Capital Area Woodturners

CAW Holiday Party

Mark your calendars for Saturday evening, December 11, 2004, to reserve it for the CAW pot luck Holiday Social. 

Sharing Holiday Cheer!!

Capital Area Woodturners 4th annual Woodturners Ball on Saturday evening, December 11th, in the church hall of the Messiah United Methodist Church Hall, 6125 Rolling Road, Springfield, VA  22152.  Our goal is simple:  Let's all get together during this holiday season to share some holiday cheer with the members, families, and friends of CAW; eat a hearty meal of whatever dishes walk through the door; vote for the best turned holiday ornament from the members' entries; and exchange a turned object for those participating in the grab-bag exchange.

3:30 PM - Setup - If you have some free time and want to help setup, please contact Tom Boley, 703-569-2548, to coordinate activities to help with.

5:00 PM - Social Hour - Fun, camaraderie, hors d'oeuvres, soft drinks, and inspecting the items entered in the ornament contest and the turning exchange.   

6:00 PM - Dinner - Really great food prepared by your friends, fellow woodturners, and/or their spouses.  Pot luck dinners are the best eating anywhere.  Drinks and eating utensils will be provided by the CAW.

7:00 PM - Fun & Games - Vote for your favorite ornament and grab-bag entry; dance with someone; sing some holiday carols; renew old acquaintances and make new ones; talk about turning, or just come and have some fun!!

Program for the month: 8:30am - Hands-on skill enhancement. Members sharing their experiences and helping each other with turning problems, sharpening tips, chucking advice, or just practice.
9:30 - Chapter business meeting with show notices, activity announcements, and Show & Tell. Bring in your recent turnings and share with us what you've learned!
10:00 - Just in time for all the CAW members to be able to make some ornaments for their holiday trees, C.A. Savoy will demonstrate his tips and techniques for making Christmas Tree Ornaments. He will discuss materials, hollowing, drilling, mounting, turning a long, thin ice cycle, and finishing.

Prize categories include:

• - Most Creative Design
• - Most Challenging
• - Largest single Item
• - Smallest Single item
• - Most Items Made
• - Best of Show

Program for the month: 8:30am - Hands-on skill enhancement. Members sharing their experiences and helping each other with turning problems, sharpening tips, chucking advice, or just practice.
9:30 - Chapter business meeting with show notices, activity announcements, and Show & Tell. Bring in your recent turnings and share with us what you've learned!
10:00 - British turning, Martin Pidgen returns to CAW.  Martin will demonstrate Square, Diamond, and flat sided turnings.

$5 Demo fee will be collected.

Morning Session: Martin will demo the creation of a "Diamond Bowl." A bowl shaped turning, but without a smooth circular rim. The rim will have three definite, equally spaced points on the rim. It is a challenging and interesting turning that we are sure you will enjoy seeing.

Afternoon Session: "Design a Platter" – Audience Participation. Martin will have two platter blanks available and will turn any shape or any design as directed by the audience. Beads or grooves, or texturing or sloping surfaces or shallow bowl section or steep walls or whatever! Come prepared to sell your deign concepts or test new combinations.  Martin will do what he’s told to do and then comment about what works and what doesn’t. Should be interesting.

$5 Demo fee will be collected.

Program for the month: 8:30am - Hands-on skill enhancement. Members sharing their experiences and helping each other with turning problems, sharpening tips, chucking advice, or just practice.
9:30 - Chapter business meeting with show notices, activity announcements, and Show & Tell. Bring in your recent turnings and share with us what you've learned!
10:00 Numbers of members share their shop tips and jigs.  Learn how other members have tackled tasks within their shop from the highly complex to the simple solution set. Here is an opportunity for members of all experience levels to share ideas, Jigs, fixtures, helpful hints, tips, ideas and those things you have discovered which make life in the workshop a whole bunch easier. Please come ready to share your knowledge. The positive aspect of this is everyone, no matter what your background or experience level, has something to share. Depending on how we are doing on time, we'll open the floor to a question and answer period.

Program for the month: 8:30am - ands-on skill enhancement. Members sharing their experiences and helping each other with turning problems, sharpening tips, chucking advice, or just practice.
9:30 - Chapter business meeting with show notices, activity announcements, and Show & Tell. Bring in your recent turnings and share with us what you've learned!
10:00 -  Jerry Whitehurst President, Tidewater Turners Hampton, VA

Jerry will demonstrate a safe method to turn your pieces using a Back board system and your tail stock. Beginners, as well as advanced turners will appreciate the savings when they realize they no longer have to buy those "high dollar" expanding chucks, or spend time making glue blocks.  

Program for the month: 8:30am - Hands-on skill enhancement. Members sharing their experiences and helping each other with turning problems, sharpening tips, chucking advice, or just practice.
9:30 - Chapter business meeting with show notices, activity announcements, and Show & Tell. Bring in your recent turnings and share with us what you've learned!
10:00 - Mike Hosaluk - Hollow forms, thinking out of the box

See Mike Hosaluk's work at websites:

wr.avwa.org/michaelhosaluk_1003.html

Program for the month: 8:30am - Hands-on skill enhancement. Members sharing their experiences and helping each other with turning problems, sharpening tips, chucking advice, or just practice.
9:30 - Chapter business meeting with show notices, activity announcements, and Show & Tell. Bring in your recent turnings and share with us what you've learned!
10:00 - Al Stirt - Fluting / carving / texturing. 

$5 Demo fee will be collected.

Morning Session: "The Basic Bowl" -----demonstration and discussion of form, grain orientation, balance, "Reading" the grain and making shape and grain work together to create special bowls from plain wood or to get the most out of special grain patterns.

Afternoon Session: "A painted platter": Layout, design, cutting a colored surface to reveal a pattern, texturing, with rims that carry a lot of energy, resolved by the calm center.

About the Artist:  I consider myself a "bowl maker" more than a woodturner because, although the turning process fascinates me, it is the resulting bowl that commands my interest. From the earliest times bowls have had meanings for people beyond the purely utilitarian. The bowl as vessel has a resonance deep within the human psyche.  I have always thought of each piece that I make as a composition utilizing elements of pattern, line, weight, texture and form. Even in the most simple pieces I try to find a harmony of grain & shape. I seek a balance in my work between the dynamic and the serene. By playing with the tension created by combining the circle's perfection with the energy of pattern I am trying to make pieces that have life.

I use patterns, whether created by grain structure or organic fluting & carving or repeated geometric shapes, to develop harmony in each of my pieces. I find myself always looking for a new means of expression within the turned form.

I started teaching woodturning in 1978 when Albert LeCoff invited me to demonstrate at one of the turning conferences he and Palmer Sharpless had organized at the George School in Bucks County Pennsylvania. Since then, I have given woodturning demonstrations all over the US as well as in Canada, England, Ireland, and New Zealand. I have taught hands-on classes at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Appalachian Center for Crafts, Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, Brookfield Craft Center, Marc Adams School of Woodworking, Ernie Conover Workshops and many other places. To see more of Al Stirt’s work, please visit his web site at www.alstirt.com

Program for the month: 8:30am - 4:00pm CAW Symposium A full day of many demonstrations. 

8:30 AM A Mini-symposium kick off session – an explanation of what, how, and when we will be holding symposium events. A very abbreviated business meeting. Photos of member items will NOT be taken. A formal Show & Tell will NOT be held, but a table for display of one turned item per attendee will be available. The tape library will be open at the opening, and during lunch. A silent auction table will NOT held. Supplies & tools for sale will be very limited.

CAW is pleased to announce the "Second" annual CAW April Mini-Symposium. What is a Symposium you ask? Well, look at it as a series of short demonstrations, each session lasting 90 mins., Now, in 90 minutes, you will not learn all the aspects of any particular topic. However, we hope you will walk away with information that is of value to you and will help you improve your current skills.