Bert Bleckwenn brought a screw chuck, of Al Stirt design, that has two adjustable points on the edge, which allows minor repositioning of a blank or a rough-turned bowl to allow for the optimum grain pattern in the bottom of the bowl.
Terry Lamb, with encouragement from his brother, Peter, made an assortment of four tools and used them to turn a couple small hollow forms.
Michael Blake brought an assortment of homemade tools.
Elliot Schantz made a large rear hollowing bar stabilizer, ala Lyle Jamieson.
Michael Colella showed a roughing tool, made from 5/8" bar with ¼" tool steel bit in bought (Trent Bosch) aluminum handle.
Clif Poodry brought an off-center chuck for making jewelry.
Bill Autry made a chucking system for turning napkin rings. A larger version will work for bracelets.
Tim Aley made a large "modular faceplate system" (aka donut chuck) to finish the bottoms of bowls directly, without impediment.
Ilya Zavorin brought a can of Clapham's Beeswax Salad Bowl Finish, a soft mixture of beeswax and mineral oil. It is easy to apply with a piece of cloth, and fast rubbing into the wood by hand does the job, followed by vigorous brushing with a shoe brush made from natural hair (a MUST). Several coats may be applied. The result is very nice matte finish.
Gary Nickerson made a leveled jig to set his grinding wheel exactly 7" from the notch and 4" high, for using an Ellsworth sharpening jig with the Ellsworth Signature gouge. He brought a picture of his grinder set up to show how the jig works.
Carl Powell brought a 5/16" tri-point tool in a quick-change handle made like a collet chuck closed by a hose clamp. He also showed two 5/16" nuts -- drilled out to accept the 5/16" bit and drilled and tapped for set screws to hold it in place -- used to grind the angles of the tri-point tool exactly 120 degrees apart.
Steve DiBenedetto made a complete sharpening system, ala Oneway Wolverine, out of wood.
Ed Karch constructed a grinder hanger out of a bamboo tube mounted on the wheel assemby from a desk chair.
Phil Brown shows a cone-shaped chuck for holding a deep vessel, with no pressure on the rim, while removing the shoulder and chuck marks and touching up the bottom-resting surface. The padded centering ring holds the rim in place. Tall vessels with narrow bases may also need an internal support.
Jack Enders made two simple and primitive scratch-built micro gouges/scrapers from nails. These are used for intricate grooving and undercutting on bottle stoppers. He ground a tiny cutting edge on the sharp end of a common 10d nail for one of them. For the other, he ground the head of an 8d wrought iron nail to a 'curl' shape for scoring and undercutting. The wrought iron nail is epoxied into a hole drilled endwise in a 3/4" dowel for a handle. He doesn't need a handle for the common 10d nail. His point is that you can quickly do 'one-off' tools like this for special needs, as necessary -- you don't have to worry about long-term life of a tool like this, and the investment is miniscule.
Gary Guenther brought an a bent hollowing tool mounted with an “outrigger” (aka “torque arrestor”). (This one was made by CA Savoy.) This is an inexpensive method for stable, comfortable, safe blind hollowing.
