This months meeting of the Nova Woodturner’s Guild was held at Lee Valley and was the awards ceremony of the 2008 Woodturning Competition.

The Nova Woodturner’s Guild Woodturning Competition is held each year with the People’s Choice award being the Warman Castle Memorial trophy. The trophy is in memory of Warman Castle, who was a longtime member of the NWG and passed away a few years ago.

There were a total of 54 entries this year and all of them were astounding! Here, have a look:
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The theme of the December meeting of the Nova Woodturner’s Guild was lathe and woodturning safety.

Ken Parsons, an experienced woodworker and wood turner who has been practicing his craft for over forty years, was the guest speaker. An expert in woodworking and cabinet making Ken also does custom production work in both spindle and face plate turning. He has learned a lot about safety in woodturning, often the hard way… as most of us do, unfortunately.

Ken covered a wide range of issues from toxicity in wood to proper clothing and various safety guidelines like:

1. Always wear a facemask when turning.
2. Keep the guards on your grinder.
3. Always use a dustmask when sanding.
4. Stand to the side when starting your lathe.
5. Ensure tightening tools are removed when starting your lathe.
6. Blow sawdust out of equipment, electrical outlets and heaters

This was a general talk that served as a reminder of the importance of safety in the workshop, something that we can never get enough of.

Back to the shop…

Tonight’s Nova Woodturner’s Guild meeting was on Lathe Maintenance and woodturner Don Moore gave us lots of tips!

1. Use a silicon spray on the lathe ways for ease of banjo adjustment.

2. File your toolrest smooth with a file and then sand with a fine emery paper to ease tool movement.

3. Round the edges of the skew. This will help when rolling over the tool when making beads, etc.
Continue reading 'Some Tips On Maintaining Your Lathe'

I went to a woodturning demo this evening hosted by Clive Owen from Robert Sorby Tools. He demonstrated a variety of tools and techniques including the Spindle Master, Texturing and Chatter tools and their Spiralling System.

Robert Sorby Tools is one of the world’s leading manufacturer of fine woodturning tools, woodcarving tools, chisels and lathe accessories. They are located in Sheffield, England.

The Spindlemaster is flat on one side and oval on the other which is supposed to make ‘dig-ins’ a thing of the past. Because of this it is quite popular with woodturners. It’s use appears to mimic both the skew and spindle gouge in it’s use.

The Texturing, Chatter and Spiraling tools offer a unique options for different decorative finishes to your work, including orange peel, striated and ribbed patterns.
Continue reading 'Sorby Tool Demonstration'