2022 Demonstrations
January – Member’s Show & Tell evening
We started the year with a ‘Hands On’ evening, albeit virtually! There was a wide variety of subjects on show from a beautifully crafted chess set and board through to a mushroom box, a yacht and a guitar. And of course – lots of Gonks. To see it for yourself, head over to the members only page and watch the video.
February – Keith Fenton – A laced Vase
Keith showed us how to make a basic vase shape and then cut a slit down one side. After decorating it with iridescent paints he then inserted a lace with eyelets – as shown below.
March – Mary Aston RPT – a square bowl
Mary showed us how to make a square pierced bowl, as she’d demonstrated for the AWGB at their seminar a few months ago.
May – Tony Jones – a ‘Vortex’ bowl
Tony came down from Worcestershire to show us how to make his signature thin walled ‘vortex’ bowl.
June – Martin Saban-Smith RPT – A contemporary ring box and a Fibonacci bowl
Martin gave us a demonstration of a contemporary ring box on the Wednesday evening. This was followed by a whole day masterclass on the turning of a Fibonacci series bowl together with colouring, texturing and finishing.
August – Chestnut products with Terry Smart
Fresh from the Chestnut Weekender down in Swindon, Terry joined us to run through the Chestnut product range and expalin which products work best in which circumstances. Judging by the amount he sold the adviuce was well received – and remember – you can always top up your supplies at the club shop 😉.
September – Jason Breach
Jason joined us for an evening demo where he went ‘back to basics’ and showed us how he makes lots of small items that sell well at craft shows and don’t take long to make (well, they didn’t take Jason long to make!).
Then the following day he returned for a full day’s masterclass on boxes (weel what else would it be?). He started with a quite difficult octagonal lidded one then moved onto a near impossible clam-shell design before finishing with a ‘satellite’ box that even he finds challenging! The key to all of them was work-holding and knowing the order of operations to make sure you didn’t remove a piece of wood you would later need to rely on. A very informative and thought provoking day.
October – Bryan Millham
Bryan made the short journey up from Weston to Gloucester to show us how to make a moderately long stemmed goblet. It would have been longer, if only we had a bigger lathe! However the principles were all covered in detail and it still looked longer and thinner than most of us would have been confortable tackling.
November – Paul Sweet
Another visitor from the Somerset area, Paul showed us how he rough turns wet wood before returning several months later to finish the (now dried) blank into a bowl. With a bit of encouragement from the audience he then tried to see how thin he could go with his ‘spare’ dry blank.
December – Pat Carroll (IRD)
Given the icy blast that had arrived in Gloucestershire a few days earlier and was showing no sign of leaving, it was probably fantastic foresight that we’d opted for an IRD this month and everyone could stay at home 😉. Pat joined us from his studio south of Dublin and showed us how he made a box with an double-inlaid lid featuring a purple heart bead surrounding an ebony insert with piercings which had copper wire embedded in them. It sounds complicated because it was, but each stage was well explained giving members the confidence that they could tackle it too. We will wait to see what arrives on the “turn ‘n win” table in the next few months!
