Alan Zenreich
10-16-2010, 3:36 PM
This past Thursday my wife and I taught a hands-on pendant turning workshop at our local club (Hudson Valley Woodturners).
We had two lathes, and two complete pendant backer plate rigs on Ruth Niles' mandrels, some Easy Wood Tools carbide chisels, Abranet sheets... things folk weren't that familiar with.
Now for the pendants in the photo. One was planned, and one a spur of the moment project.
The walnut pendant in the photo was made to show the simple offset turning techniques that I was going to demonstrate, and would pass it around to the group before the demo, so they could see what the end result would be.
While I was waiting to start the demonstration, I saw that someone brought some material that I had not considered making into a pendant before. Well, she actually brought them as snacks, but I liked the "Grain" pattern. I quietly swiped one of these new 'pendant blanks'.
While other folk were doing their "show and tell" portion of the evening, I used a twist drill to enlarge one of the existing holes, and threaded a necklace through it.
When I began the session, I showed the walnut pendant and explained what I was going to teach.
I then showed some other wood pendants... zebrawood, marblewood, and mentioned that I liked the grain on them, and that very little adornment was necessary.
Then I showed them the morsel I just created, and they got a good laugh.
Strange thing was, that my wife didn't know I was going to do this, but when I told her just before our demo began, she said that she was thinking of doing exactly the same thing. It's scary how we think alike sometimes.
It was nice to have a turning demo that wasn't yet another bowl, box, or spindle turning demo. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning the techniques and checking out cool new toys (errrr, tools).
Some think the pendants we make are lovely. The one I made that evening was... delicious.
We had two lathes, and two complete pendant backer plate rigs on Ruth Niles' mandrels, some Easy Wood Tools carbide chisels, Abranet sheets... things folk weren't that familiar with.
Now for the pendants in the photo. One was planned, and one a spur of the moment project.
The walnut pendant in the photo was made to show the simple offset turning techniques that I was going to demonstrate, and would pass it around to the group before the demo, so they could see what the end result would be.
While I was waiting to start the demonstration, I saw that someone brought some material that I had not considered making into a pendant before. Well, she actually brought them as snacks, but I liked the "Grain" pattern. I quietly swiped one of these new 'pendant blanks'.
While other folk were doing their "show and tell" portion of the evening, I used a twist drill to enlarge one of the existing holes, and threaded a necklace through it.
When I began the session, I showed the walnut pendant and explained what I was going to teach.
I then showed some other wood pendants... zebrawood, marblewood, and mentioned that I liked the grain on them, and that very little adornment was necessary.
Then I showed them the morsel I just created, and they got a good laugh.
Strange thing was, that my wife didn't know I was going to do this, but when I told her just before our demo began, she said that she was thinking of doing exactly the same thing. It's scary how we think alike sometimes.
It was nice to have a turning demo that wasn't yet another bowl, box, or spindle turning demo. Everyone seemed to enjoy learning the techniques and checking out cool new toys (errrr, tools).
Some think the pendants we make are lovely. The one I made that evening was... delicious.