AAW Forum Crowns Dragon's Grip as Turning of the Week for March 30

Chris Lawrence's "Dragon's Grip" earned the American Association of Woodturners Forum's Turning of the Week distinction for March 30, 2026, landing the piece as the headline feature on one of woodturning's most active international online communities. The selection is announced directly on the AAW Forum's front page, where it greets every visitor alongside the site's running invitation to participate in the March 2026 Turning Challenge, whose voting was still open as of early April.

The Turning of the Week honor functions as a community-curated spotlight, chosen from member submissions and displayed prominently to draw attention to both the maker and the techniques involved. Lawrence joins a March that also saw Dave Bell's "Torus Teapot" recognized on March 9 and Tim Connell's "Black Locust Basket Illusion Series #4" honored on March 16, making the month a particularly rich stretch for the weekly feature.

The forum surrounding that headline is where much of the practical craft conversation happens. In the days around March 28 and 30, active threads tackled a Powermatic toolrest holder that members reported seizing under use, a recurring problem on that model that prompted multiple replies suggesting both mechanical fixes and alternative rest configurations. Separate threads dug into optimal sanding RPMs for bowls, a topic that generates consistent debate: slower speeds reduce heat and swirl marks but require more passes, while members hollowing at around 600 RPM reported clean results on larger vessels. Hollowing tool selection generated its own thread, with members comparing approaches to wall thickness and bevel contact, and wood identification requests filled the show-and-tell threads, where posting clear end-grain photos alongside a location gives other members the best chance of a confident ID.

That last point is essentially the forum's unwritten participation protocol. Threads that attract the most useful critique follow a consistent pattern: multiple photos taken in natural light from multiple angles, measurements noted (diameter, height, wall thickness for hollow forms), species identified or candidly listed as unknown, and a specific question rather than an open-ended "what do you think?" Responses that name a specific tool geometry, a grit sequence, or a finishing product tend to generate more useful follow-up than general praise, which is why the forum's most active threads tend to read like collaborative troubleshooting sessions rather than comment sections.

The forum does enforce one notable rule that shapes its tone: usernames must be real first and last names. No handles, no screen names. That policy keeps the conversation accountable and, in practice, seems to push members toward more considered posts, whether they are asking about a seized toolrest or sharing a piece as distinctive as "Dragon's Grip.