Orange County Fair

The Orange County Fair in Costa Mesa starts on July 10th 2009, and the Orange County Woodworkers Association will be presenting it's tenth annual Fine Art Woodworking Show at the Fair in Building #15.

As President of the OCWA I am very proud of our association's efforts to promote the art of woodworking to the general public through this event at the fair. There will be approximately 175 entries in the show this year by some of the finest craftspersons around. We will also have woodworking demonstration booths for your entertainment, and education.

I will personally be demonstrating goblet turning on the lathe on the weekends except for July 25th, and 26th, when I will be teaching a two day woodturning class at the William Ng School of Fine Woodworking. If you wish to register for that class please see wnwoodworks.com. Goblet turning is a lot of fun, but as you can see it can be a little tricky. In this picture I am turning the stem of the goblet. I turn about 3/4" of the stem at a time, and sand it. I stay close to the large mass of wood to keep stability, so as to not break the stem. That would be a drag.
Here I have completed the goblet, and I am sanding the base prior to parting the goblet off.

I am using the gouge here to part off the goblet. The reason for using a gouge is so I can put a decorative detail on the bottom. This much more difficult than using a parting tool, which, in my opinion is a very crude way of parting off the goblet as it leaves a rough surface behind.

Here I have parted off the goblet deftly catching it with my left hand. If you click on the picture you will be able to see the decorative detail that I have put on the bottom.

Here is the finished product. I have been known to give these away to guests that have had the time to watch the entire demo, which is about thirty minutes. The OCWA Secretary, Mr. Ed Straub, has accused me of giving preferential treatment to cute young blondes when it comes to giving away the goblets, but that simply just isn't the case though it couldn't hurt your chances if you were. In any case Ed has received a number of these goblets, and he is neither young nor cute.

Be sure to join us at the fair, you'll have a great time.