Dear WNT Members

I hope that the luck o’ the Irish has fallen on all of our members this month.  Luck in the sense that you’ve had lots of quality time at the lathe, lucky that you’ve haven’t had a “shop incident” this month, luck on scoring some primo wood, lucky that you belong to the best Woodturners club in all of the southwest U.S.!

 With this month’s club meeting, we are lucky to have join us, Tom Farrell.  Tom is a metal spinner and will be showing us the fine points of his craft.  We are looking forward to very interesting and unique demonstration.  I know that most of us have never seen this process, first-hand. In a nutshell, Tom will be showing us metal spinning is that performed on a standard wood lathe utilizing a few additional tools and wooden forms.   

Wikipedia states that metal spinning is a “process by which a disc or tube of metal is rotated at high speed and formed into an axially symmetric part.”

 “Metal spinning ranges from an artisan's specialty to the most advantageous way to form round metal parts for commercial applications. Artisans use the process to produce architectural detail, specialty lighting, decorative household goods and urns.”

 “Virtually any ductile metal may be formed, from aluminum or stainless steel, to high-strength, high-temperature alloys.”

 You won’t want to miss this one, so get there early!

 The nest thing I’d like to talk about is some minor process changes that the club is initiating…let’s talk about our “Bring-Back” Raffle.  We all enjoy our raffle every month, but something has gone slightly awry over the last number of months and that is the lack of turnings that are being “brought back.”  One of the primary purposes of our club is to promote the craft/artistry of woodturning and the “Bring-Back” Raffle is to promote woodturning…yes, it’s a scheming way to get all of our members onto the lathe.  If you win and then select a turned item, you are requested to turn an item yourself and bring it back for the next meeting’s raffle. No excuses. If your partner says, “you gotta go to you brother-in-law’s wedding instead.”  You reply, “No, damn it, the Woodturners of North Texas come first!” During that next week while you are sleeping in your shop, you should have plenty of time to turn a high quality item for the raffle.  See, it all works out…and it work out for the club, too.  Hopefully, we will sell more raffle tickets each month because members, just like you, are really more interested in winning a finely crafted turning rather than a gift certificate and we all become more proficient in our woodturning skillsets because we are going to turn more and we will begin to try to one-up each other every month!. But just in case you do want to select a non-turned item; that’s OK, too (some of you may really have to go to the dumb brother-in-law’s wedding).  But you are still requested to “bring back” something for the next raffle, whether it be a unique piece of turning stock, a special tool, or even a turned item. 

So, to “prime the pot” as they say, your Executive Board of Directors have been purposed to each turn an item for next meeting’s Bring-Back Raffle.  Those you that were lucky enough to win last month are not relieved of your responsibility though. If won a turned item, please support the cause and turn and return a turned item to the raffle.  Wow, that a lot of “turns” in that sentence…maybe we ought to rename it the “re-Turn Raffle” (pun intended)? And if you selected a non-turned item, please respect the intent and bring either a replacement prize for the next raffle or, please, get out there and turn something! 

One of the higher priorities for our club this year is to improve our processes related to the audio/visual aspect of our meetings. At the next club meeting, I will be handing out little polls on what you like and dislike most about our systems and set-ups. Options might be the fine sound system that we have or the high def TV monitors that we use or the production-quality DVDs that we produce for our library.  We would like to get your input on where to begin in upgrading some of our systems.  These upgrades will not happen overnight but will need to be phased-in over a period of time.  So when you show up on March 26^th, be prepared to provide you input.

Spaces for Alan Lacer’s classes are filling up fast!  If there are any left open by the next club meeting, you are welcome to enroll and pay the nominal tuition.  Otherwise, we will offer the opportunity to other woodturning club members in the area (Dallas, Golden Triangle, etc).  If you have yet to pay your tuition for your selected class, please do so at the next meeting. 

Next-to-final reminder here; a Mentor Day is scheduled for Saturday, March 28.  Final signup sheets will be available at the March meeting so make sure that you get there early and sign up for a session that you are interested in because openings are limited. We hold these Mentor Days for our club members to get some hands-on experience in areas of interest to them.  There is no charge to participate; there is no need to be shy about signing up.  We do this so that we all can learn from each other.   

Well, enough rambling for this month.  There are still lots of things that our club is looking at and reviewing to make our club and its experience even better, so stay tuned. 

We’ll see you at the next club meeting on the 26^th. 

Good shavings to all, 

D