Copyright © 2019 Burnham-on-sea Woodturning Club

Burnham-on-sea Woodturning Club

Meeting Reviews

January 2019 - Paul Sweet

November 2018 - Jason Breach

October 2018 - Colwin Way

September 2018 - John Blake

August 2018 - Paul Sweet

July 2018 - Mark Sanger

June 2018 - John Lancaster

April 2018 - Liz Kent

March 2018 - Paul Hannaby

January 2018 - George Foweraker

November 2017 - Jason Breach

October 2017 - Tony George

September 2017 - Bryan Milham

September 2017 - AWGB

August 2017 - Mark Hancock

June 2017 - John Aitken

April 2017 - Chris Foweraker

March 2017 - Mark Sanger

February 2017 - George Foweraker

January 2017 - Paul Sweet

November 2016 - Jason Breach

October 2016 - Bryan Milham

September 2016 - Mark Sanger

August 2016 - Keith Fenton

July 2016 - George Foweraker

June 2016 - Chris Foweraker

June 2016 - Stuart Mortimer

April 2016 - Pete Moncrieff-Jury

March 2016 - Mark Sanger

February 2016 - Ray Blake

January 2016 - George Foweraker

December 2015 - Nick Agar

November 2015 - Paul Hannaby

October 2015 - George Foweraker

September 2015 - Mark Sanger

August 2015 - Jason Breach

July 2015 - Chris Foweraker

June 2015 - Nick Agar


October 2016 - Bryan Milham

Bryan’s theme for the evening was children’s toys and the audience appeared to enjoy the trip down memory lane as well as the challenge of solving the mystery of the snapper stick. The whole evening enabled Bryan to demonstrate his skills using the skew and hopefully will have encouraged many of us to experiment with this much maligned tool.


Bryan helpfully provided detailed drawings for the 3 items that he demonstrated namely, a snake, a knitting dolly and the Snapper or Bang stick and therefore this review consists mainly of “Top Tips” filtered from the myriad of useful hints, tips, workarounds, home made tools, products etc revealed by Byan during the evening. All the items were turned in beech wood reclaimed from offcuts of kitchen wooden worktops.



















Top Tip 1 - when using the skew, mark a line down the middle of the skew and then always cut below the centre line.

Top Tip 2 - when turning a spindle less than the diameter of the chuck jaws, make a relief cut near the chuck jaws to prevent the shavings spiraling around.

Top Tip 3 - to save time and improve consistency, create actual size storyboards/templates for frequently turned items

Top Tip 4 - when drilling from  the tailstock, clear the drill flutes regularly to ensure the drill doesn’t wander off centre.

Top Tip 5 - when spindle turning don’t worry too much about slight ripples as these can easily be sanded out whereas tearouts etc can’t.



























If anybody is still uncertain as to how the Snapper Stick works then Shirley will be happy to demonstrate!


Finally, to complete the evening, Bryan quickly demonstrated the creation of a couple of Christmas ornaments - a Christmas tree and a snowman …




(Apologies to Bryan for photographing the side of the Christmas tree where the skew caught - it happens even to the experts when distracted!)







As next month’s monthly challenge is a Christmas decoration there’s no excuses now for members not to enter.


Thanks to Bryan for an enjoyable and very informative evening.


David Langan