Month: September 2020

Our next meeting should have been this Thursday 1st October 2020, it was to be organised by Mike Day, but with the Covid-19 restrictions still in force this will now be a virtual meeting. The meeting is a Showtime meeting, that’s where you would have been invited to bring along things you have made to show the rest of the members and give a short talk on what you had made. This type of meeting in the past had proved very successful with lots of the members bringing in items to show, we do not want to see a drop off in this just because it’s now a virtual meeting, do try to send in pictures of any items you have made and give me some information about them.

Here are a few pictures of some of the past Showtime meetings, I hope they will encourage you to take part.

Do try to take part and remember you are not limited to just one item to show, you can have as many as you like. Send your pictures to me before the end of the day on Friday 2nd October 2020 for inclusion in the next post.

Send your pictures to me at, a.j.mutch4321@btinternet.com

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Our virtual meeting on Thursday 17th September was to be a Bowls night, it was to be organised by John Ruickbie but due to Covid-19 restrictions had to be made into a virtual meeting. John also sends his apologies for not putting forward a bowl, family commitments did not allow him sufficient time to send anything in. However we did get a few of our members to send in some pictures, I am going to deal with them in 2 lots, firstly some individual bowl pictures from Nick Simpson and Dave Line, and secondly a few pictures from David Ross and myself where we are both showing a few bowls from different aspects.

We will start with Nick Simpson’s entry,

Hi Alec

Here is an entry for the virtual bowl show.

 The picture shows a simple bowl in cherry wood measuring 8”  (200mm) diameter. The wavy line though the bowl is the graft of ornamental cherry on to wild cherry stock.I had to keep the lathe speed down because the different densities of the two woods kept the piece well out of balance until the walls were only a little thicker than the final item. It illustrates that even simple turnings can be special if the pattern and figure of the stock is exploited.

 Best wishes

Nick Simpson.

Now for Dave Line’s entries, Dave put in 3 bowls.

For the last 2 lots of entries I have used the picture gallery to show these entries, each picture contains more than one image along with some text. The first 4 are from David Ross, the last 3 are from myself, Alec Mutch.

If you would like to see a larger picture of any of those in the picture gallery, just click the picture, you will also see some text with every picture.

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Our next meeting should be on Thursday 17th September 2020 but due to the present restrictions will now be a virtual meeting. This meeting was to be organised by John Ruickbie and I know he was planning something special. Now we will have to wait until we get back meeting again to see what John had planned, however we do not need to wait to see what the rest of you can do as far as bowl turning is concerned, make a bowl, any type of bowl, and photograph it or them, you can present more than one, and I will post it on our web site, do remember to give me some information with any entry.

Bowl work is probably the easiest form of turning to master, so there is no excuse for you not to make the effort to make a bowl or two and send the pictures to me.

Here are a few that may give you some encouragement to take part, you can copy if you wish, or better still come up with your own design.

These are just 4 different designs of bowls you can make, lets see how many more you can come up with.

You will have up to Friday 18th September to get your entries to me for publication, so do take part I know the members like to see what everyone has done although the entries have been scarce lately, lets change that this week.

Send your pictures to me at, a.j.mutch4321@btinternet.com

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.

This week’s virtual meeting on Thursday 3rd September 2020 was to be about making any type of household goods. This meeting was to be organised by John Cheadle but due to the ongoing Covid-19 restrictions it had to be turned into a virtual meeting. The usual request for our members to take part has gone unheeded again, with only one member sending me any pictures or information, that being Nick Simpson, I have put a few pictures together for you all to see along with a very short timeline in the gallery on the making of a Natural Edged Bowl but from a source that you may find interesting.

I urge you all to take notice of our requests for you all to take part in what we are trying to do, and that’s to keep the club alive, your continued lack of interest is wearing us down and that’s not good for the club, we are actively looking at methods to get the club up and running again but we are still under lockdown as far as the government is concerned.

I will start with Nick’s entry, a mortar and pestle.

Now for a couple of items from my own picture gallery,

Now for the timeline on a Natural Edged Bowl. This is no ordinary Natural Edged Bowl or at least the part I’m using was not that usual as it comes from the crux of a tree.

I have deliberately kept this gallery short as I know you are all familiar with how to make a Natural Edged Bowl, the part I wanted to show was the fact of using the crux adds a whole new dimension to this type of bowl, it does not have to be a straight log or even half a log, look at what you have and come up with a new way of working it.

If you want to see a larger picture and to read the text, just click on the pictures in the gallery.

I received a late entry for this post from David Ross, there was some confusion with the original email David sent, however here are David’s pictures and text now, better late than never, and thanks David for re-sending the pictures.

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.