Last night’s meeting of the Nova Woodturners’ Guild was the final one for the season and it was also our Annual General Meeting.

We met in one of the classrooms, upstairs from our usual meeting place in the Carpentry Room, of the Nova Scotia Community College on Leeds St.

The meeting began with plaques being given out to a few past NWG Woodturning Competition People’s Choice Award winners. Plaques for this award were just instituted with this year’s turning competition so not only was this year’s winner presented with one but past winners as well.

We then heard from the Competition and Exhibition Committee regarding some proposals on the length of service for committee members, the competition structure, financial concerns, entry fees and how the entry fee is to be used. There was great debate on these issues and motions were passed in favour of the present committee staying in place for two years and one member being replaced each year, two competition categories; faceplate and spindle will remain, the entry fees will remain the same and will continue to be donated to charity and an increase in dues will begin in the 2010-2011 season.

This was followed by a financial report and audit which, after a couple of inquiries, was subsequently approved.

A preliminary report was given about the possibility of having a ‘junior membership’ where a member will be able to bring a person under the age of 18 that they are legally responsible for (ie, son, daughter, grandchildren, etc.) to our meetings. The purpose of this would be to share our woodturning knowledge as well as interest young people in turning. There will be more on this in the future.

Continue reading 'Notes On The AGM Of The NWG'

Last night’s meeting of the Nova Woodturners Guild had so much going on that it almost burst at the seams! Usually only a two hour meeting, this one kept everyone enthralled for almost three hours and with crowds hanging in to the very end!

The evening included a visit by Stephen Zwerling who gave a captivating presentation on demonstrating and presenting.

Stephen is a juried and honourary life member of the Nova Scotia Designer Crafts Council, a member of the American Association of Woodturners and a founding member of the Nova Woodturners’ Guild.

His presentation encompassed the full gamut of this very unique topic. From public speaking standards to tips and techniques specific to woodturning, Stephen offered dozens (hundreds?) of helpful hints, blended with personal anecdotes and examples. His candid speaking approach emphasized his points not as things that we should do but rather things that we MUST do in order to have a successful presentation or demonstration.

Here are a few notes that I was able to jot down:

Continue reading 'Presentation On Presenting At NWG'

This month’s meeting of the Nova Woodturners Guild was both an eye popper and very educational! The Show and Tell session offered a bevy of beautiful work from several members and Dave Wilkins took us on a review of spindle turning tools and techniques.

Dave’s presentation gave us an excellent overview of the various tools available for spindle turning including chucking systems. He combined this with instruction on their use and maintenance.

Whereas Dave’s previous spindle turning demo focused mainly on the skew and spindle gouge tonight’s demonstration touched on these tools but also introduced the traditional forged ‘Continental’ gouge, explained the various sharpening angles and profiles of the these tools, showed the difference in the ‘spring’ created with the them, compared the pros and cons of both the Nova Live Center and the Oneway Live Center and turned a captured ring using only the skew.

Continue reading 'Learning Spindle Turning At The NWG'

Wow! There were so many fantastic examples of great woodturning at the Nova Woodturner’s Guild meeting last night that it was like a gallery of fine art!

Tonight’s meeting was both the Fun Turn contest and 2009 Woodturning Competition followup.

Members who participated in the Fun Turn brought in their pieces to show and to give a short description of the piece. There were almost 20 pieces entered into the contest, each one unique, from ‘sculptures’ to the traditional.

The challenge for this contest was to turn an item, or items, out of a 6″ X 6″ X 3″ piece of Ash. It was amazing that although each member started with the same block of wood each piece was different – a true test for those studying woodturner psychology!

Each member that entered the contest was eligible for the grand prize of a Sorby Wobble Chuck (which we saw demonstrated last week at the Sorby Tool Demo). Don Moore was the lucky winner of the random draw. (Gee, does this guy win everything?! ) Congrats, Don, on a great win!

Here are a couple of more photos showing a closer view of the pieces that were entered:

Continue reading 'A NWG Show, Show, Show And Tell'