January 26th
"Sharpening"

Lyle Solem and Duff Bement Present Sharpening
--with participation from the audience

Grinding, sometimes a mystery to new turners, is an essential skill that must be mastered in order to turn with confidence and satisfaction. Lyle covered grinders, types of grinding wheels, grinding jigs, grinding angles, types of grinds, and setup aids for repeating that single-faucet fingernail or Ellsworth grind.

Duff, using a home made grinder-honer with a set of composition wheels obtained from Grizzly, showed us that power homing is a much quicker way to keep tools super sharp than hand honing -- making it more likely that you will fine-tune your tools while you turn.

John Thorson demonstrated using a diamond card hone to hone a gouge. He also showed how he prepares a scraper with the diamond card hone, followed by a burnishing tool, to create a burr that enables him to scrape off ribbons of shavings rather than dust.

A discussion on how to tell if an edge is sharp concluded the presentation.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the January 26th meeting.

February 23rd
"Inside-out Turning"

Merle Peterson Presents

Inside-out turning is a process where a wood blank is turned twice. The blank is assembled, usually from 4 strips of equal square cross section. The strips are glued together using a paper separator between strips so that it can be taken apart easily. The blank is then carefully centered in the lathe at the junction of the 4 strips, marked with a design, turned, sanded, and finished. The blank is then removed form the lathe. The strips are separated at the paper joints and rotated so that the turned faces now face the inside of the blank. The strips are then glued together permanently, mounted on the lathe, turned, sanded, and finished.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the February 23rd meeting.

March 24th and 25th
"ZVW Woodturners Demonstrate at the 2012 36th Annual Rochester Woodcarvers Show

ZVW participation and attendee turnout were excellent. Perhaps the most asked about turning was a large, multi wood, oversized bowling ball. Tops were produce for kids of all ages, and bowl creation was demonstrated for the first time this year. Another feature was our skew addict who used a good-sized skew to create mini-tops.

The Woodcarvers Show is largely supported by items donated by displayers. These items are raffled off at the conclusion of the show. Click here to see the items donated by ZVW.

March 29th
"Goblets"

Tim Sullivan Presents

The lathe was a bit light for a full-sized goblet, but Tim managed nicely. Goblets are turned starting with the goblet top at the tailstock end and working incrementally toward the headstock. This is especially important as you turn the stem. Once you get to the final diameter of a section of the stem, work your way down the next increment of stem, never touching your tool to an upper finished part, to avoid a catch.
Click here for a writeup on Tim's method.
In addition to using familiar hollowing tools: gouges and scrapers, Tim showed us some hollowing tools that many of us were less familiar with: the hook tool and the termite tool.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the March 29th meeting.

April 26th
"Pens"

Todd VanDeWalker and Bill Beckman Present

Todd VanDeWalker kicked off the demonstration describing the tools and basic technique of pen making. He then turned the presentation over to Bill Beckman for some fine points. Then back to Todd, who turned a pen barrel and assembled a pen.

Bill Beckman discussed several of the variations of pens. Bill has made several modifications to the standard pen kits, primarily to see if he could make something unique from an everyday item. On one of the models, 11 out of 13 pen parts had to be modified. Bill has built pin chucks for the various size brass tubes and continues to experiment.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the April 26th meeting.

ZVW Turns Hi-Tech with State of the Art Presentation Equipment

With a digital camera and a 50" flat panel, all meeting attendees can now really see what is being shown during Show and Tell.

Before, all observers could see chips fly, but only a few could see some of the turning details. Now, all can see not only what is going on at the lathe, but even the angle at which the tool is being applied.

May 31st
"Hunter Carbide Woodturning Tools"

Mike Hunter Presents

Mike Hunter, of Hunter Tool Systems, Minneapolis, MN, demonstrated his line of carbide cutter woodturning tools. To get a better hollowing tool that is super sharp and stays sharp, Mike designed a carbide cutter and hollowing tools that use the cutter. After extensive testing, he put the tools on the market, and they met with almost instant success. He broadened his hollowing line and then developed tools that work well for bowl turning and other applications. He also designed retrofit tools for popular hollowing systems.

Mike showed us some tools under development that may appear on the market some day. He also shared some of his ideas and jigs for measuring wall thickness of hollow forms.
The club had set up 4 lathes chucked with blanks so that club members could try out Mike's tools. Mike answered questions and gave suggestions on how to get the most out of each tool.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the May 31st meeting.

June 28th
"Making a Bowl from a Board"

Lyle Solem Presents

Take a flat board about an inch thick and make it rise into a 4-inch tall bowl? Magic? That is just what Lyle Solem did to celebrate his 53rd wedding anniversary with us. He did bring his wife and research assistant, Donna, with him. Lyle discussed the geometry of concentric rings cut with a parting tool held at an angle, commonly 45 degrees. The shape and wall thickness of the resulting bowl is a function of the board thickness, the width of the rings, and the angle at which the parting tool is held. Lyle then proceeded to turn a bowl's worth of rings from a single flat board.

The rings are sanded flat to get rid of any overlapping tear-out, stacked, and marked for gluing. Yellow glue is applied. The blank is then clamped to dry overnight.

The blank is then turned using normal bowl-turning procedures.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the June 28th meeting.

July 26th
"Understanding and Getting the Most From Your Piece of Wood"

Duff Bement and Mel Turcanik Present

You've got a piece of wood, or your neighbor offers you his fallen tree, or you have a wooded acreage and a chain saw. How do you view and handle the wood to get the most out of it? This was the club's first graphic presentation using the new video equipment, and it worked quite well in answering that question.

A short lecture on safe chain saw practice preceded the main discussion, which focused on how to cut the wood to get the desired grain effects and natural edges, and what to anticipate on warping and cracking relative to moisture content, grain orientation, and species. This complex subject elicited much audience participation and in some cases, interesting differences of opinion from the presenters.

According to Mel, the result will be much more satisfying if you know in advance which one of the following two approaches you are taking:

1. You know what you want to end up with, so you find a piece of wood that will work.
2. You let the wood tell you how it will end up.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the July 26th meeting.

August 30th
"Basic Bowl Turning"

John Thorson Presents

John has turned hundreds of bowls. He distilled his knowledge into a multi-media presentation for us. It started with an on-lathe bowl turning demonstration followed by a storyboard presentation, and finished with a dissertation on tools and techniques. The last two are available as .pdf files in our repository.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the August 30th meeting.

Major Event
"Unveiling of ZVW's First Lathe on August 30th"

With club growth, a central meeting place provided by New Haven Township, the support of our parent organization, the AAW, and a forward looking board of directors eager to educate the public on woodturning, ZVW has purchased presentation equipment and, most recently, a ONEWAY 1224 lathe. The lathe belonged to Dennis Holt, a club member who recently downsized his living arrangements, so he offered the lathe to the club at a price we couldn't refuse. Board member Gar Pronk built a cabinet to house all of our equipment and library books and videos. Other members also contributed to the equipment project. The pictures below show Dennis and Gar unveiling the equipment, and camera man Joy Gyura and demonstrator John Thorson using the equipment.

September 27th
"Annual Picnic and Golden Corn Trophy Challenge"

Our indoor picnic not only filled us with the club-purchased main dish and the many pot-luck dishes brought by members, but was also full of many activities. The main event was the annual challenge for ZVW agronomist Bill Beckman's Golden Corn Trophy.

This year the winner was John Thorson. For a close-up of the much coveted trophy and its winners, see ZVW Challenge Champions.
For a close look at the 2012 challenge entries, Click here.

Other activities included a cherry wood auction, and a white elephant raffle of donated tools members decided they could live without. Proceeds for these events went to the starving club coffers which had recently been emptied to purchased presentation equipment.

And ZVW's youngest woodturner showed us her first bowl.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the September 27th meeting.

October 25th
"Gallery Critique Video from Turn-On! Chicago 2012"

In August, ZVW members Joe Gyura and Lyle Solem attended the "Turn-On! Chicago" symposium presented by the Chicago Woodturners. They brought back a video of a critique of selected instant gallery pieces, and Joe, our video equipment operator, hooked up his PC, showed the video, and then invited discussion from our members.

Woodturning professionals Stuart Batty, left, and Bob Rosand did the critiquing together, commenting on form, finish, weight, and function. Sometimes they agreed on a property of a piece, and sometimes they had different opinions. This approach was entertaining and educational not only for experienced woodturners, but also for inspiring artists.

At October meetings, ZVW members contribute ornaments for the Rochester Woodcarvers' Festival of Trees entry, an annual November event. The Woodcarvers' tree has usually, if not always, been the star tree of the event. The Festival of Trees is a charitable event for Rochester's Hiawatha Homes. Hiawatha Homes provides residential, in-home, and community-based choices for people with disabilities.

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the October 25th meeting.

Click here for items donated for the Rochester Woodcarvers' Festival of Trees entry.

November 29th
"Hollow Forms"

Chuck Grimm Presents

Starting with a short length of log, Chuck shapes the outside of the vessel. Then, using a Forstner bit of approximately the diameter of the vessel's opening, drills out the pith to the depth of the inside of the bottom.
Chuck talked about the different steps in hollowing as he demonstrated with the tools of his choice, accomplishing most of the hollowing with the tool in the picture below:

As the hollowing progresses, Chuck measures wall thickness with his home made wooden calipers.

After the hollowing is completed, the leaves are penciled on the collar of the vessel, cut out with a coping saw, and carved to shape with carving tools. The result is a vessel of the type shown below:

Click here for Show and Tell Items from the November 29th meeting.