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Welcome

The purpose of this website is to provide you with some basic information about the club – when and where we meet, what meetings are like details about membership and other club activities. It’s not meant to be a gallery of resources about woodturning, simply an introduction to the club.​

​​The Club has been running for over 20 years and has always been affiliated with the Association of Woodturners of Great Britain (AWGB).

Our Roots have always been set in the heart of the Midlands known as the “Black Country”. The Black Country is a defined area steeped in industrial history. For a flavour of its early days follow the link, you may find it interesting:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Country

The club home is located at Dudley College, a super venue with easy disability access, and plenty of free parking, “Club Nights” are usually held on the third Thursday of the month. 6 pm to 9 pm. (see events page for full details).

Since the start of the 2020 pandemic the club has had to rethink and redefine how it pilots the future, we now embrace technology as best we can, mixed with good old hands-on learning. We were able to remain open throughout the Pandemic period by hosting across the Zoom platform, However, we are delighted to state that since October 2021 we are back open at Dudley College.

We host a variety of meeting types informal online monthly “Chinwags” via Zoom plus monthly club night events, made up of Hands-on, Club turner or professional demos.

All are welcome, from those thinking of taking up this fabulous hobby to those already giving it a go you will meet and enjoy the company of a friendly bunch of folk, sharing your venture to learn more about this historic craft.

If you are interested contact us via the website or simply come along and see what goes on. Details of the costs involved are shown on the  Mission Tag “Joining the Club”. as well as Organisation & Documents where you will find our policies on Safeguarding & Health & Safety matters

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May 2025 – The Monthly “Give it a Go”

This month’s submissions for The Monthly “Give it a Go” Zoom meeting. The theme will be Freestyle Hanging Wall Decoration + any other items made by members this month

Next month’s Chinwag & Monthly “Give it a Go” Zoom meeting is on Tuesday, 3rd of June 2025. The theme will be – Straight or Shaped Box with Freestyle Decorated Lid + any other items made by members this month

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April 2025 – The Monthly “Give it a Go”

This month’s submissions for The Monthly “Give it a Go”. Theme will be Any Size Bowl “Plain / Textured / Decorated” + any other items made by members this month.

Next month’s Chinwag & Monthly “Give it a Go” Zoom meeting is on Tuesday, 6th of May 2025. The theme will be – Freestyle Hanging Wall Decoration + any other items made by members this month

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Demo Report – February 2025 – Steve Hackett

For our entertainment this evening, we have our very own member Steve Hackett, who will be turning a stem for a glass in the shape of a heart. Using the technique sometimes referred to as involuted turning.


Sycamore is the wood being used for the demonstration, three pieces are required. All the blanks must be square to make the jointing true with no gaps showing, to secure the two pieces of wood together Steve used CA glue which was only glued at the ends not all the way down, this was then taped together which is a good safety measure to keep the wood from parting.
Next is marking the centres from both ends, along the line where the wood is joined together and then mounted on the lathe between ring centres, ring centres were used so that they do not force the wood apart as a pointed centre would. By using a ring centre, if too much pressure is exerted on the wood, it would just stop spinning between centres on the lathe.
Next Steve marked out the shape of the heart that he wanted to cut, this is turned at a fast rate of 3800rpm due to cutting air as it is spinning.


For part of the heart where it curves back in at the top a carbide tool was used to undercut the wood, this is then sanded to the required finish, this needs to be done now as you will not be able to do it latter.
The two pieces of wood are now split by means of a chisel and hammer. These are then turned round and glued together using PVA glue with the heart showing in the middle, this is then left for 24 hours so it has time to dry completely. For the demonstration, CA glue was used for this process.

The outer shape is now turned to the required shape, making the edges sharp prior to sanding. A tenon is now turned so that it can be mounted in the chuck, a record SC1 chuck being used for this process. A 12mm brad point drill was then used to go into the top where the glass stem will sit, this went in about 17mm deep the hole was then undercut by using a spindle gouge. With the amount of wood that is protruding from the lathe, you need to be gentle so that the wood is not pulled out of the chuck.
A standard live core centre is then used to support the piece while the stem is turned down from where the glass is fitted back towards the lathe head, this way the strength is being kept within the turning.
When the shape has been refined the pointed part of the heart is then filed back and into the opening to refine the shape, the file needs to be used with a rounded movement of the file so as not to have a flat on the heart.
Moving on to the lower part, again we need to produce a shape that is pleasing to the eye, Steve used a 15mm spanner to determine the diameter of the lower part of the stem which was again sanded.


A screw chuck is being used for the base which is turned to a round and shaped with a spiralling tool, a good amount of pressure is required for this.
A 7mm diameter is required for when the stem is inserted into the base, this is then glued.
The piece can then be decorated with whatever you want.

Report by Barrie Fisher & edited by Steve Hackett

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January 2025 – The Monthly “Give it a Go”

This month’s submissions for The Monthly “Give it a Go”. Theme “Free Style Decorated Rim Platter (Any Size)”, any Project Idea + any other items made by members this month

Next month’s Chinwag & Monthly “Give it a Go” Zoom meeting is on Tuesday, 4th of February 2025. The theme will be A Valentines Theme, any Project Idea + any other items made by members this month.

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December 2024 – Chairman’s Challenge

This month’s submissions for the Chairman’s Challenge and other items that our club members made during the last month. The challenge was. “Anything you fancy crazier, the better….” + any other items made by members this month

Next month’s Chinwag Zoom meeting is on Tuesday, 7th of January 2025. The Chairman’s Challenge theme will be “Free Style Decorated Rim Platter (Any Size)” + any other items made by members this month.

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December 24 – Mary Stevens Christmas Coffee Morning and Jigsaw Festival

We were again invited to attend and take part in this year’s Mary Steven’s Hospice Coffee Morning, the event has a number of tables selling various items of goods for Christmas and a stall selling jigsaw puzzles at a £1 a piece. Along with these they had a couple of tables with tombola gifts, for the correct numbers drawn, The many visitors kept the tea and coffee people busy during the opening in addition they also had a good number of cakes on offer.


We were able to set up three tables, a section for the charity table sales, a section for members selling their own turned items, and a small section for Kim Brown (Ian’s Wife) in attendance with Kim’s Kraft’s selling her hand made cards and gift packages. There was a good turn out from the club with nine members turning up and helping out for the day, we were very pleased to have this additional help.


The charity table had a steady flow of people, although the event had fewer people turn up due to a couple of other events going on in Stourbridge. We had many returning customers whole purchase items from us in previous events. The charity table raised around the £140.00 with the member’s donated items, this also included donations from the members that were selling their own turnings.


Thanks from the club, go out to Paul Whiley for making the very large log snowman, which stands around 3 feet high. It was raffled off on the day and this made £48.00 for Mary Stevens.

The winner was picked out of the hat by a member of Mary Stevens Hospice staff, the winner was Steve from Halesowen.

It was a good day out with members chatting to the public and explaining about various items and different woods.


The club and its members are looking forward to the next event.

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November 2024 – Private Demonstration for Mary Steven’s Hospice

This club was asked by Mary Steven’s Hospice, who are our preferred charity, to give a demonstration of our woodturning skills to the gentlemen day unit service users of the hospice, some more of an interest as everything is normally more aimed towards women. This could turn into a regular event for the club. We have already been asked to cover another demo event in December, which more of the women will be going to. For this event we had four members who volunteered for the event, these were Steve, Ian, Brian and Barrie.
Within the event room, we had a display table that showed some of the member’s work as to what could be done with wood. Prior to starting we had nine patients who were driven in by ambulance to Mary Stevens in addition to a number of the nursing staff.
Ian started the event with an explanation of what woodturning was about and how it all started with bodgers. Once again we had Steve who started by explaining the various items of the lathe and what they are used for and also how to use them. On the lathe he demonstrated turning a snowman and after explaining about the health and safety involved for keeping yourself safe, and giving a talk about the process of turning has he worked through the process. Steve also explained how the trees are prepared and cut so that we can have them to turn. Various pieces of wood blanks were shown and the type of tools that we use.
After Steve finished his snowman, Ian took over on the lathe and showed how to make a Christmas tree with carved areas along the length of the tree. Both Steve and Ian gave a running commentary on what they were doing as they progressed through the projects.
Question were asked during the event by patients and staff a like, who also showed an interest. After this first session was completed, we stopped for a bite to eat put on by Mary Stevens.
Whilst we were having a break the other area was set up by the staff so that the painting side of the event was able to start, when this got underway we had a limited number of people taking part in the painting of the items, and also an additional lady asked if she could take part whilst she was waiting for the ambulance.
At the end of the day, everyone who turned up to view the demonstration took either a snowman or Christmas tree home with them
Thankfully, we had a number of donated items from the club members for the event.
We were thanked by Ruth and the nursing staff for the day’s event, and they look forward to the next one. All four of us would like to thank them for looking after us all day with the food and drinks to keep us going.

Report by Barrie Fisher & edited by Steve Hackett

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November 2024 – Birmingham Botanical Gardens Tremendous Trees Event

The club took up the option of taking a trip out to the Botanical Gardens who we are hoping to develop a relationship with, so that we can acquire any cut down trees and be able to turn some items in return for them to sell.

We were there on Sunday 10th November 2024, to represent the club at the Tremendous Trees Event, to display the works and also sell items from our charity table and other pieces members had for sale.  The event ran from 11.00 till 15.00, but we needed to be there by 9.30 to unload and get all areas of the demonstration and selling areas set up and ready for the public to arrive.

The area that we had been given for use during the day was undercover and out of the elements.  It was also a large area, this area was about 30 feet square.

They also made sure that we had enough tables and chairs for us to use, of which we ended up using eight tables for the three areas that we had taken with us.

Three tables were used for the turned items that were for the gallery and were looked after by Mike and Georgie, Steve’s wife, whilst on the table they were having a good many questions about how the various shapes were produced and the techniques that were needed to produce them.  This was ongoing throughout the day, and it was good to know that the public wanted additional information.

We also had three tables for all the charity items that were donated by club members, who we would like to thank again for their effort in producing them.  On the remaining two tables, we had members selling their own items to the public.

Once again, we had Steve taking his lathe to the event along with the required tools and required wood blanks for the day.  Steve was set up in the corner of the room with plenty of room for the public and kids to see what was being done and also to ask questions during the day.  Steve was producing a number of spinning tops and Christmas trees throughout the day.

The club’s thanks go out to all members who took part in the event.

When the gardens opened we had a steady footfall throughout the day looking, buying and asking questions of everyone.

Having spoken with the people of the botanical gardens, they are hoping that this can turn into an ongoing event for both of us.  We must also take this opportunity to thank the garden staff for the hospitality that we had from them during the day and also keeping us supplied with tea and coffee along with the biscuits  and the additional hot water during the day.

The feedback that we have received was that it went down well with the public, and they enjoyed the additional aspect of having a wood turning club within the confines of the gardens as it gave an additional aspect for the visitors.

Report by Barrie Fisher & edited by Steve Hackett