There is a new Club Cleaner in the shape of a silver and blue Draper vacuum cleaner in the workshop. 

The intention is that the bulk of the shavings are swept and shovelled up as before, but rather than spend ages with a brush going into the corners and underneath the lathe motors we can use the Draper, which also has a ‘blow’ function to blow shaving from under the drive motors.

The cleaner has a bag which will need emptying when full.

This is not a fine dust filter type cleaner so it will kick up some dust, (especially when ‘blowing’) therefore it would be sensible to have the big Jet overhead dust cleaner running full tilt for the duration of the vacuum cleaning.

Colwin Way has contacted me and said that there is a minor in one of the measurements in the Christmas Carousel Plans, so if you have bought a set of plans from him at his recent demo please bring it back and I will replace it with the updated version. I apologise for any inconvenience, especially if you have already made all the components and can’t get one of them to fit properly.

Rolf

 Notices – June 2019

We are very happy to welcome Colwin Way tonight, and fortunate to have such a talented turner demonstrate for us. His experience is huge and varied and is probably best known for his association with Axminster tools, and has developed for Axminster the ‘Colwin Way German pattern’ skew chisel. His demonstration is certain to be fun and encouraging. Enjoy this time with him tonight and hopefully we will be able to spend some more time with him in the future.

Competition entries:  the item tonight is fruit, and next months is jewellery, but I would also like to ask members to think about September’s competition item which is “Something for Brampton”. Borders Woodturners Interclub Competition is on Thursday 18^th October at Brampton and several of us have attended the competition and even submitted entries. We have improved since then and I know we can produce some excellent work, so look out something you have made recently, or make a special effort to make something really special and bring it on Tuesday 10^th September

Visiting turners : Rick Dobney was with us just a couple of days ago and demonstrated and held a masterclass. Chris, Ian and Rolf were ‘the Masterclass’, and had a great time, and learned a lot. If you have never been part of a Masterclass I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone. The next one is September.

We have had five professional demonstrator so far this year (if you include Colwin tonight) and our last professional turner for this year will be Phil Irons, who is doing an all day demonstration on Saturday 21^st September and Masterclass on Sunday 22^nd  September. He is a high quality turner and his pieces sell for high prices, so we can expect a very high standard demonstration from him

There will be no meeting next month (July) as it is holiday time and we will be back in August to the usual second Tuesday in the month 13^th August when Phil Howard will be “Playful”.

A new lathe has arrived (Axminster Trade AT350WL/AT1416VS W), and until it is fully set up please refrain from playing with it. It still needs to be bolted down with spacers and have a Log Book created for it.

The new extractor is also here, but I have not built it up yet so it is still in it’s box. I hope to build it this week and then could do with some help and advice in ‘plumbing’ it into the pipework we have, and extend and improve that pipework.

You will see that we have acquired more wood and it is awaiting processing. Thank you to everyone who was involved in the acquisition of this and the team who come once a month to ensure we have a good stock of boards and billets for turning.

We are fortunate that Galloway Woodturners have an active membership who raise funds, process wood, make food for when professional turners come for all day demos, set up lathes and chairs where required, do maintenance, admin and hospitality, run our shop, look after our finances and do the admin for us etc. But we are also fortunate that we have a strong membership and high attendances on Club nIghts as well as Turning Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Thanks everyone.

Saturday 6^th July Skew Chisels for the squeamish Saturday Scared of the Skew? Sick of spirals? Six places for six people to make six things on a Saturday using only a skew and sycamore (or some other wood that starts with ‘S’ if you want, or any wood really) £10 for the day. This is a workshop more than a course, as everyone can already use a skew.

Thanks everyone for your interest; the workshop is now full, and the members attending will be

Ian,
Raymond,
Nicky S,
Sue H,
Susan C,
Chris,
Arthur, (OK I know this is seven, not six, but I realised we have seven lathes so lets get them all working)

I have found a set of dates for the beginners course and it is Thursday 30th May to Thursday the 5th July, 7pm to 9pm. Course fees are £100 to existing members, and £135 for non members (i.e. £100 plus the £35 annual membership fees) I have two people already signed up and am prepared to take 5 students.

Rolf

The Eugene Grimley Masterclasss is 13th March (with his demonstration on Tuesday the 12th) and for those who have tickets for the Wednesday you might want to look at the cutting list. If you bring your own wood then you will have a known quality, colour, allergy tolerance etc. The club has its own stock of wood and we will try and get some sets of the cutting list together, but we can not be sure we will have the right colour and quality. Eugene is coming from Ireland on the ferry as foot passenger so travelling light i.e. without wood.

12th and 13th March 2019

Cutting list for Galloway Woodturners – Masterclass Wednesday 13th

Christine and Bob Shipway from the CD Coop have talked about raising the profile of Galloway Woodturners and the return on the Coop Local Community Fund by getting the message to our members, families and friends that the more they shop at Coop Castle Douglas and, ideally become Coop members and select Galloway Woodturners to be our designated Coop cause, the more we will get from the fund.
Bob suggested that a few members have a stall in the Castle Douglas store on a Saturday morning (their busiest time) to make members and customers aware of Galloway Woodturners and our activities, so that they can elect to support our cause, and to have a static display of some of the typical items we produces.
To that end Bob has suggested we choose one of the mornings of Saturday 16th, 23rd, and 30th March , the stall will be in place between 10:30 – 12:30. So would anyone like to promote Galloway Woodturners at a stall?

I could do it on the 30th March, but would like to get in earlier so if you can spare a couple of hours on Saturday morning 16th or 23rd March, I also think there are members who can ‘sell’ our craft to the public better than me. We can all put some items together over the next few weeks to display at Turning Tuesdays or Wednesdays.

Let me know if you would like to do your bit for our Coop bid asap.

Thanks

Rolf