West Michigan Woodturners is a club in the Kalamazoo and Portage area for woodturners of all levels
One of our long time members, Gary Bean, will give a demonstration on how he turns Captive Rings. The Captive rings are a great decoration on many spindle turned items such as goblets, baby rattles and holiday tree decorations with finials and rings, just to mention a few examples. Gary does some wonderful turns and his demonstration promises to be another very educational and informative chance to learn this historic turning technique.
The demonstration will be the Lon Goble’s low/no fuss finishing technique conducted by Lon himself and aided by Len Bosma and Bruce Dannenhauer. The demonstration will go through the process of “finishing” a bowl beginning with the sanding, then the finish application and finally the final buffing. The demonstration will present a good and easy way to have a food safe lustrous finished wood turning. It promises to have you rethink how you’re currently doing you finishing.
Chris Thompson President of the Michiana Woodturners in Niles will be doing a demo to show how he turns and makes his Christmas gnomes. This would be a great tabletop or shelf holiday decoration for your own home or gift for someone. With this demo Chris will demonstrate how he makes the project including shaping the body and hat. Plus, also turning a ball for the nose.
Barbara Dill sharing a brand new demo focused on multi-axis and split turnings. We will be introduced to some new techniques in woodturning from this professional and skilled woodturner. Below are a few comments from Barbara.
This demo is about Multi axis spindles in general and in specific, split turning‘s. I will take 20 to 30 minutes to go over a conceptual and systematic way to understand multi axis spindle turning. Split turnings are always found in quadrant one since they’re parallel axes and arc type so that’s the demo I will give for the rest of the time that we have. It will be pre-recorded as I have no Wi-Fi in the country that is reliable. I want it to be interactive meaning that you will be able to ask me questions.
‘Tis the Season
What is more symbolic of the Holiday Season than a snowman? (Well, maybe a Christmas tree, but we turned trees last December). So this year, for our Christmas ornament demonstration, Peter Keith will show us how to turn a snowman ornament following the “Easy-to-turn Snowman Ornament” article written by Nick Cook for the American Woodturner Winter 1999. A copy of which will be distributed along with a story-board or two for turning snowmen.
Our September 10th 2022 meeting was a Hands-On Class will focus on pen turning. Jim Hawkins, member of the West Michigan Woodturners, will demonstrate how to turn a pen during the meeting. Pens are fun and (relatively) easy turning project. They can become cherished gifts for family and friends. Pen turning is essentially spindle turning on a small scale. It requires some relatively inexpensive equipment (mandrel, press and a pen kit).
Our own member Rick Zinser, will do a demonstration about how he prepares fresh wood for turning on a lathe. Ricks background is from his experience at Western Michigan University training Industrial Arts Teachers on how to do a demonstration that holds the attention of the audience and presents information about the topic in a rememberable format.
Rick’s demonstration will be of special interest to our members that have wanted to do a club demonstration but feel uneasy about doing one because they have not done a demonstration yet. We will learn many pointers about preparing fresh wood to be turned and how to do our own demonstration for our fellow members.
We will be treated to the basics and insights of doing Segmented Wood Turning by our own member Charlie Fuentes. While Charlie is our resident Segmented specialists he will discuss and show lots of information about getting started, including the common problems and how to avoid them. This promises to be an information packed demonstration. Then to top off all of that, Charlie will treat us by actually turning a segmented form.
Our June 2022 club meeting will have a demonstration by Brian Newton. He is planning to show us how to cast resin blanks. He will make a couple of pen blanks in a pressure pot. While these blanks are “cooking”, he’ll discuss other resins and the use of epoxy in resin work. Safety is a big issue when using pressure pots and Brian will spend time addressing safety issues. He will also cover dyes, mica powers and mold release agents. Brian routinely attended local craft shows selling his pen, bottle stopper and other blanks. He will have various resin and resin-wood hybrid blanks and other casting supplies available for purchase.
The demonstration will be our very own member Todd Beck. Todd will bring to us his experiences and skill doing Pyrography or wood burning which is a method of enhancing a piece of wood by burning with various tools. Color can also be added to the design future enhancing the design of the turning. There are numerous styles of burning from detailed art, to branding, to more subtle shading. The photos show just a few of the many techniques. Todd’s demonstration will include information about the equipment that he likes to use and live demonstration of the skill he has developed doing Pyrography. This promises to be a very interesting and informative demonstration that you won’t want to miss.
Sources and websites for tools, supplies and paraphenalia I refered to in the demo on woodburning.
razertip.com
treelineusa.com
packardwoodwork.com
woodturnerscatalog.com
leevalley.com (the eraser I use is one of a kit that costs $11.50. Probably to expensive)
excel and x-zcto craft knives (Blades #10 and #11 are very handy)
Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen/Brush (these are the India Ink pens)and TomBow Brush Pens(these are water based) Both are available at Amazon.
Any other questions or comments…text to 269-539-7634 (no calls please) or email becktodd@gmail.com
West Michigan Woodturners 