Craobh Eo Woodturners April Meeting Features Revolving Cheese Board Competition

The revolving cheese board is deceptively simple on paper: two discs, a bearing, some finish. Turn one to competition standard, though, and you'll appreciate why Craobh Eo Woodturners chose it as their April challenge.

The Mayo chapter of the Irish Woodturners Guild meets Thursday, April 9, at 20:00 at the CraobhEo Centre (Old Schoolhouse) in Aghamore, Co. Mayo (Eircode: F35 X375). The assignment for members: a revolving cheese board, also known as a lazy susan, for the evening's monthly competition.

The project is a classic faceplate turning exercise, appropriate for beginners and intermediate turners alike. Two lathe-turned discs pair with a commercially available ball-bearing swivel plate to produce a smooth rotating action. Getting there cleanly, however, involves decisions that separate competent work from finished work.

Blank thickness is the first real decision. The top board needs enough depth to cut a flush recess on the underside for the bearing plate; around 25 to 30mm before shaping gives workable material. Too thin and you're chasing clearance problems, too thick and the finished piece feels heavy. The base disc can be thinner but still needs enough material to seat the bearing securely with countersunk screws. Both boards want to be turned as close to true center as possible: an off-center blank shows as wobble under load, especially noticeable when a bearing that spins freely empty develops drag under the weight of a full spread. Food-safe finish is the only sensible choice on a kitchen piece. Hard wax oil, food-grade mineral oil, or a cutting board finish all work; film-building finishes don't belong on the food-contact surface.

COMPETITION MINDSET

Monthly competitions at a club like Craobh Eo are judged by peers who've turned the same blank and fought the same recess. Three things typically separate the better pieces from the rest: fit, rotation, and clean transitions. The bearing recess should seat hardware flush or fractionally below the surface; proud is sloppy. Rotation should be effortless with no lateral wobble under light load. And the visual transitions, covering edge profile, junction between top and base, and grain orientation, tell the judges how much thought went into the design, not just the cutting time. Where the brief leaves room, make a decision and commit: a deliberately thin, elegant board with a crisp edge reads stronger than a hedged piece that hasn't settled on a direction.

THE CLUB

Craobh Eo Woodturners has operated out of the Aghamore Old Schoolhouse since the club's founding in 2004, launched with 12 original members including Willie Creighton, Seamus Parsons, and Martin Gallagher. The chapter has grown to 39 members drawn from across County Mayo. Creighton has become a woodturner of national renown and remains the chapter's most prominent figure, having given a public demonstration at Mayo County Library in Castlebar in November 2016.

As the Mayo arm of the Irish Woodturners Guild, Craobh Eo sits within a network established in 1983 under the guidance of Sean O'Farrell, widely regarded as the world's oldest woodturning association. The IWG now counts over 500 active members across 18 chapters on the island of Ireland and marked its 40th anniversary in 2023 with the exhibition 'Turning Turns 40' at The Hunt Museum.

The revolving cheese board rounds out a well-constructed 2025/26 programme that has already taken members through a table lamp, a lidded box, and salt and pepper shakers. Each project adds a layer of technique; the cheese board closes the loop by combining faceplate turning, hardware fitting, and food-safe finishing in one functional object. Meetings run every second Thursday, and prospective members can reach the club at craobheowoodturners@gmail.com.