February Membership Meeting

[note]This month we have Larry Miller coming to demonstrate. Larry is the president of the Olympia club and is a member of our club. This should be a superior demo and we are excited to have him joining us.[/note]

I started turning wood in high school, and still have the very first salad bowl I turned that my mother used for nearly 40 years (it’s ugly, but functional). I had about a 35 year layoff while finishing college, getting married, working as a computing manager in higher education, oil, and aerospace, and raising our two sons. When my wife bought me a small lathe in 1995, I slowly picked up the craft again. I didn’t get “serious” about turning until we moved to Olympia in 2003. I now have 5 lathes in my well equipped shop, and not only make what I like to call “Functional Art”, but also teach woodturning to all ages and skill levels, including home schooled kids. I am actively involved in the American Association of Woodturners (AAW) youth program and will be in St. Paul again this summer working with the Kids. I don’t specialize in any one art form, but enjoy a challenge and have done a number of projects including hats, hollow forms, deep vessels, piercing and other embellishments.

The demonstration I’m going to perform for the SPSW in February is titled, “how to turn a specialty box with minimal to no sanding”. Although I’ll have several different boxes on display, the one I’ll demonstrate was written up in the Summer 2010 Woodturning Design magazine and was inspired by the capitol dome in
Olympia. This is just an example of a specialty box, as my demonstration will focus on methods and tips that apply to all box types. I’ll cover design, layout, chucking techniques, shortcuts for quickly producing multiple copies of the same design, use of some specialty tools, and tips that will allow you to reduce or eliminate sanding.

Setup starts at 6:00 with social time starting at 6:30.