South Downs Wood Fair – Bodgers, Broom squires and curtain pulls
Location: Queen Elizabeth Country Park in Hampshire
Link out: Click here
Description: This will be the third South Downs Wood Fair held at the Queen Elizabeth Country Park although the dates have move a week from previous years this promises to be a great show with lots to see.
We will be exhibiting with our charcoal kiln as part of the Hampshire coppice craftsmens’ display. Come and see what we have to offer.
Start Date: 21-07-2012
Start Time: 10:00
End Date: 22-07-2012
End Time: 17:00
our stand at the south downs wood fair 2012 showing our charcoal display and pole lathe demonstrationAs our biggest show of the year and one of our most local we always work hard to put on a big display, this year was no different with both charcoal and pole lathe displays.
We were very fortunate with the weather as the rain that we had had for the previous month or more finally stopped just before the fair. Unfortunately we did have one shower after we had put up the shelters and the ‘design feature’ of the shelter we had dropped all it had collected on us on Saturday morning, luckily not on a visitor.
Three Copse where at the fair as part of the Hampshire Coppice Craftsmens Group demonstrators area which covered some 150m frontage.
We had planned to take one of our charcoal kilns to show but due to the aforementioned weather we could not risk moving our kilns of their hearths. However we still managed to put on a great display including a display of the different types of charcoal, as well as a photographic description of charcoal burning, and the carbon foot print of different types of fuel.
One thing we have found with having the pole lathe at shows is people have a habit of bringing things to along on the off chance that
you can make a new part for it or in the case of this year are looking for something specific. On the Saturday we had a lady that was after some weights for her curtain pulls. We had two all be it undrilled but she was after 6 so queue the frantic sound of tools on wood. As you can see by the photo the acorn was the order of the day (even if 5 of them where turned in beech with the 6th made of ash)
Although there seemed to be less people at the show this year there was a constant stream of interested public and the lathe drawing its usual questions, such as are you making a chair leg. So at least people know that the pole lathe has that historic link even if they don’t know about the other items we turn.
Over the two day we sold an array of items including charcoal cards door wedges and spatulars as well as making both turned and carved items, including a very nice soon out of apple (which has since sold)