Rebecca DeGroot Demonstration Descriptions

Walking Mushrooms

Walking Bowl

Embellished Boxes

Mini Aquifier

Walking Mushrooms:

In this demonstration, Rebecca will walk you through the process of creating her signature walking mushrooms. She will begin by turning a simple mushroom cap, prepared for pyrography texture, followed by turning a body ready to be carved. Each mushroom has at least three turned legs, which are cut apart, and using spline joinery, reassembled into new forms. Once the lathe work is finished, Rebecca will show you how she carves the body to create a curved neck, use a woodburner to create texture underneath the cap, drill and countersink holes in the body for the legs. Finally, after all the individual pieces have been carved, shaped, burned, and sanded, Rebecca shows you the assembly process and presents the finished piece!

Walking Bowl:

In this demonstration, I will be going over basic design concepts and walking you through the steps to create a three-legged Walking Bowl in my own style. I will work my way through the process of basic bowl turning, plotting an oversized foot, carving that foot into individual hips, turning spindle legs, cutting the legs apart at appropriate angles, reattaching them into a new form, then assembling all of the parts into a finished piece.

Embellished Boxes:

I will be demonstrating simple box making techniques and how to take an object that might be overlooked and transform it into a piece that stops people in their tracks! Using carving and wood burning to create texture, paints and dyes to add a touch of color, and demonstrating new ways to add sculptural elements to bring the piece to life! 

Mini Aquifer:

In this demonstration, I will be showing my process to create a resin-wood hybrid blank with included root and a sprout growing from the earth while the root “drinks” from the water of the aquifer. I will be sharing how I cast clear blanks without flaws, how I turn resin without chipping and shattering, creating and carving the sprout and root forms, painting a gradient on the sprout, and assembling everything into the finished piece.

Stuart Batty Demonstration Descriptions

Stuart Batty will demonstrate the following topics:

The only 4 ways wood can be shaped on a lathe: Slice, Peel, Scrape, Abrasive

Bowl Turning Fundamentals: Using the 40/40 and bottom bowl gouge grinds

Spindle Turning Fundamentals: Chisels versus Gouges

Off Center Winged Bowl: Interment Surface Cutting

The only 4 ways wood can be shaped on a lathe: Slice, Peel, Scrape, Abrasive

Bowl Turning Fundamentals: Using the 40/40 and bottom bowl gouge grinds

The bowl gouge with its 40 degree bevel and 40 degree straight wings is capable of large volume cuts directly to finish without any torn grain. In this demonstration, I’ll be showing how to create both the 40/40 bowl gouge and the bottom bowl gouge grinds freehand on a platform. I will show how both gouges are controlled to form the desired shape with little physical effort and repeatability.

Spindle Turning Fundamentals: Chisels versus Gouges

The vast majority of woodturning is spindle turning from boxes to weed pots. This demonstration covers the fundamentals cuts that create all the shapes possible for spindle and bowl turning. Stuart will explain when gouges outperform chisels and vise-versa.

Off Center Square/Winged Bowl

In this demonstration, I’ll be showing how to minimize off balance problem while turning. This demo will include both gouge work and negative rake scraping. I will be demonstrating how to easily finish the wings of the bowl with no torn grain or damage to the edges of the piece and how to mate to the wing surface to the bowl shape, leaving a very clean sharp corner.

John Beaver Demonstration Descriptions

John Beaver will demonstrate the following topics:

Wave Bowl

Round Bottom Bowl

Flying Rid

Bangles

Evolution of Design

Wave Bowls

In this action packed demo John will show two different ways to make his signature wave vessels. For the first piece, John will take a block of wood, cut it apart, add a contrasting wood to create the wave and show you how to put it back together keeping the grain aligned. With a bandsaw, a few clamps and basic turning tools, this is a project you will be able to go home and do yourself. The second piece will be a protruding wave bowl from a rough turned bowl. For this piece John will use his custom jig to cut a turned bowl into pieces. He will then modify the elements and put it all back together. This piece has a higher skill level but there are many tricks that may help

you with some of your own designs. While the design of the wave is the feature of this presentation, there are many additional tricks you will learn. John will show you safe ways to cut a round bowl on a bandsaw with almost any angle, and put it back together keeping the walls and grain aligned perfectly. You will learn how

to bend wood in a microwave oven, which is interesting and has many fun applications. You will learn how to precisely turn a bowl smaller keeping the proportions exact. Most importantly, John hopes you will be able to use these ideas and tips to change and improve your own designs.

Round Bottom Bowls

There are quite a few tricks to getting a round bottom bowl to look and sit just right. In this demo John will take you through all the steps, show you some tricks, and share with you different ways to turn a correct round bottom bowl. This is a good demo for beginner and advanced turners.

Flying Rib Vase

The biggest challenge in cutting a turned vase into pieces is getting the cut perfectly in the centre of the vase. John will show you different ways to cut a turned vase apart accurately and safely. Getting the pieces back together can sometimes be a bigger challenge. In this demo John will show how to take a turned and finished vase, cut it apart, add protruding elements and

reassemble the whole thing so the grain and walls remain aligned. He will also show how to create and add the elements that protrude beyond the walls of the piece. There are infinite design possibilities with this project, and the techniques shown here have helped many turners solve some of their own design problems. The idea of cutting apart a turned and finished piece is somewhat unique and, hopefully these concepts will help you develop your own turning voice.

Bangles

This is a good beginner class but a lot of fun for turners of all levels. Bangles make great gifts for wives, daughters and friends, or for the women in the audience – yourself. They are also great items to add to your craft show booth. Anyone with a basic turning set can make a bangle. In this demo John will demonstrate various ways to mount and turn wood bangles. John will

show you specialized tools you can buy to make the process easier, but he will also show you how to use tools you already have to accomplish the same thing. It’s amazing how something as simple as a rubber band can make a big difference in the way you use a basic tool. There are many ways to turn bangles and you will see lots of options so you can find the technique that’s best for you. John will also cover bangle sizes and talk about different styles so you can create your own unique bangles.

Evolution of Design

This is a powerpoint demo showing the journey John has gone through to get from one design to the next. Whether expanding on one particular technique, or evolving through different techniques, this interactive discussion will get your creative juices flowing and help you come up with new designs of your own.

Nick Cook Demonstration Descriptions

Nick Cook will demonstrate the following topics:

Production Turning

Lamps

Peppermills

Production Turning for Sales

This session will focus on a wide range of quick, enjoyable and very practical things you can go home and make yourself. Nick will demonstrate everything that goes into making the production pieces that have made him a highly successful commercial turner from tool selection and sharpening to specific turning techniques. He will show you how to make bottle stoppers, baby rattles, honey dippers, tea lights, coffee scoops, Christmas tree ornaments and boxes.

Light Up Your Life with Turned Table Lamps

See how I combine spindle and faceplate techniques and include round joinery and boring procedures to design and turn a table lamp. I will show you how to assemble and add the electrical components to light it up.

Turning Pepper Mills and Salt Shakers

This session will show you how to design and create a pepper mill. We will look at stock selection and glue-up for laminated mills. We will also show you the proper sequence for drilling the blank and how to chuck the blank for turning the mill. Sanding and finishing will also be discussed.  We will also show a unique salt shaker you can make without any kits.

Tom Wirsing Demonstration Descriptions

Tom will demonstrate the following topics:

Turn a Large Platter

Tool Steels and Grinders - A Technology Update

Turn a Tulip Bowl

Turn a Large Platter 

In this demo, I will turn a large platter, and will cover the following during the demonstration:

1.     Design elements of a well-turned platter, including overall proportions, wood selection, size and shape of foot, width and shape of rim, curve of the interior, ogee curve on the underside of the platter, choices for an attractive foot, and sanding and finishing considerations. 

2.     The process steps to turn a large platter, including a handout which covers each process step, step-by-step

3.     Detailed discussion about tools, both gouges and scrapers, including demonstrations of sharpening each tool, and how the tool is presented to the wood to optimize cutting effectiveness. The demonstration will include an in depth discussion of the two-step turning process, that is, using gouges to remove 99% of the wood, but before any sanding commences, using negative rake scrapers to smooth curves, crisp up transitions, and to remove every vestige of tearout.

4.     See attached handouts including process steps to turn a platter, a description of the two-step turning process, and an AAW article on the Two-Step Turning Process.

Tool Steels and Grinders, A Technology Update

This demo is an in depth discussion of modern tool steels and grinders, a subject most woodturners do not understand well, but a subject every woodturner needs to understand well in order to get the best performance from expensive new tools and grinding wheels.  The demo includes both a PowerPoint presentation explaining the differences between conventional high speed steels and particle metal steels, and the differences in performance between conventional vitrified grinding wheels and cubic boron nitride wheels, and which wheels work best with which steels.  I will also demonstrate grinding both conventional steels and particle metal steels on both conventional and CBN wheels, and will examine the results under a 300 power microscope, displaying each grind on the big screen, and discussing the differences in results and their importance to woodturning results.  This demo always spawns lots of questions.  I allow plenty of time for questions.  Getting answers to questions is an important element in understanding modern tool steels and grinders.

Tulip Bowls

This demonstration is all about creating beautiful flowing curves and perfectly smooth surfaces on a delicate thin-walled bowl. The accompaning photo is an example of what I call a Tulip Bowl. These are small bowls with thin, delicate walls and gently flowing curves. The outside of the bowl is turned first, establishing its shape, proportions, and flowing curves, and a temporary foot with a dovetail recess is cut to allow the bowl to later be re-mounted to hollow out the interior. The exterior is then scraped with a negative-rake scraper to refine the curves and remove all vestiges of tearout. The exterior is sanded to a very fine finish before the bowl is turned over to hollow out the interior. After re-chucking the bowl with dovetail jaws, the interior is carefully hollowed out. This is a delicate operation and must be done gently to avoid blowing up the thin walls, which are turned down to a thickness of about 3 mm. The entire inside is scraped with a negative-rake scraper to refine curves and remove any tearout. The interior is then sanded to a very fine finish. The bowl is then turned back over and the temporary foot is turned away, creating a foot which is simply a continuation of the flowing curve of the exterior of the bowl. A small concave area is turned into the bottom of the bowl to form a foot of around 25 to 30 mm in diameter. The lower part of the bowl and the foot are then sanded to a fine finish. The bowl is finished with a Tung oil and urethane finish which is hand-rubbed to a fine satin sheen.