08 December 2008

Winterwonder Bash




























































Well, the weekend has come and gone so it's time to draw breath. Wow!!.. what a day on Saturday. We had a Winterwonder Bash at Wilton and had no less than a veritable 'shopful of the great and the good from UKWorkshop. The likes of Waka, Paul Chapman, Paul (Chisel), Pete, Martin, Rod (Harbo) and Simon (Heath Robinson) all turned up, the only one who couldn't make it was Philly. The dining table was groaning with so much shiny metal it fair made your eyes hurt...S&S, Norris, Lei-Neilson, Veritas, Holtey, Festool, Grammercy and Clifton were all represented. In fact Rod even brought along a Japanese plane that I didn't have a chance to play with.
Simon had received a bit of stick from one or two naysayers on the forum about a new Draper router that he'd just bought and wanted some reassurances that it was 'kosher.' I have to say that once it'd been set up and I'd given it test drive I was impressed, a very pleasant bit of kit.
Lot's of folk tried out the new Veritas d/t saw and gave it a positive 'thumbs up' but there were some issues with the new Beading Tool that I need to look at further. Paul Chapman gave us a useful demo on his Festool Domino that he'd bought from Dom on the 'dark side'...a very good piece of equipment but difficult to justify the full cost of it unless used constantly in a professional 'shop. Waka had also brought along his rather up-market ramped shooting board which I found quite interesting to use as it had one or two useful features...also not forgetting Pete's very natty hygrometer (need to make one of those) Martin and Paul also gave me loads of useful info on using a camera. Previously, I'd just used the Nikon D60 as a 'point and shoot' but when used on Manual, it's clear that it becomes a lot more versatile as it then does what you want it to do, rather than the other way round.
While we were all busy nattering in the 'shop, SWIMBO had prepared a really good feast for us all and to crown it, Pam (Pete's wife) had done a couple of scrumptious puds...lime cheesecake and a pavlova, stuffed with raspberry's and fresh cream. A fabulous day enjoyed by all.

On a different note entirely, I had a reply back this morning from Tom Lie-Nielson in the US of A. Guess who's going to be reviewing LN tools in F&C as well?...no prizes for the right answer!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A great day, Rob - many thanks for hosting it.

Cheers ;-)

Paul Chapman

Kari Hultman said...

A bunch of woodworkers getting together to try out some tools and chat--it doesn't get any better than that!

Anonymous said...

Looks like the guy on the left of the top pic (me)likes his pies !!!

Great bunch of people and a great day Rob, thanks for hosting and can't wait for another one ;)

Cheers, Paul (aka Chisel)