What a full weekend. My hats off the the Georgia Association of Woodturners for an awesome weekend.
This event is held every September in the Unicoi National Forest near Helen, GA. Helen's a neat place to visit, and the area is beautiful.
I got to meet and listen to Nick Cook. Watched him turn a natural edge bowl.
Alan Lacer, showing how to use a skew and giving sharpening tips. Alan is a hoot, very fun to talk to, very friendly, ate breakfast with him one morning and had a great visit with him. He takes his sharpening very seriously and has some great stories to tell.
Steve Hatcher gave demonstrations on mineral inlays, and Half moon turnings. Learned a lot. I've been doing my inlays wrong and attending this was very informative. Took lots of notes.
Paul Fennel does some awesome work with hollow forms, simply amazing. I only attended one of his demos and didn't stay for the whole thing. He's very hard to listen to and hear. Very monotone. One thing I did learn is when he hollows out a form, he turns his lathe backwards so he doesn't have to reach across the lathe.
Susan went and saw Johannes Michelsen turn wood hats. She said it was very neat. I had another seminar I wanted to see, so during the silent auction the held I bid and won on his DVD. I will be watching that soon as I figure out where Susan packed it.
I went to a chainsaw safety lecture, very basic but enjoyed the instructor. He also knew a lot about trees and led a nature walk that Susan went on. (I was busy in other wood turning demos)
Vendors were awesome, it was hard not to go crazy. Some decent prices on stuff. I did purchase two bowl blanks from gotwood.com. Rainbow popular.
Dinner Saturday night was fun, great food. They held an auction after dinner that was a lot of fun. The auctioneer reminded me of Jerry Clower and was hilarious. I came away with a 17" diameter Norfolk Pine log for $50. Money goes to scholarships for woodturners, of which they gave away 6 this weekend to John C Campbell. ( I didn't win one. :wsad: )
This event was well worth attending, met a lot of great people, saw a lot of awesome turnings, got lots of hints (now if I can remember them). I do plan on going back next year.
Pictures I took are located in gallery. Sorry for the the quality of some, I'm a woodworker, not a photographer. :gar-Bi'
My wife wanted me to take some of my work to place in their gallery, I didn't think I had anything good enough on hand so didn't. After seeing what they had, I'm very glad I didn't. I will next year though. They pick a couple pieces out Friday night and a couple of the guest speakers critique them. Very interesting what they have to say.
PS One thing I did learn was Camphor came from trees. They had some logs at the auction, and at the chainsaw demo. Tried to win one but didn't. One guy asked me where I thought camphor came from, I just have never thought about it. But it's all over FL and most everyone loves the way it smells when turning though I met a couple of people who said it stank. But it was a beautiful wood.
This event is held every September in the Unicoi National Forest near Helen, GA. Helen's a neat place to visit, and the area is beautiful.
I got to meet and listen to Nick Cook. Watched him turn a natural edge bowl.
Alan Lacer, showing how to use a skew and giving sharpening tips. Alan is a hoot, very fun to talk to, very friendly, ate breakfast with him one morning and had a great visit with him. He takes his sharpening very seriously and has some great stories to tell.
Steve Hatcher gave demonstrations on mineral inlays, and Half moon turnings. Learned a lot. I've been doing my inlays wrong and attending this was very informative. Took lots of notes.
Paul Fennel does some awesome work with hollow forms, simply amazing. I only attended one of his demos and didn't stay for the whole thing. He's very hard to listen to and hear. Very monotone. One thing I did learn is when he hollows out a form, he turns his lathe backwards so he doesn't have to reach across the lathe.
Susan went and saw Johannes Michelsen turn wood hats. She said it was very neat. I had another seminar I wanted to see, so during the silent auction the held I bid and won on his DVD. I will be watching that soon as I figure out where Susan packed it.
I went to a chainsaw safety lecture, very basic but enjoyed the instructor. He also knew a lot about trees and led a nature walk that Susan went on. (I was busy in other wood turning demos)
Vendors were awesome, it was hard not to go crazy. Some decent prices on stuff. I did purchase two bowl blanks from gotwood.com. Rainbow popular.
Dinner Saturday night was fun, great food. They held an auction after dinner that was a lot of fun. The auctioneer reminded me of Jerry Clower and was hilarious. I came away with a 17" diameter Norfolk Pine log for $50. Money goes to scholarships for woodturners, of which they gave away 6 this weekend to John C Campbell. ( I didn't win one. :wsad: )
This event was well worth attending, met a lot of great people, saw a lot of awesome turnings, got lots of hints (now if I can remember them). I do plan on going back next year.
Pictures I took are located in gallery. Sorry for the the quality of some, I'm a woodworker, not a photographer. :gar-Bi'
My wife wanted me to take some of my work to place in their gallery, I didn't think I had anything good enough on hand so didn't. After seeing what they had, I'm very glad I didn't. I will next year though. They pick a couple pieces out Friday night and a couple of the guest speakers critique them. Very interesting what they have to say.
PS One thing I did learn was Camphor came from trees. They had some logs at the auction, and at the chainsaw demo. Tried to win one but didn't. One guy asked me where I thought camphor came from, I just have never thought about it. But it's all over FL and most everyone loves the way it smells when turning though I met a couple of people who said it stank. But it was a beautiful wood.
