IN THE ROUND

March 2016

Port Elizabeth Woodturners Guild

From the Editor

Welcome to our new-look monthly newsletter. The only way I could fill the big
shoes that Lex vacated, was to change the layout and to make it my own. I
would like to thank Lex for all his hard work and many hours spent preparing
all the previous newsletters - I truly have a lot to learn and will be knocking on
his door for advice! Heres hoping the kettle is on, Lex!

Life Lessons:
If you don't have a stack of failures
in your shop, you aren't trying hard

enough. -Richard Raffin.

To all members, please contact me for any submission ideas, photos or constructive criticism.

"Life is too short to turn crappy

Year End competion 2015

wood" -

The low number of entries for our final competition for 2015 (hand-in was 22
January 2016) indicated that we all had a fantastic Christmas holiday and that
there wasn't much time for turning! With the new format of having our final
year-end competition in the actual year, we are certainly going to have a lot
more entries this year. We dont need any more inspiration than looking at
our advanced turners entries for 2015.

Anonymous
"The inside diameter should never
exceed the outside diameter" -

Anonymous
(but I think it was Nico! - Ed)

Congratulations to the following members for receiving Gold awards:

Roly Pattle: Segmented Vase (Par Marfim)
Nico Swart: Necklace (Ivory & Silver)

In This Issue

Roly Pattle - Segmented Vase

AGM page 2

Awards ceremony page 2-3

Next meeting page 4

Competition Results page 5

Chairmans Scribbles page 6

AGM Precis page 7

Judging Criteria page 8-9

AGM
Our charirman Brian Jolly and his trusty secretary David Michie

Our AGM was held on 18 February at the Strand Hardware premises.

The main subject of discussion was the advancement criteria from Novice to Intermediate. It was decided that it will
change from only having to obtain 3 Gold awards (in any category) to 6 Gold awards: 2 for Faceplate turning; 2 for Spindle turning and 2 for Open category. There will be no time-limit to obtain the golds as each gold will be banked at the
end of each year. This will hopefully inspire us all to turn more variety of objects and also to not get despondent if a competion deadline is missed.
A precis, very meticulously compiled by David Michie, is attached to the back of the newsletter.

Prize giving

Participation League Trophy (shared)

Nico Swart
David Michie

The much anticipated Prize Giving of

2015 commenced after the AGM.

Participation Certificates

Participation league:
1. Nico Swart & David Michie
2. Jim Green
3. Peter Barnard & Elize Strydom

Nico Swart
Nico, the man, the legend, lead
from the front and showed once
again that turning remains his lifes
passion. His competition pieces
continue to inspire and motivate
us. Well done Nico and please
keep pushing all of us to try and
create master pieces!!

Trophies awarded to Nico:

Turner of the Year
Spindle - Advanced
Hollow Form
Sculptural
Miniatures
Participation League

David Michie

Turner of the Year: Nico Swart

Face Plate - Novice (shared)

Elize Strydom

Segmented/Laminated & Miscellaneous

Roly Pattle

Face Plate - Intermediate

Mike Kritzinger

Chairmans Award
David Michie

No trophies were awarded in the following categories:

SPINDLE NOVICE; SPINDLE INTERMEDIATE; PENS
So now we all know what we need to work on and submit for quarterly competitions, heres hoping!

New Members

Library.

PEWG heartily welcomes

the new members.

Hennie Odendaal has a

complete list of all library
materials available for loan.
This includes DVD's,
books, and magazines.
See him at Thursdays
meeting in the library for
more information.

PEWG congratulates you

on your decision to become
a member. In order to gain
maximum benefit from your
membership we invite you
to attend our monthly meetings and become involved
in club projects and competitions.

This is a great source of inspiration and to improve

skill.

Next meeting: 17 March 2016

Chairmans Challenge
The Chairmans Challenge for the March meeting is turning
miniatures. The challenge is to turn a 1 in 12 reduction of the
real item. The maximum the piece may be is 7cm4cm4cm.

The chairmans challenge has now been introduced as a regular

feature in 2016 for the months in between competition months.

Upcoming talks:

2016
Committee Details
Chairman:
Brian Jolly;
brian@iafrica.com
Vice Chairman:
Rotational position
Secretary:
David Michie;
dm.michie@gmail.com
Treasurer:
Heinrich Blumenthal;
heinrichb@telkomsa.net
Member:
Hennie Odendaal;
Hennie.od@gmail.com
Member:
Mark Payne;
markpayne33@gmail.com

EDITOR
Elize Strydom

March: Painting - Hennie Odendaal

April:
Carving - Alethea Botha
May:
Chainsaw use - Waldo
June:
Staining, Wire brushing - Nico Swart
July:
Holes in Bowls - Ian Visser
August: Pewter Work - TBA
September: Texturing - John Miller
October: Artec - Hennie Odendaal Exhibition

elize@cabinetconcepts.co.za
083 327 2927

Competition 1 Criteria:

Competition 1: RESULTS

Advanced: Open
Intermediate & Novice:
Embellished Turnings

Embellishments 18/02/2016

Upcoming Quarterly
Competitions:
April:
Advanced: Open
Intermediate & Novice:
Painting
June:
Advanced: Open
Intermediate & Novice:
Everwood Comp.
August:
Advanced: Open
Intermediate & Novice:
Solid Bowl Stain / Wire
Brush

Reg.
No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

Member
Pretorius Phil
Pretorius Phil
Pretorius Phil
Michie David
Michie David
Michie David
Conradie Lex
Conradie Lex
Swart Nico
Swart Nico
Swart Nico
Swart Nico
Swart Nico
Green Jim
Barnard Peter

Skill
N
N
N
I
I
I
I
I
A
A
A
A
A
I
I

Item
Bowl
Walking Stick
Bowl
I/O Candlestick
Lidded box + finial
Lidded box
Jewellery
Pyro. Bowl
Bowl
Hollow Vase
Frying Pan
Bowl
Frying Pan
Pepper Mill
Money Box

Wood
Yellowwood
Kiaat
Unknown
Kiaat
Silky Oak & Imbuia
Unknown
Seringa
Essenhout
Sleeperwood
Seringa
White Milkwood
Stained Silky Oak
Imbuia
Stinkwood
Blue Gum

The Guild wishes to thank Roly Pattle & Ian Visser for adjudicating
To enter the Quarterly competitions,
only one item that meets the criteria
has to be submitted. This is your
entry into the competition. 4 more
pieces of any nature can then be
submitted as well.

Congratulations to Phil & Nico on their Gold awards. Phil, Intermediate is in your sights now! Well done! Unfortunately there is no
further advancement from Advance for Nico, otherwise he would
have been there long ago!

Award
Bronze
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Bronze
Bronze
Bronze
Silver
Silver
Silver
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Bronze

CHAIRMANS SCRIBBLES

Member Subscriptions

Our quarterly competitions give members an

opportunity to be creative around the theme. It is
our way of encouraging members to participate
and improve their skills. I would like to encourage all members to not only participate but to
aim for turning of high quality. Give it your best and lets
give the judges lots of work to do!

Please inform Heinrich

Blumenthal of payments
via Email:
heinrichb@telkomsa.net

Our raffle table is a fun exercise giving members a chance

to win some wood turning related item which will be useful.
What we really need is a constant source of timber suitable
for the table. I would appeal to members to look out
for sources of wood so that we can fill the table. Let me
know urgently! Also if you have any other tool or jig to contribute that will be most welcome. If each member were to
contribute 2 items per year that would give us 70 items per
year which would be very helpful! Rob Buchanan is going
to be involved in selling the tickets and thanks to him
Our thanks to Elize for the splendid job she is doing to produce our newsletter. The newsletter is the thread that holds
us all together and it is an important aspect of the guild.
Well done!
Keep turning!

Brian

Standard member:
R 280.00
Country member (outside
of the old Port Elizabeth
municipal borders):
R 140.00
Banking Details:
Name: PEWG
Bank: Standard
051001
Branch Code: 050017
Account No:
083 604 553
Acc Type: Savings
Ref: Surname & Initial

Celebrating birthdays this month:

Jimmy Stevenson - 20th
John Harrington - 22nd
Colin Merry - 22nd
(John & Colin: brothers from another mother.. :)
Hope you will have extra inspiration during your
birthday month! Happy turning!

AGM PRECIS
Finances
The clubs finances are in a good state with a satisfactory bank/cash balance. It was agreed that the subscription for 2016
be rounded off to R280. It was further resolved to make the country member fees 50% of the normal fees, with country
members being anyone living outside the boundaries of the former Port Elizabeth Municipality.
Office Bearers:
The present committee, except for Roly Pattle and Lex Conradie, who are not standing for the coming year, were reelected en masse. There were no other nominations.
Chairman: Brian Jolly.
Treasurer: Heinrich Blumenthal
Secretary: David Michie
Additional Members: Hennie Odendal and Mark Payne.
Although neither wish to be on the committee, Elize Strydom has taken over the editing of monthly newsletter and Ian
Visser will be taking over responsibility for the judging.
Support for candidates wanting tuition
Nico Swarts proposal that the Guild support students from technical schools who want to find out about woodturning was
accepted by the meeting. This would be an introductory course, of possibly 3 weekly lessons, with the students paying a
part of the cost to show that they were serious about the course.
Raffle Table
It was proposed that the raffle table concentrate on wood only, as many members would like to obtain different woods.
Intermediate skills level criteria

It was generally accepted that the current requirement for a Novice to progress to Intermediate by obtaining 3 Golds in a
one year period is too easy, especially as all the awards can be in one discipline. It was agreed that to progress, the Novice must obtain six Golds in the following categories:
Faceplate

2 gold awards

Spindle 2 gold awards

Open category (e.g. sculptural or segmented) 2 gold awards
Programme and competitions for 2016
The committee has made minor changes to the previously-circulated programme so the competitions will in February,
April, June and August. The year-end competition will be in October and certificates/trophies will be awarded at the annual
dinner in November.
It was also agreed that both the Everwood Trophy and the Participation League be restricted to Novice and Intermediate
turners and that the Participation trophy be awarded on the basis of the turners best three quarterly competitions.

Judging Criteria
A lot of us are in the dark or confused as to what it is that Judges look for when looking at competition entries.
Ian Visser has very kindly set out for us what the important criterias are:
The judging of a piece is divided into five categories - Design, Workmanship, Difficulty, Finish and Aesthetics. When judging an entry, all of the judging categories are considered. Judges are not just judging the turning portion of the entry, but
the complete article.
1.Design
In today's turning world, it is very hard to find an entry that is not copied from somewhere; it is the amount of copying that
is important. Sometimes it is a balancing act when a piece is being judged. In the case where an entry is copied from a
photo or drawing of somebody elses turned item, and all facets are copied exactly, then points have to be deducted, but
the choice of a piece of timber may have distinctive features that enhance the piece, putting some design onus onto the
turner, and should be rewarded.
The design may be simple, built around the timber to bring out the natural contrast of colours, where other designs may
lose the natural colour contrasts. Some designs may be way out, and it is impossible to see what was turned because of
the amount of enhancement. Points will probably not be deducted for enhancement in design, and the judges look for the
sections that go into a good design as follows:
Originality - Did the turner design the article or did he modify someone else's design?
Balance - The sections are balanced, the base is not too big or too small, and a circle is a circle.
Proportion - Take into account the Golden Rectangle and Serpentine Curves.
Detail Placement - Detail should be used to separate sections and not be used just for decoration.
Bottom - The bottom should be designed as to eliminate all signs of chucking.
Thick Section- Does the thickness of the walls suit the design?
Material Selection - Does the material suit and enhance the article?
Flow Between Sections - The outline of the article flows without sharp changes.
Enhancement - Does the enhancement add to the design and bring our a certain feature, or is the enhancement the dominant feature and detracting from the article?
2.Workmanship
Workmanship is where the turner takes the design to the wood and brings it to life. The skill of the turner will transfer the
design to the piece of wood, and based on the skill and experience of the turner the article will turn out to be exactly as
designed. What the judges are looking for is the ability of the turner to use his tools as follows:
Smooth Profile - If you run your hand over the profile do you feel any bumps, dips, grooves, does one section flow onto
the next?
Precise Details - Is the detail sharp and not sanded away?
Filling of Defects - Is the filling suitable and does not stand out?
Identical Entries When pairs are entered, each piece must be identical to the other piece in all respects.
Grain Alignment - If the grain is a feature then it must be in line i.e. lids on boxes etc.
Enhancement - Is the enhancement done neatly and precise?

Judging Criteriacontinue
3.Difficulty
Difficulty is the skill required to turn the article, and amongst others, covering points such as chucking, size, small orifice,
and assembly.
Wood - How hard is it to turn this wood? Soft wood is a lot easier to turn than hard wood.
Chucking - What skill is required to chuck the article?
Delicate Pieces - What skill is required to turn a delicate piece or cut segments accurately?
Bottom - Can you identify chuck marks on the bottom and is it finished properly?
Assembly of Components - How hard is it to assemble the components accurately?
Fine Glue Lines - Are all of the components uniform in size and are all of the glue lines even and not raised?
Large vs Small - A large object takes a lot more time to complete than a small one and any defects stand out, it is
very easy to rub ones hand over the surface to feel a defect so a perfect large object is more difficult than a similar small
one.
Turning through a small hole - It is a lot more difficult to turn and finish through a small hole.
4.Finish
Finish is the ability of the turner to apply a coating to the turned work. It does include sanding and the appearance of the
work after application.
Suitable - The finish is suitable for the purpose of the article, i.e. rolling pin is finished with oil not lacquer, etc.
Feel - When you run your hand over the surface inside and out, the surface is fine, smooth and pleasant to touch.
Evenly Applied - Even lustre without shiny or dull spots, it must be dry and have no patchiness, it must not have any
runs, sanding marks, orange peel or too much wax.
Heat Cracks - No sign of heat cracks caused by sanding.
Torn Grain - All torn grain has to be removed.
Sanding Marks - All sanding and polishing marks have been removed, especially viewed in front of a strong light.
5.Aesthetics
Aesthetics is how the article appeals to a person, and may be somewhat subjective.
Eye catching - Does it catch your eye?
Comparison - When comparing one article standing alongside another, which one is more pleasing?
Wow factor Does it have a wow factor?

Now we know and have no excuse to submit below-standard items!

Ian, thank you for your insight.