inspect the competition entries and scores. The obvious like bee's round a honey pot of guys chatting to Roy, and I'm pleased to announce that our efforts paid off and we had some entries in the novices. One guy had to abandon his project through ill health at the beginning of the month but made the effort the day before club night to finish it. I noticed a good number of blanks provided for the novices were taken. Eric explained next month's project in detail for the novices so hopefully we may have encouraged more guys to enter. Thank you Eric.

The evening ended with brief details from Don about his contact with a woodturning club in Canada he came across while on holiday there a few weeks ago, it sounds like a good link for both clubs. More on that one as I get it. The competition results and raffle followed this, sadly no wining ticket for me this week. There were the usual chairs away and general tidy up, the heavens opened as we helped to load Roy Woods precious pieces into his car, the goodnights and lock up and there goes another good club night.

Boots - October 2004