Kennet & Avon Woodturners

*** Latest News *** Les Thorne Demonstration - Thursday 9th July 2026 He didn’t disapoint!! This was the third time Les has demonstrated for the club and he brought not only his passion for wood turning and great wood turning skills, but a bucket load of humour too! Les made two bowls during the demo, turning one traditionally (grain running across the lathe) and another with the graining running along the lathe bed, technically making the the bowl blank a spindle blank! He delivered a thoroughly entertaining demonstration focussing on a couple of key elements. Staying within the 95% and doing it consistently. • What is the 95%? Les talked us through our ability to stay within the 95% of what almost all of us are able to attain, using and building up our skills sets to deliver well turned peices. The further 5% is possible but we can all chase this ellusive final amount at the risk of impacting what is already a lovely piece we’ve made. • How can you stay within it? It may sounds like a no brainer, but it is focussing on the key prinicples of safe turning (A, B, C - Anchor, Bevel, Cut). It doesn’t take long for us all to learn how to ride the bevel, but it can be either too easy to lose focus and come away from it, or we stay on it but we experience difficulty when attempting challenging angles. Les took the time to walk us all through and demonstrate tips to maintain good cutting angles, how to identify when things aren’t quite right (i.e. you’re creating saw dust rather than clean-cut shavings) and also different ideas how to stop a bowl being ’boring’!! For example, under-cutting the inside to create shadows, creating a wide(ish) bump across the inside of the centre and even a tyre design around the rim. Despite a minor technical hiccup, which became an amusing jovial laugh of the evening, the whole club really enjoyed Le’s demo and we would welcome him back again for another useful and fun demonstration.