April, 2011 – Channel Islands Woodturners

President’s Message

The March meeting at Cabrillo was a good one in many respects. We got to sit on chairs with backs, the “Toro Challenge” was a lot of fun, the show and tell brought out creative excellence once again, and Art Waldinger’s presentation was just outstanding. As usual the luncheon at Mimi’s was well attended, and the dialogue was both instructive and interesting.

The “Toro Challenge” for March, was to turn a finial from a 1½ x 1½ by about 5-inch piece of White Oak wood procured by Gary Toro for the Club. Twenty finials were submitted in the three self-assigned categories of Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced wood turners. Paul Calcaterra won the Beginner category, Seth McArthur won the Intermediate prize, and Ron Lindsaywas awarded the Advanced prize.. All three winners received gift certificates that were donated by Craft Supplies USA. April’s “Toro Challenge” is to turn a goblet from the oak distributed during the March meeting.

The April meeting will be held at Cabrillo Middle School Saturday April 16 . The agenda will include the usual show and tell, the raffle, the “Toro Goblet Challenge”, and a presentation by John Beaver who will talk to us about Design of Cut and Re-assembled Bowls. John is an interesting guy, who, like most of us, enjoys trying to combine the technical and artistic aspects of woodturning, and he likes to experiment. His curiosity has led him to develop techniques that produce wave patterns and sometimes protrusions beyond the wall of a piece.

One again, CIW will rent chairs to make everyone comfortable during the meeting.

I look forward to visiting with everyone Saturday April 16 at Cabrillo

Cheers, Pedro

For photos of the March meeting including the Waldinger talk, the Show and Tell, and the Finial Challenge click here.

Mentors Available

The following list of members have offered to act as mentors to any member of the club who wishes to have hands-on instruction. This can be done at the mentor’s shop or at the member’s home on their own lathe. It is an excellent way for beginning turners to quickly learn basic skills and safety and for more advanced turners to develop new ideas and skills. Using your member roster, give any mentor a call to arrange a time. If you don’t have your roster or want to add your name to the mentor list, give the newsletter editor a call.

Each mentor can teach basic skills; some have also listed specific topics in which they are especially interested or have more advanced skills.

Bruce Berger Any topic including segmented turning

Warren Brown Any topic

David Frank Any topic

Al Geller Open form bowls, natural edge bowls, bowl design

Ron Lindsay Any topic including hollow turning freehand

Jim Rinde Anything to do with using and turning resins, turning goblets, hollow turning with a boring bar with/without a laser

Herm Ross Miniatures; tool making and metal work

Chuck Stevenson Basic turning; he is learning to do segmental work

Gary Toro Anything you want to make

Sam Turner Any topic (if he doesn’t know how, he will learn it with you)

Turning(s) of the Month

The winner selected among many worthy candidates this month is Mark Evans with his segmented vessel. Woods used include Oak and Redheart. Mark took guidance from Malcolm Tibbetts, Ray Allen and maybeCurt Theobald.

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Questions and Answers (Q&A)

This is a regular feature of the monthly Newsletter. Send your questions to the newsletter editor, Ron Lindsay, RonaldBLindsay@verizon.net . He will forward each question to our panel of experts. We will get answers to each question from at least two of our experts and publish them in a future newsletter in this Q&A section.

Question: No questions this month

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