Claude Dupuis to Demonstrate Thread Chasing Lidded Box in New Hampshire

Thread chasing is one of those lathe skills that separates a neat turned box from a piece that feels engineered, and the Guild of New Hampshire Woodworkers gave turners in Bow an early look at it with Claude Dupuis at the lathe. The free April 25 meeting ran from 9:00 a.m. to noon at Bow Old Town Hall in Bow, New Hampshire, and it filled quickly, with the RSVP closed and 40 people expected in the room.

The draw was Dupuis’ live demonstration of a lidded box with thread chasing, a pairing that makes sense for anyone who cares about fit, function and finish. Hand thread chasing is a traditional technique used to cut decorative and functional screw threads in wood, most often for boxes and lids, where the threads have to meet cleanly and repeatably. It is the kind of work that rewards dense, close-grained woods such as boxwood or African blackwood, and it usually lives in the tighter thread counts, with 10, 12, 16 and 20 threads per inch among the most common.

What made the Bow demo feel bigger than a club night was the second venue attached to it. The Guild page identified the same presentation as the one Dupuis will take to the American Association of Woodturners’ 2026 symposium in Raleigh from June 4 to 7, giving local members a preview of a program headed for the national stage. For turners, that matters because it is a chance to watch a symposium-caliber technique in a smaller room, where the tool control, grain choice and thread fit are easier to study at close range.

Dupuis brings the kind of background that fits that assignment. The League of New Hampshire Craftsmen lists him as a juried member since 2011 and says he started woodturning in 2008. His work includes segmented bowls, vases, spheres, pens, bottle stoppers and ornaments, a range that suggests comfort with both geometry and detail, the same qualities thread chasing demands.

The AAW’s 2026 International Woodturning Symposium is set for June 4 to 7 at the Raleigh Convention Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. The association calls it the 40th International Woodturning Symposium and says it is the highlight of the woodturning year, with more than 80 demonstrations and presentations, plus a trade show, exhibitions, auctions and community events. Dupuis is listed in the demonstrator lineup, a strong signal that the boxwork seen in Bow is the real thing, not a warm-up act.