Bill Oakes has kindly agreed to host our next APT North meeting at his home in South Moor, near Stanley. If you are interested in coming email me for furher details (see "contact me" on the sidebar) The theme for the day is making beetles, gluts, mauls, clubs, wooden hammers etc,including drilling and putting threads on to the ends of handles. Bring your drill and bits! Bill is having several tons of oak delivered so there should be some good material for people to go away with some really useful greenwoodworking equipment. Bill has an interesting collection of militiary vehicles that are well worth a look. As a final incentive, Bill will also have soup and bread available for lunch. If you're planning on coming do let me know so we can plan for numbers. Hope to see you there!
Future APT North Meetings
To keep things simple for the future we've agreed to meet on the fisrt Sunday of the month from now on, skipping the first Sunday in January and the first Sunday in May because of public holidays. So, you can now diarise APT North for the whole of 2008 with the following Sundays at 10am; 3 February; 2 March; 6 April; 1 June; 6 July; 3 August; 7 September; 5 October; 2 November; 7 December.
We'll try to move around to a variety of locations. Hopefully we'll get an invite back to Penton Woods (hint, hint James) and Harehope Quarry (ditto, Ray). Other suggestions included Rising Sun Country Park in North Tyneside and a privately owned woodland in Co Durham.
We also agreed that each meeting would have a host for the day, so that the burden didn't fall too heavily on Maurice at the Flint Mill. Many thanks Bill for taking on this task for December. If you'd like to bagsy a month as APT North host do let me know!
APT North Meeting Themes
Following the success of our bowl-turning themed day (more below) we like the idea of continuing with themed meetings. Suggestions have included; making benches; bowl carving; spoon carving (gets my vote!) ; general pole lathing; stick chairs and rustic furniture; tool maintenance; repairing wooden objects; waxes, oils and finishes; leather working (sheaths) etc; riving and cleaving brakes; devices and bowl carving stands. Any more suggestions would be warmly welcomed.
APT North Bowl Turning Meeting Sunday 21 October 2007
After an early morning frost the sun shone at the Flint Mill and the fire sprang to life on a day focussed on bowl turning. It was good to welcome new participants Peter Fairer (ask to see his unfeasibly large side axe!), Ken Woodrow, Brian Pollard (who works closely with Maurice on a range of projects) and Andrew Parkes (our green cycling champion!). Good to see you all. Maurice kindly supplied some cherry and a pair of calipers to mark out some bowl blanks and pretty soon there was the wonderful sound of hewing to rough out the blanks. A revelation to me was to do two bowls at a time, so at least two ends of each blank could be rounded with something to grip on to before sawing in half. Andrew launched into mandrel construction, and I tried a no nails approach to mandrels.
Pretty soon all the lathes in Maurice's workshop were in action with G clamps holding extended tool rests in place. Our bowls were modest in diameter but it was good to see so many begin to emerge from the blanks. Maurice was testing a new grind Ashley Iles gouge without corners to catch (a power turner tells me it should be called a long grind bowl gouge). Several folk turned the whole bowl just with the bowl gouge. I brought along some Gavin Phillips hook gouges (see below) to play with. It was an excellent learning experience with a real sense of people pooling their skills and we made at least half a dozen bowls and a couple of mandrels between us to take away. Mine is drying nicely. However, to see a real expert in action go to http://www.robin-wood.co.uk/turnframe.htm for a videoclip of Robin Wood turing a nest of bowls. Watch him easily undercut the core and weep!
Tool Sharpening Course Special Offer 17 November 2007
Maurice Pyle has a one day Tool Sharpening course at the Harehope Quarry Centre near Frosterley in Werdale on the 17th November from 9.30 to 3.30pm. He has some spare places and will offer them at less than half price to members of the APT North Group. The Advertised cost is £65, special offer £30. It’s a full day course covering sharpening of all of the common green woodworking tools using powered and manual means of sharpening. As most people will know Harehope is a fantastic venue, we will be based in the eco-classroom (that’s where the wood fired stove is!!). For more details or to book contact Maurice on 0191 252 4064 or maurice@mpwoodsmith.co.uk
Hail Bodgers from South West Scotland
I'm pleased to add Rolf Bewert, John Colbeck and Gavin Phillips to our mailing list. All stay in Dumfries and Galloway and are members of the Galloway woodturners, a broad church of power and pole lathers. Rolf, John and Gavin in their own words are splinter group (ouch!) seeking to convert their fellow turners to the quiet, rythmic swoosh of the pole lathe in a 240 volt AC free environment. They hope to set up a SW Scotland bodgers group and I'm sure friends in the North of England would be keen to help them get going. I was invited across to a picnic in Mabie Forest just south of Dumfries last Sunday and had a great time. It took me about two hours to get across there. I do hope that we'll see you at least one or two of our meetings- perhaps even a joint meeting somehere near the border! As I mentioned above, Gavin is a keen bowl turner and makes bowl turning hooks. For more details go to www.bowlsandtools.co.uk.
The Legal bit
APT North is a local group of the Association of Pole Lathe Turners (www.bodgers.org.uk). UNtil other groups spring up we cover the North East of England, Cumbria and North Yorkshire. You don't have to be a member of APT to join our meetings, but for a few quid a year we'd encourage you to do so. Our meetings are a gathering of like minded folk sharing our collective experience and skills. There is no formal tuition. People are urged to bring their own tools to meetings and dress warmly with chunky footwear.
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