This month was the final meeting for the 2009-2010 season of the Nova Woodturners Guild and as tradition has it, the Annual General Meeting.

The meeting began with the reading of past meeting minutes and then went directly to business issues that included an update on our meeting location for next season. We will continue to meet here at the local Home Depot as the new Nova Scotia Community College is still under construction. A big round of thanks and appreciation was voiced for Home Depot for allowing us the opportunity to hold our meetings here.

The Financial Report was given and it was unanimously accepted to move it to the auditors for review. The member auditors reviewed it and approved it.

Candidates for the new Executive were presented by a member of the Nomination Committee and each Officer was unanimously voted in. Congrats to all!

The meeting also included a Show and Tell session. Here are some photos:

Continue reading 'The NWG Annual General Meeting'

This months meeting of the Nova Woodturners Guild featured an excellent presentation on taking photographs of your finished work. It was presented by NWG member and avid photographer Glenn McCarron.

Using an extensive Powerpoint presentation that included quite a number of slides on both information and examples, Glenn took us on an enjoyable journey through the process of getting the most of our photo taking efforts. He began with some basic rules then focused on lighting, camera settings, studio setup and backgrounds.

Glenn told us about three basic rules for better pictures which are to ask yourself ‘what is the subject?’ , then draw attention to your subject and then make sure that you keep it simple.

Too often the subject of your photo gets lost within other things in the photo so the object is to draw attention to your subject by moving in closer and simplify by removing any distractions. One technique for drawing attention to your object is by controlling the ‘depth of field’. The depth of field is the area of your photo that is in focus and with a shallow depth of field anything in the background is out of focus and less obtrusive. Here’s an example:

This photo is without the depth of field:

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This month’s meeting of the Nova Woodturners Guild was a long time in the making and it certainly was worth the wait! If you remember, back at our first meeting of the season members were given a 6″ X 6″ X 3″ piece of African Red Mahogany for our Annual Fun Turn. Well, this meeting was the one where everyone brought in their finished pieces… and let me tell you, there was a slew of them! There were big pieces, small pieces, multiple pieces and tall pieces. There were bowls, hollow forms, sculptures, a piece that could rock and a piece to take for a walk. So many great examples of art and craft.

What is always amazing is that there is always such a wide variety of finished pieces – there are never two pieces alike! Sure, you’re saying that everyone is different but the thing is that we all start with the same type and sized piece of wood. Pretty incredible, I’d say!

The rules for this yearly event are quite simple – to have fun and turn anything of your choice using the block of wood (you can even use additional wood to accentuate your piece) . Did I mention to have fun? Yes, it’s all about the fun.

And fun it is. From the time we get the block of wood and place it in our shop it sits there, beckoning us (threatening us? ), demanding from our every waking moment the question – “What will I turn this block into?”. Then we wait for it to speak to us… we wait… and wait… and wait… Then, if the lathe gods are smiling and the wind is blowing just right, at the very last minute it does speak to us and it’s a mad scramble to get our pieces finished on time (sometimes the finish is even still wet when it’s brought in! ). Ah, finally, it’s done, woodturning bliss. Oh, there are some that the wood speaks to immediately but do they really get to enjoy the anguish and turmoil that this block of wooden fun brings? LOL!

Seriously, the Fun Turn is a great opportunity to try something different, perhaps even turn something that you wouldn’t normally turn. This, of course, can take your skills to another level.The biggest enjoyment I get is just by participating in the camaraderie of this event. Yep, it really is a lot of fun. It really is.

I believe that we all outdid ourselves again this year. Here, see for yourself:

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The feature of this month’s meeting of the Nova Woodturners Guild was a presentation by Zalman Amit. Zalman is a local woodturner, a member of the Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council and was one of the judges for our woodturning competition last month.

Zalman took us on a tour through three different finishing approaches that he uses on his beautiful wood turnings. These included piercing, branding and inlaying.

Beginning with an extensive overview of his piercing technique he went through the steps for achieving the best results. He explained the need for thin walled vessels, the best woods to use and vessel preparation. He also compared the pros and cons of different piercing tools, which he brought in. These included a Dremel, a Foredom and a high speed air driven handpiece. The speeds differed with these tools from about 30,000 rpms to over 300,000 rpms! The higher speed offers more control, are faster and there’s little or no burning. Here are a couple of photos of piercing that he did using the air driven tool:

Continue reading 'Piercing, Branding & Inlay At The NWG'