The real turning point was Eric giving me a rough turned Madrone burl bowl. That was so exciting to turn. Dave Schweitzer noticed my excitement and asked me to come and see him. He had no idea what he was in for. After a long day at Dave’s he finally got rid of me after six in the evening. This began a marathon of turning wet wood and learning and practicing the techniques that had been shown. Two hundred rough turned bowls later there were signs of hope in my finished bowls.

Back to Dave’s and now hollow forms started popping up at home. A day with Roy Lane helped that experience as well. So much to learn and so little time, with lots of practice happiness ensued. Urns, baby rattles and vases appeared, some with dyed and some natural finishes.

The many demonstrators at our club and others continued to teach techniques that were new to me. With practice these new methods became easier to use and led me to produce better results.

– Dan Stromstead

Another standard feature is called Community Links, where the editors look for interesting woodturning content on the internet. As it turns out this months Community Links includes Eric Lofstrom’s site. The description says “His website is a rich visual feast as well as having lots of resource material that he has generated for turners to download, covering subjects such as translucent bowls, square-rimmed work, sharpening and much more.” If you are looking for a great resource I recommend Woodturning magazine.

p.s. Neither I nor the South Puget Sound Woodturners receives any compensation as a result of this post. Figured someone would ask.

Note – Saw this on Facebook and thought I would share it here

If you were in attendance at the SPSW membership meeting in April 2011 you would have seen Bonnie Klein’s demonstration. Part of her demo was the use of the Klein Threading Jig. This simplified the process of cutting threads, but the jig is a bit pricey.

In this month’s newsletter from the Greater Vancouver Woodturning Guild is an article about GVWG member Robert Carlson who designed a shop built threading jig and created a presentation showing how it is used. If you have been contemplating buying, or attempting to build your own threading jig, you should check out the GVWG May Newsletter. In it is the article about Robert Carlson’s jig, with links to the plans and the presentation.

Segmented Symposium

The Segmented Symposium is coming up in October and president Malcolm Tibbetts is encouraging those that are planning to attend to register soon to give the board a better idea of the number of attendees. At the 2010 symposium at Arrowmont had 103 attendees not counting Board members or demonstrators. Register on the symposium registration page. The instructions are here.

There have been several entries to the Winter Challenge. The current challenge is to make a feature ring. This is not for a completed vessel, just the feature ring. There are currently sixteen entries. There are unique and beautiful entries which shows the creativity that we have. If you are a member go check out the photos. Submissions are due by April 15th, after which the voting will be opened.

Forum

• Glues – Dennis Keeling recently published a book in which he discussed the best uses for white PVA and yellow aliphatic type glues. This resulted in a forum thread discussion which brands these are and about the improvements in white PVA.
• Using Google Sketchup – This discussion was to find out if anyone uses to design vessels and if so, how. There are some power users of Sketchup that contributed the pros and cons, and their favorite plugins.
• Double Sided Tape – There is a good discussion about which type of double sided tape to use and how to remove any residue from your work.
• Thickness sanding small rings – Member Tom Kenyon shares the design and use of a jig he built for sanding small (<5") rings on his Performax 16-32 thickness sander.
• Sanding Open Segmented Vase – This thread, started by member Bill Bulloch, asks for suggestions on sanding the inside of his new vessel. Discussion included options for building the vessel and cautions about techniques for sanding the inside.

May 20 – 26, 2012
Easy Segmented Platters and Expressive Wall Art
Instructor: Linda Sutter
John C. Campbell Folk School

June 3 – 9, 2012
Turning in the Polychromatic Style: Staved Construction
Instructor: Don Russell
John C. Campbell Folk School

June 25 -­‐ 29, 2012
Segmented Turning: pushing your skills to the next level
Instructor: Curt Theobald
Anderson Ranch

July 8 – 14, 2012
Segmented Turning
Instructor: Malcolm Tibbetts
Arrowmont

September 4 – 8, 2012
Segmented turning: Where Precision Partners with Turned Elegance
Instructor: Malcolm Tibbetts
The Mark Adams School of Woodworking

Web Stats

Unique Visitors: 5003
Number of Visits: 14423
Pages Visited: 248906

Bonnie Klein was our demonstrator at the April membership meeting. Bonnie is well known for small turnings and especially threaded lid boxes. Bonnie has developed a jig for cutting threads on the boxes.

SPSW member Dave Schweitzer is producing his own line of turning tools. One of those is a diamond beading tool. Those who are skilled with a skew can turn beads of any size with ease, but for those of us that don’t have that touch down yet, the Schweitzer beading tool is great. Dave has a video on the use of the diamond beading tool on our website in the learning center.

Another SPSW member, Paul Crabtree, has developed a line of tools for hollowing, especially long neck hollow forms. Paul has conducted demonstrations in both the monthly membership meetings and at the mini-symposiums. The tools allow for measuring the wall thickness of the vessell while it is being turned.

Fred Holder demonstrated another unique set of tools at the January 2009 membership meeting. Fred demonstrated tools used to turn Chinese balls. These tools were developed by David Springett and carry his name.

What other unique tools or jigs have you seen/used? Leave comments below.

Inlays can be created by making a recess in the turning and filling with a contrasting material, such as metal powder or crushed stone. The photo inset is one such example of this type of inlay. This was created by Ed Davidson, a.k.a. YoYoSpin. He has a large number of video tutorials on his website, yoyospin.com, as well as offering DVD tutorials titled Yo-Yo Turnings, Closed End Pens and Creating “Outlays” from Inlays. His instructions cover many subjects including pens, pendants, bottle stoppers, rose engine and the Beall Pen Wizard.

Many pen turners have a mini-lathe and the 1” post on the Oneway Drill Wizard won’t fit. This got me to wondering if there is an alternative to this jig.

Many woodturners, and woodworkers in general, design and build their own jigs. This is also true for a lathe drill jig, although I had difficulty in finding tutorials for building one. The Sydney Woodturners in Australia have a page with pictures and basic description for building a Lathe Drilling Jig. But other than that, not much on building your own.

A quick internet search indicated the the Sorby Precision Boring System was not available in the U.S. A quick email to Robert Sorby in England confirmed this. However, Lindesy Reynolds from Robert Sorby recommended ordering from www.turners-retreat.co.uk

A drill jig can be used for many other operations, the most common of which is drilling turned chair legs.