We are pleased to announce our new meeting place. Starting with our June 19^th meeting we will have our meetings at    4001 Sentry Post Ln. ,Charlotte, NC  28208 (Click Here for the Google Satellite view) See link from map quest for directions. We want to offer our sincere thanks to Jackson Park Ministries for the offer to use their woodworking shop. We now have a permanent  home. We will have a great new facility where we will have plenty of space, both parking and in the shop. We will have room for our lathe[s] and other equipment. There is on site a dust collector, woodworking equipment, and even a finishing room. This airport location will help open our club to more people due to its proximity to I-85, I-485, I-77, and Billy Graham Parkway. Come to our June meeting to check out the new ‘Digs’.

 

Our 3^rd Thursday May meeting has been changed to May 31^st at the Creative Art Exchange: Our guest turner will  be Frank Penta. The Creative Art Exchange is welcoming us to use their facility and we hope all of our Lake Norman woodturning friends can join us.  Our club meeting and demo will be open to all woodturning clubs and also be open to the public.

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We also want to thank Raymond Overman for his demo of the Tea Pot at our Thursday meeting. I hate that our time ran so tight that he didn’t have time to finish his project. He will finish the demo and post the video here on our web site. Thank you Raymond , now my wife expects me to turn one for her. If you have not been to one of our meeting lately you are missing out on some great demonstrations. Not only the demo’s but the time shared between our members and guest ‘talking shop’ Anatoly brought a turned vase and it was taller than anyone at our meeting. We had a lot of nice turnings on display, feel free to bring something with you at our next meeting.

 

Raymond Overman will be demonstrating his technique as he turns one of his award winning and whimsical teapots. Raymond is a superb demonstrator and skilled craftsman. We are blessed to have him on the slate to turn for us this month. 

Watch as Bill accepts his new platter.

 

Congratulations Christian! You have just been awarded a $500.00 grant from the AAW to pursue woodturning lessons. You may remember Christian Barry as he lost his mother in an awful accident before Christmas. He received a gift of a lathe and tools thru the compassion of our woodturning friends in the Charlotte, Concord, and Waxhaw clubs. He was recommended to the AAW for an educational grant and has just been awarded the grant. Christian, we hope that you enjoy the lessons and the AAW membership your Dad set up for you! We look forward to seeing your woodturning talent grow. This is a great example how we can promote the art of woodturning to our youth. I want to extend a special thanks to Chris Stuntz for all that he has done to help this young man, you have shown a great example of compassion and love of our woodturning art. Have fun and learn as you turn.

Sincerely,

John Benton, President, Charlotte Woodturners Club

 

Frank Penta has asked our club if we could provide three pen turners for the upcomming Craft Supplies Woodworkers show. They will supply the lathes and materials all we need are the turners. The finished pens will be sent to our troops in the armed services. If you are interested please contact John Benton at 704-241-5379.

 

WOW !!! I want to send my sincere thanks to everyone who helped and participated in this huge event. You can not judge success by sales alone. The club participation was the best that I have ever witnessed. We shared time together turning, talking and sharing the art of woodturning. We distributed mass quantities of club information and applications, and stopped traffic with the demonstrations from our club members. We have spread the word about woodturning in this region. Yes, we even made a few sales. Our woodturning friends from Concord and Waxhaw will benefit from the efforts as well as our Charlotte Woodturners. Thank you to all, you have made me proud to be a member of the Charlotte Woodturners Club, and especially honored to be President. Participation like we had makes it all worth while.

 

My Sincere Thanks,

John Benton

President Charlotte Woodturners Club

 

Our very own Raymond Overmand is now a star on TV. He was recently featured on a cable TV segment of Face 2 Face with Andrea Sebastyn. True to form - Raymond turns a natural edge bowl during the segment and does a great job of promoting not only the art of Woodturning but also The Charlotte Woodturners.

Check out the video on Google Video below

Naked Woodturner - Face 2 Face with Andrea Sebastyn featuring Raymond Overman

 

John Benton 's demonstration of a "30 minute bowl" was outstanding at our January meeting. (He actually completed the bowl in 35 minutes but who is counting!) The resulting Black walnut burl natural edge bowl was textured using a pneumatic needle gun, sanded and finished all within a half hour. We had a great attendance and all look forward to Bill Mcinnis' lidded box/Rose engine demonstration next month.

 

Thank you John for the great show!

 

 

This month's demonstrator will be John Benton demonstrating  how to speed up your turning by showing shortcuts for turning, finishing, and texturing. His goal is a 30 minute natural edge bowl that use to take him 2+ hours to turn. Our guest demonstrator for February will be no other than Bill McInnis. He will turn a lidded box and then demonstrate his Rose Engine Lathe he built [from scratch].  The March guest turner is Joe Ruminiski of Green River Woodworking. Joe specializes in the creation of bowls, hollow forms and art forms. He has produced educational videos, and is going to be a guest demonstrator at the AAW symposium in Richmond VA. this year. We are excited to have someone of his talent.

 

Most professional turners know that their homeowner's insurance policy does not cover their private business activities, inventory, teaching, equipment and property.  read more ...

It's probably a bit pretentious to call our wee collection of 10 VCR tapes, CDs, DVDs and books a library, but right now, that's all we have.

Some of us will be adding items to the collection; we would welcome anything you're finished with and would like to donate.  Just bring them along to a meeting and let me have them; I'll get them cataloged and update the list.

HOW TO BORROW FROM THE MEMBER LIBRARY:

There is no cost for members to borrow these items. All we ask is that you PLEASE return them at the next meeting so other members can benefit from them as well.

Check out our list of our properties here.  If you see something you'd like to borrow, send me an e-mail at mailto://srichie@carolina.rr.com and let me know.  I'll bring it to the next meeting.