I recently attended a day long seminar at Lee Valley on sharpening plane blades.

Since I bought the LV Bench Plane a few months ago I have been using it occasionally and I knew that I would soon have to sharpen it. I also came across an old Record Smoothing Plane that I acquired a few years ago from my father-in-law that needed a fair amount of TLC to make useable. This was a great opportunity to get some hands-on instruction on how to sharpen and tune up these planes.

The instructor for the seminar was Jay Perry. Jay has taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for over 20 years and now teaches woodworking classes at the Nova Scotia Centre of Craft and Design. His woodworking interests include making musical instruments, woodworking for the theatre and, of course, planes. He is also a member of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association.

Jay obviously knows his planes! He is not a collector per se though he owns a lot of them. He buys them, restores them and then uses them. Here is a photo of a few of his planes that he brought in:

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I came across an 8 foot piece of 3/4″ square piece of Maple the other day and the first thing that came to my mind was – spurtles!

A spurtle is a Scottish kitchen utensil dating from around the 15th century that is used for stirring oatmeal and soups. Since we have oatmeal for breakfast quite regularly I thought it would be a fun project to turn one (notice that I said ‘turn one’).

Shortly after I turned the one spurtle my wife’s family was over for Thanksgiving dinner. My wife showed the spurtle to them and since none of them knew what it was she asked them to guess. Their suggestions included a drumstick, a small bat, a magic wand and a conductor’s baton! Once they found out what it was used for they all wanted one.

With Christmas coming these will make them great gifts. Since I still had lots of wood and they were so fun and quick to make I turned another half dozen of them.

Here’s a closer view of the ends of the spurtles:

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The Nova Woodturners Guild members met at Halifax Specialty Hardwoods for this month’s meeting last night. There were over 30 members in attendance for this popular annual visit and everyone had a great time!

Most of us got there early to get a bit of shopping in before the meeting, and shopping we did! And no wonder! Darryl Vallis and Cheryl Borden, brother and sister owner/operator of Halifax Specialty Hardwoods, have done a fine job on their shop. They offer a great selection of both local and exotic quality hardwoods. They also offer burls, pen blanks and bowl blanks in a variety of species. This, combined with the reasonable prices and their helpful and friendly service, makes their shop a favorite among local woodworkers.

The fact that everyone was there early also gave the opportunity to do a lot of chatting. Like the shopping, there was a lot of it! The air was filled with great conversation and laughter.

The meeting began with a Show and Tell of some of the beautiful works of several members. There were bowls in a variety of sizes, Christmas ornaments, hollow vessels and pens. Here are a few photos:

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What an exciting day! I just got home from attending a hands-on seminar at Lee Valley where I learned how to turn a pepper mill!

Pepper mills are well used utensils in our kitchen. We have a couple on the counter by the stove area and one on the kitchen table. These are of the plastic (yechh!) variety and my wife and I felt, (well, actually she did) that they should be replaced. I mean, after all…

This one stands just over 8″ tall, made of Walnut and it is finished with Shellawax. It feels comfortable in the hand for both my wife and I and makes an nice addition to our home.

The class was taught by Stephen Zwerling, whom I had taken several seminars with before including my Beginning Woodturning Course a year ago (the one that started it all! ). Stephen is a founding member of the Nova Woodturner’s Guild and a professional woodturner. He creates both functional and decorative wood turnings including bowls and thin-walled vessels and, of course, pepper mills.

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