Since the opening of the Woodturning Shop in December 2020, time has run very fast! Every day, there is so much to do from looking after the shop, its customers and online orders, to administrative jobs and learning courses.
We also don’t forget our environment and little guests visiting us, such as a variety of birds, sheep in the back field and even Vernon the Vole who has bee scurrying around the class room over the last few months.
But, the most frequent guest is Duster, the Garden Centre cat.
She is very spoilt by all the members of the Garden Centre and the Woodturning Shop. She sometimes comes for treats more than once a day, always pretending that she is hungry. If you are extremely lucky Duster might sit on your knees while you stroke her.
Les This Week . . .
This week, Les has run two courses. On Saturday, Les taught his One Day Beginners Group Course for four keen students. They learned some basic turning skills to turn a bowl and a bud vase. They were also treated to lunch at the garden centre coffee shop.
On Wednesday, Les hosted a 1 to 1 skew chisel lesson. Les has years of experience teaching groups and individuals and provides lots of knowledge as well as a banter to keep the lessons informal and fun.
Les also turned a few commissions for production turning customers: some finials and a couple of newel posts turned from Douglas Fir.
Always use a good quality abrasive and make sure the abrasive is cutting the wood and not just burnishing it because it’s gone blunt.
Les’ tip of the week
Martin This Week . . .
Martin has had another busy week of admin including working out an easy way to provide gift vouchers in the shop for walk-in customers, organising moving website hosting providers, getting ready for the end of the VAT quarter and cutting up more Yew!
At the same time, he has just started production of a new series of videos for his YouTube channel due to start at the beginning of March.
The series is entitled ‘The Tools I Use and Why I Use Them’ with each short episode concentrating on one particular tool.
Thank you very much for reading. We are looking forward seeing you at The Woodturning Shop!
I like the informality of this set up. Not been out to see you yet- but certainly will. Spent many hours at Bills place in Alresford. I recon I have paid for Les’s childhood! Haha. And I made my own cup of tea!