Next Meeting -July 26th, 2018

 (Following meeting - August 30th)

MEETING LOCATION AND TIME

The chapter meets on the last Thursday evening of each month from 6:30 - 9:00 PM at the Handley-Meadowbrook Lions Club, 6013 Craig Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76112.

Visitors and guests are always welcome to attend our meetings. The Handley-Meadowbrook Lions Club is about 1.5 miles south of I-30 on I-820 S. exit Craig Street (Exit 30a).

June 2018 Topic

Three Legged Bowl

Rebecca DeGroot

 

21462276 10159324775730156 268949619076643970 n21587333 10159331146335156 1050458557295376832 oRebecca DeGroot was born and raised with her three brothers in Michigan. With their woodworking father and a stay at home artist mother, her and her brothers have never been short of inspiration. Rebecca and her brothers were homeschooled from an early age, therefore given the opportunity to explore their forty acres and appreciate the nature and wildlife. Throughout her young life, she developed her love of teaching and sharing information with others. She later went on to pursue an education at Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University in Grand Rapids, MI. After six years and an assortment of interesting twists and turns, she gained two bachelor’s degrees; one in Art education and the other in Sculpture and Functional Art. Before graduation, she received an offer to teach high school art at a school in Houston, Texas. The summer after graduation, she packed her things and made her way down to Texas to start this new and exciting chapter of her life. While it has been a challenge these past four years, Rebecca has always found time in her busy teaching schedule to create her own art. She now juggles teaching art, demonstrating woodworking and woodturning, and maintaining the regular production of her own gallery work. Eventually, Rebecca would like to focus all of her time on demonstrating and creating her own work, but we will have to wait and see when that dream will be made into a reality.

At the meeting, Rebecca will be demonstrating design basic concepts and the steps to create a three-legged bowl in her own style. She will be showing her own process of basic bowl turning, plotting an oversized foot, drilling and power carving the foot into “hips”, turning the spindles for the legs, cutting the legs apart, using splines to reinforce the leg joints, then reassembling the parts into a finished piece. If there’s time left over, she can go over embellishment techniques such as applying TransTint dyes, gold leafing, pyrography, and unexpected additive carved components.

 

 

Meeting Photos March 2017

Click on Image to see rest of photos. Image info is located on next photo.

MONTHLY PRESIDENT'S NOTES

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  After another round of knee problems and too long in the recliner with feet raised and an ice pack applied just to sleep, I got back to the shop. The first thing I did was to clean the area around the lathe, clean and lubricate all moving parts on the lathe and sharpen my most used tools.  I had promised friends two plates and had the blanks centered and cut into rounds.  Mounted on a screw chuck, I quickly had the plates roughly shaped and applied the finish cut. I put on my dust mask, turned on the exhaust fan and in no time the sanding was done and the plates were ready for a final finish.  Once done, I thought to myself, “Wow, that was easy!  How come?”.
  I had everything prepared, and was quickly  ‘in the zone’.  Usually I just push the clutter to one side and work amidst the mess.  And I only stop to sharpen the tools when they start to get dull.  It was great getting back to the shop and even better to have maybe learned something in all that down time:  Be prepared!
 
  Speaking of being prepared, are you ready for SWAT?  A great woodturning symposium and only two hours away!  Can’t afford the time or expense, think about a day pass @ $120/day.  Friday’s action starts at 10:30 and ends at 5:30.  Saturday‘s rotations starts at 8:00 and ends at 5:30.  Check out the website at www.SWATurners.org for registration info.
 
  Congratulations to the winners of the SWAT scholarships:
 
Scholarship provided by SWAT
Keith Adams
Scholarships provided by WNTX
Lewis Hill, Jr.
Jim McGregor
Damian Doubrava
Don York
 
I look forward to seeing you all there.
 
Closing words:  Challenge yourself.  During my down time, I watched numerous woodturning videos on utube.  A lot of them are titled something like “turned a high dollar vase from firewood” They challenged themselves and sometimes won and more than likely sometimes lost.  I’m lucky, I have a fireplace and a garden so pieces that don’t make can be burned and the chips make good compost after a while.  I am not a production turner so what I usually start with is far from kiln dried and lathe ready.  And I have learned a lot, like which woods are likely to make it and which are not.  But I enjoy pushing the odds and try to make something out of a loser.  Sometimes it works and sometimes not.  I have a lot of small bowls that started out as large pieces of wood.  Great lessons learned and lots of bowls for Empty Bowls.  Challenge yourself, turn something different, turn something thinner, turn something bigger, turn something taller than usual.
 
Keep turning and stay safe!


Be safe!

Bill Collins

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Woodturners of North Texas is to advance the creative pursuit of woodturning through educational programs, practical demonstrations and community service projects. Personal achievement is encouraged through mentoring, design challenges and member participation.