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Sunday 29 December 2013

Last Students of 2013

Hi all .
The end of another busy year some demo's and a lot of teaching.
Yesterday I had my last students of 2013 Dave who is a regular and his Son in law Adam and his Grandson Rudi.










Monday 9 December 2013

Gift voucher

Treat a friend or relative to a days one to one Woodturning tuition .
Lunch included.
What a great present to receive on Christmas day one of my Gift vouchers

Saturday 7 December 2013

Hugh and Ali

Today i have had the pleasure of teaching Hugh and Ali from Sussex both new to turning but I have a feeling it wont be long before they take it up as a hobby.
Thank you both for a very rewarding day.

Friday 6 December 2013

bernard's Bowl

This is Bernhard one of my students with a nice Ash bowl he made today


Thursday 5 December 2013

Playing with The airbrush

Today myself and Brian Hensby have had an enjoyable  day playing with the airbrush and different airbrush techniques.
Here is a picture of of Brian with a wide rim bowl complete with airbrushed Autumn leaves lacquered and burnished.

    

Tuesday 12 November 2013

Teaching Annette

This is a picture of Annette my student for the last two days.
Annette has never done any woodturning but thought it would be something she would like to have a go at and now I think she is hooked.
Annette has taken to it like a duck to water which has given me two very easy and rewarding days.
She has made two nice bowls from spalted Beech and one Ash bowl with a large inclusion and finished off the second day with a bit of spindle turning practice.
Annette wanted to spend the two days making bowls as one is for her and the others are to be presents.
Whoever receives these as presents will be very lucky as they are absolutely perfect and they are all her own work.
Annette is going to come back for further tuition in the new year and is going to get her own lathe and equipment.
Very very well done Annett it has been a very enjoyable two days and I look forward to seeing you in the new year.


Friday 8 November 2013

Another Painting lesson.

My Granddaughter Ali and I have had another painting lesson today with Anita Pegler using pen,ink and watercolor.
This is my effort a French cottage.


Monday 28 October 2013

Poor service from Axminster Tools

I am very disappointed with Axminster tools.
Two weeks ago I ordered a new Lathe from Axminster tools and it was delivered the next day which is great service but at the same time I ordered a new chuck to go with the Lathe.
I was told that chucks are made to order and it would be a week before delivery.Today two weeks after delivery of the Lathe I rang them to find out why the chuck had not been delivered to be told it would not be avalable to the middle of next month.
This would be a wait of four to five weeks.I told them this was not good enough as I use laths for my work and if this was the best they could do they could have the Lathe back.
They went away and rang me back and said they had located one in another store and they will get it to me by the end of the week.
I always recommend Axminster to my students and tell them what a great company they are and always give good service.
To be fair this is the first time anything like this has happened but it has left me very disappointed
Only last week I recommended four students that don't own lathes to go buy from Axminster and I will do so in the future but I hope this not a sign of things to come

Monday 21 October 2013

Gable end Finial

It is not very often I get asked to make anything other than bowls,hollow forms and houshold items so it made a pleasant change when a local builder asked me to make a finial.
The finial is about five feet long and goes on the gable end of a large Victorian house.
Because of the length I made the two ends separately with a tenon on the end and glued them into the center square section.

Sunday 20 October 2013

New Lathe

The beginning of last week I ordered a new lathe from Axminster tools.I ordered the lathe and a new chuck at about three O clock in the afternoon and the lathe was delivered the next day at mid day.
How is that for good service, great service but and here is the problem the chuck comes about ten days later because apparently they are made to order.
This does not make any sense to me,what good is a lathe without a chuck and surely they could keep some on the shelf.
I am a big fan of Axminster tools but this is very disappointing and not good.

Friday 18 October 2013

Watercolor painting.

Myself and my Granddaughter Ali attended a watercolour painting course this week with Anita Pegler.
 Link to Anita's Website We both enjoyed the day and I am looking forward to our next day on the 28Th of this month.This is the first watercolour painting I have done and I am so pleased I thought I would share it with you.



Thursday 10 October 2013

Two day Hollow form course

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week myself and Mark Sanger Web site here. held a Hollow form course for four students.
Here are a few pics from the course.










 Left to right Dave Viv Mark John Bryan.

Thursday 29 August 2013

Making Mirrors.

.A while ago I was given two very nice Walnut Burrs.I was not really sure what to do with them so I just kept them until I got some inspiration.
A couple of weeks ago my Brother Chris spent the weekend here and as he is a joiner I got him to help me cut them up on the bandsaw to make some mirror frames.
On the first cut we had the saw jam up and ruined the blade.
We then made a sliding jig and cut the rest up without any mishaps.
My bandsaw will cut a maximum of 12" deep and one of the burrs was much wider than that so we cut it in half first then into slices.
We then book matched the slices to create the result you can see in the following pics.

I was not sure what the best way would be to photograph the mirrors and after trying several things I hung them on my garage door and captured the reflection of a palm tree in our garden.










Wednesday 28 August 2013

Dave and Roberta

Yesterday I had the pleasure of teaching two of the nicest students I have ever had the pleasure to teach Dave and his lovely Daughter Roberta.
I always enjoy teaching but sometimes it is more enjoyable than others and this was one of those days.
Dave has had some turning experience but Roberta is a complete novice.
Roberta is studying contemporary crafts at Plymouth university and had to complete something constructive within the craft scene and do a write up on it for her studies.She took lots of pictures and notes throughout the day and hopefully she will forward some of them to me.
Both produced very well made bowls with very little help from me and as it was our Burnham on Sea woodturning club night they hung on and spent the evening there as our guests.
Every month our club has a table for members to display their works with the chance to win a bottle of wine.We all have button on our arrival that  we place them on the piece on the table that we think is the best of show and Roberta's Beech bowl with stunning figuring won by a considerable margin so that was a great end  to the day for her.
Here is a picture of Dave and Roberta as you can see they are obviously pleased with their achievement.


Wednesday 5 June 2013

Elm Bowls from Melvyn's wood

I have now turned some bowls from the wood I had from Melvyn
There are seven beautiful bowls here and they are full of character inc the wormholes that have been microwaved.