By Jerry Bickenbach

The Class Description:

Strengthen and refine your skills while learning new methods of imagining and creating turned forms. Short exercises using both spindle and faceplate techniques will help you quickly develop the critical feel and intuition for the importance that tool selection, sharpening, RPM, and stance all have on final form and surface quality. Experiment with a variety; of open and closed vessel forms. Your result – a more solid technical foundation, a fresh perspective, and a big bag of tricks! Intermediate skills and recent turning experience required.

The School:

The school is in a fairly remote area of western North Carolina and was only a four-hour drive from Huntsville. The food was good and plenty of it served family style and the room was just okay. The woodturning facility was good, but the new building with new equipment will be a big improvement. It is supposed to be ready for classes in January of 2007. There are several pictures of the new building.

The Instructor:

Michael did a good job of covering all the items listed in the course description and added many things not listed based on student requests. His approach was to demo each area and then have the students do a similar item while he observed and provided individual help as required. I learned many new techniques and corrected some I had been using that were not so good. The hands on part with individual instruction was the best part and I now have experienced the correct way to ride the bevel, which improves everything. All in all it was a great experience and one that I would like to repeat with other classes.