We delayed the meeting for a week due to another flood. Some of us were demonstrating at the Moreton Show which got cancelled too. Where is that Indian Summer?

Shelter is Looking good. The new Mill owners want us to move to the other side of the pond. This gives us a chance to rebuild it how we want it and bigger too. The new site doesn't flood either which is a bonus.


Frank has built a fantastic Bowl Turning Lathe from railway sleepers.


Mark makes a blank for the bowl lathe


Mike spoon carving


Rupert effortlessly knocks out another fantastic bowl


And a chair seat too


We stopped for a civilised lunch in the sunshine with Lornas Soup, Mikes Bread and Martins Cake.

Many hands make light work.


Thanks to Martin for taking down the old fruit tree.


Half done but most stuff is in the dry.

Hopefully we will finish off the roof next month and get the woodburner setup. Spring meetings should be much more homely.

I managed to drive onto the field at half nine. But by eleven it was a torrential downpour and the ground was a bog. Hail, thunder, lightening, could it get worse?
Well yes because I'd forgotten the Kettle. And the tarpaulin we had so carefully put up in June leaked like a sieve.
Despite this we had fourteen people turn up, and a few of people had a go on a lathe for the first time.
And just as we were thinking of packing up someone turned up with a kettle. Well done to those who managed to get the fire going when it was so wet.
And then Geoff turned up bringing the sun with him.

We planned the following meetings over the winter.

November - Reroofing the shelter
December - Bobbin Bow making at Geoffs workshop
January - Steam bending at Jims
February - High Wycombe chair museum
March - Coppicing in Tom's wood


It really was this dark when the storm came over.


A hive of activity.

We’ve had a good summer with 3 meetings and 2 shows. Just one week after starting we demonstrated at the local Rural show, held in the grounds where we meet.

At one meeting we had a blacksmith turn up, who made a bowl turning tool for us. There are a couple of other blacksmiths who have just finished restoring the Forge next to the Mill. They will be running a business and we’ve talked to them about making tools for us.

Plans to restore the old lathes were put on hold when we arrived to find local kids had used most of our poles, wood and even part of the shelter, to make a bridge over the river. Although a bit annoyed, we had to concede that it was a brilliantly made bridge with handrails and some good knot work too (with the rope from our lathes).
We now keep some of the kit locked up at the Mill and haven’t had any more problems since. Someone will be living onsite from November and hopefully that will discourage any more vandalism.

We have had between 5 and 10 people at meetings and have had a couple of contacts come through the bodgers website.
We are continuing to meet on the first Sunday of the month. After the next meeting on the 1st of October we will be adjourning to the local pub to make plans for the winter and new year.

We had our first meeting on Sunday 4th June at Wellesbourne Watermill.
Some years ago someone built 3 lathes and a shave horse under a tarp as a sort of bodgers exhibition. There is a small A4 sing about the Chiltern Bodgers but years down the line it was all looking a bit sad.

But 5 of us spent the day putting a new tarp on the roof and renovating the lathes. (And weeding the area of nettles!)

Interestingly, there were 2 lathes with bowls left on, one of which was a partially completed nest of bowls.
These were well made lathes and operated by someone who knew what they were doing.
Jim Steele remembered an old chap who used to do talks and courses and it felt really good to be continuing someone else’s work.
Another year and the whole thing would have been scrap. It was nice to be rescuing it.
Another interesting point is that none of the poppets had cranks!
But they had all done some serious turning in the past.
I've never seen another lathe without a crank yet here were three of them.
I wondered if this could have been more common than I imagine in the past.
After the initial grunt we tried to get one lathe working. Needing some timber, we had a scavenge and the renovation of a building by the mill gave us a pile of timber to pick through. I'm not sure how safe the process was (walking over a pile of mostly rotten timber covered in nails) but we got enough wood to fix the shave horse and the lathe.


The icing on the cake was turning some Ash on the lathe for only five minutes at the end of the day but it was a nice finish.
There are 3 more meetings planned over the summer.
Please contact me for more details.

Matt Jarvis