This was the first meeting of the Hiawatha Wood Turners Club in 2024 and there were many in attendance. Many brought samples of items they created since the last meeting in the fall of 2023 along with many bring backs to be auctioned off. Here are some pictures of the items on the tables in the class room.
Bring Backs for Auction.
Fantastic bead work by Jim Rutledge.
Some of Sam's fantastic work The flowers are turned and carved.
Cutting boards, thin turned lamp shade and vessels.
The duck was very good and stayed quit the whole meeting.
Some bowl gouges Steve Promo brought in to sell.
Two Bowl and a box by Archie Patterson.
Fantastic turned and carved vessels.
Two neat bowls. One sold at action. Bowl on right has a pointed bottom so it roll
At the meeting Steve Promo talked about the grind angle of a round nose scrapper. Here is a short video of his discussion.
Sam Staffan presented two very nice projects and had pictures to explain the process he used to make them. Here is his video.
Steve Promo talked abut making wood lamp shades and later did a demo on a lathe. The following is the classroom meeting discussion.
There was no demonstration for this meeting. Instead after Bring Backs there was an extended Show & Tell where member brought in pictures and discussed their projects. Here are some of the Bring Backs that were auctioned off.
There were two slabs of Ash, bulk wood and a bowl brought in for auction.
In addition Steve Promo finished the honey pot Dave Rife made at the October 2023 meeting and build a stand for it. This too was auctioned off. Here are some of the Show & Tell items.
This bowl was made using colored pencils and a solid wood base. Jim Rutledge and others talks about making a colored pencil bowl in this video.
Here are three bowls that were cut in half with a section removed and the remaining two halves glued together to make sort of an oval bowl.
The dark bowl in the upper left is a solid wood bowl and not part of the cut bowls.
On the left is a bowl with a copper lid added. The lid has a copper feather attached. On the right is a bird house that has a protrusion on the bottom so it is setting on a wooden bowl.
This is the front of the bird house.
This is a close up of the bowl with a copper lid with feather. Below is a discussion of the bird house and copper lidded bowl.
Also on display were these coaster of burl and resin with cork on one side.
Below are some additional discussion that took place at the meeting.
Steve Promo received a commission to turn replacement posts from local cedar for the railing of a hotel on Mackinac Island. Here is his discussion.
This is Steve's setup to duplicate the posts. The old post is used as a master in the background. Demarcation lines are drawn on his tool rest.
Here is a happy Steve with one of his finished posts. Only nine more to go.
Here are the finished posts ready to be primed and delivered.
During the club meeting Steve talked about ridding the bevel while turning and here is a short video clip of Steve riding the bevel using a skew to turn a round section of the post.
Well done Steve. Thanks for sending in the pictures and thanks to your camera person.
Below Sam Staffan discusses the making of Tree Ornaments, turning bowls with cracks and turning a bowl from a tree that stood outside a lighthouse. Here are his discussions.
Dae Rafe from the Traverse City wood turners club visited out club meeting on 8 October 2023 and demonstrated turning small honey pot on the club's lathe.
This is Dave Rife explaining how he is going to turn a small honey pot on our lathe.
Side view of the semi-completed honey pot.
The top looking inside the honey pot.
This is a side view showing the mounting flange on the bottom.
Here Dave is reverse mounting the object in the chuck to turn off the mounting block area on the bottom.
Here is the finished product surface finish by Steve Promo and a stand furnished by Steve Promo.
As with every meeting there are bring backs and Show-and-Tell items.
On the far end of the table are the bring back items that are auctioned off at the end of the classroom portion of the meeting. Here, Tom Stawiarski has his tickets for the auction.
Besides the large section of wood to be auctioned off there are two of Jim Rutledge's carved wood feathers and an egg he made. More on that later. Sam Steffen donated a golden egg.
There was a good turn out for the September Club meeting.
The attendees are listening to opening remarks from club president Steve Promo.
One of the things that Steve talked about was a woven basket he purchase because he like the shape and wanted to see if he could make one out of wood. Jim Rutledge often makes bowls that look like woven baskets, so this woven basket will give Steve a new concept in bowl design.
This is the woven basket that Steve found that he like the shape and color.
At the last meeting the challenge was for everyone to make an egg and these are some of the results.
Here are some more of the eggs members turned.
Jim Rutledge explained that the egg on the right was turned, parted in half and then hallowed to a wall thickness of 1/16 of an inch. A special drill was used to put the holes in the walls.
Here are Sam Steffen's items and discussion of the items.
Jim Rutledge made an egg and added a carved chick breaking out.
Jim is an expert carver and here is his discussion of his projects.
Here are some of the other discussion which were very informative.
Finally, we adjourned to the shop to see how Jim Rutledge makes the copper tops for his boxes.
The club met at the St Ignace High School. The room was being replaced and during the demo there was a great deal of noise during the recording. The club meeting in the class room was sheltered from the noise by the drop ceiling.
Steve Promo chaired the meeting. There were a few show and tell items that will be covered in the video. Four items were in the bring-backs that were raffled off. There was one new member to the club.
Since, the demonstration was not on the club lathe the pictures were show with a small Canon camera without a tripod so the video is a little shaky.
First, video is of Steve Promo demonstrating what he has been teaching high school students. Each student is give some wood and is shown how to turn a 4-legged stool leg and then they spend the week turning three more legs. Next he shows them how to turn the base from a 4-inch thick section of wood and then they turn their own. The stool is theirs to keep.
After Steve Promo finished turning the base to his 4-legged stool Gary Weiermiller showed how to use a sharp tool for smooth finish cut and then how to power sand the object starting at a finer grit sand paper.
Unfortunately the room of the building was being removed and there was at times a lot of noise. Still the two demonstrations were very good.
The meeting started with a discussion of the items and books on the table.
There were several chunks of wood brought back to the club and were lraffelled off to attendees. Each raffel ticket cost 1$.
There were a large number of items brought in for show and tell. Turning and finishing lessons learned were discussed.
Some of the items shown in the group show and tell items picture deserves a little extra attention. The colors of the wood in this bowl were out standing.
Sam brought this box in (CA glue finish) and discussed the fitting of the lid. He made the opening in he base and turned the lid to fit the measured opening diminsions, however, when finished it was a loose fit. (I generaly turn the opening and then work the lid size down thru a series of test fits to get the proper fit. - ajp2)
After the discussions Steve Promo demonstarted his duplication machine that he found on Craigslist.com in Port Huron, Michigan. The unit came with the duplicator mounted on a frame that had large roller wheels. Here is his talk.
The machine uses a variable speed motor turning both the master and the work material and a router to cut the wood.
