Prizes from fall contest

[Jack Mincey]

I want to thank all the sponsors again for putting up the prizes for the fall contest. I still fill extremely lucky in winning in the bowl category with the talented turners here at the creek. I received a wonderful 3/8” detail gouge from Doug Thompson http://www.thompsonlathetools.com/ soon after the final vote. It has been used a lot in the short time I’ve had it. A truly wonderful tool for sure as all Doug’s tools have been. I turned a handle from some bird’s eye maple which makes it one of the prettiest turning tools in my collection. I also received a ½” bowl gouge from Seanhttp http://www.toolnut.com/ at the Tool Nut. I’ve used it a several times since receiving it and it is very nice, should prove to give me many years of use. I would have posted early with the Items won in the contest, but Mike Smith http://www.easternncwoodworkers.com/ wanted to deliver the bowl blanks to me, so that I wouldn’t have to pay shipping on all of them. Since I was in the middle of Deer Season this was the first weekend I had free for him to drive around 600 miles round trip to deliver the blanks to my house in person. We had a great day talking about wood and the world of turning. The wood he brought is wonderful and I hope to post some pictures of some turnings this winter and spring that I get out of them. We also had a little fun loading up two little rounds of silver maple onto his trailer for him to take back to the eastern part of the state. The first one went on with little trouble the second one went up even easier. The problem with it is that the mud on the bottom made it slide across the metal bed of the trailer and off the other side. It took us another 2 hours to get it back on the trailer. I didn’t have a camera but each round weighed around 1500 lbs and we got them up on a high trailer using a come a long and a lot of effort. Here are a few pictures of the wood from Mike and the tools both Doug and Sean sent to me. The last photo is of my holding six bowls of the cored set that won the contest. The seventh bowl and biggest in the set was given to the person who gave me the burl so it isn’t in this picture.
Thanks again to Mike, Doug, Sean for the prizes and to John Keeton for putting this all together.
Jack Mincey
Blanks are big leaf maple,claro walnut, and the stack on the right are curly redwood. Mike also gave me a slab of the side of one of the BLM logs he cut that has a lot of burl in it.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/flyrod444/DSC00191.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/flyrod444/DSC00192.jpg
I turned the handle for my thompson gouge from birds eye maple. Makes it easy to pick out of my other tools.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/flyrod444/DSC00196.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/flyrod444/DSC00197.jpg

[John Keeton]

Jack, congrats again on the great set of bowls, and on winning in your category! Great prizes, too. I am so glad you and Mike got to spend some time together - both of you guys are good natured folks, and I bet you got along very well. Looks like he left you with some nice goodies, too. Would have loved to have watched the two of you wrestle 3,000 lbs. of wood on that trailer!

Those gouges look great, and very nice handle on the Thompson!

[Steve Schlumpf]

Congrats again on your winnings Jack! Well deserved!

I think a video of you two wrestling with getting the wood on the trailer could have won you an additional $10,000!

[Scott Hackler]

Congrats Jack. Looks like another happy turner with the spoils of his efforts!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Congrats Jack....on winning and the prizes! They were well deserved IMHO.

[Ray Bell]

Very nice Jack, congrats, and well deserved.

[Ted Okolichany]

Jack,

All of the members of The Western Carolina Woodturners Club, Cashiers, NC offer our congratulations on you wining the bowl contest. We are all proud to have you as a member of our club. Also, what you contribute to our club.

Ted

[Baxter Smith]

Congratulations again! Great wood, great tools, but I was really hoping to see some action pictures while reading your post!

[Jack Mincey]

Thanks everyone. I do appreciate all the kind words and the votes that Creeker's cast for my entry in the contest. Mike is going to try and get a picture of the two rounds of wood when he gets a chance. There is a video surveillance camera at the back of the school where we loaded the maple. I'm going to see if it got the second piece going across the trailer. We had two problems with this second round. the trailer was slanted a bit to help in loading the wood and I used a good size tow strap to pull it up a make shift ramp up onto the trailer. When it did get up on the trailer the strap had stretched just enough to pull it across the trailer that was slanted down to the back side and off that side before the strap went slack. We ended up dragging it down a road on the back side of the school to a better bank to load it using a come a long to slowly pull it onto the trailer.
Thanks again,
Jack

[David E Keller]

A well deserved gloat to be sure. The nested set is amazing!

[brian watts]

veri nice tools you have there and the wood is nice all so..