I have been playing with wood since I was 9. As a kid some of us boys in the neighborhood made things to sell to make some spending money. I’m sure these were bought by neighbors out of pity more than skill but encouraged my interest in woodworking.
In the winter of my eighth grade I made a 7 ft hydroplane that used a 10 hp motor. Our winters in Minnesota could start in October and end in March or April so it gave me projects to do. The next winter I built a 12 ft sailboat from 1 page plan out of Boys Life magazine. These projects taught me how to work with bending wood and fiberglassing among many other new skills I was exposed to.
When I got married I suggested to my wife that we could spend the wedding gift money on power tools and I could make things for the house. She said OK!!! The first thing I made was a drop leaf end table. We still have it in our living room. When I finished it I could count 11 or more mistakes. No one ever noticed any of them. I think it taught me not to be too hard on myself. 
I became interested in woodturning in the late 1980’s when we gave my wife’s stepdad Dale Nish’s book Creative Woodturning. It was a little used when he opened the gift on Christmas Day. My mind was opened up to the possibilities a lathe had. I’ve never looked back. After a while I became interested in doing changes to the surface of the turned object. Some of these changes are quick and some take lots of extra hours. This will be a pursuit the rest of my life. I have only scratched the surface with the things I have tried. I’m sure I will die with ideas still bouncing around in my head I never got to. You are only limited by your imagination.
Fred Abeles, SPSW President, is a Seattle native, born and raised in the Magnolia area, Graduated from Queen Anne High School, attended University of Washington, attended the Art Center College of Design in Hollywood for professional/commercial photography, operated Kent Photography, a professional portrait/wedding photography studio for 25 years and worked at Microsoft for 18 years, the last 12 years as the technical manager for the Microsoft Visitor Center. He currently works his retirement job at Woodcraft of Seattle as a sales associate and wood turning instructor in their classroom.
“This time around I’ll introduce you to what for many will be a new adhesive, filler, and finish that has some unique properties. With it you can pot inlays, create clear, colored, and glow in the dark void fillers, clear pore filler, and a high gloss finish that goes on in minutes and is both waterproof and durable enough for even daily use objects, like knife handles, goblets, and bowls. As always, I will leave plenty of time for questions on any subject you care to broach.”
It has been over 50 years since Oregon artist Tom Willing created his first woodturning in his father’s woodshop. Since then, he has come to focus on pieces that are sensitive to the interplay between light, form, and material. Working with both native and exotic species of woods, Willing seeks to reveal the visual magic within each piece of timber with which he works. In addition to sculptural display work, he designs pieces that combine the aesthetic and functional – bowls, pepper grinders, platters and more. Willing’s work is elegantly finished on the lathe with walnut oil and wax, then buffed to bring out the natural luster of the wood.
