Honolulu Wood Turners to Demo Sunny Side Up Egg on a Plate

A wooden fried egg on a plate is not the kind of project turners forget in a hurry. That is exactly why Honolulu Wood Turners’ May 12 meeting is drawing attention: the club labeled its featured demo an “EGGSQUISITE DEMONSTRATOR” and put Andy Cole on the lathe for Sunny Side Up Egg on a Plate.

The meeting fits neatly into the club’s regular rhythm. Honolulu Woodturners meets six times a year, on the second Tuesday of odd-numbered months, and the May gathering continues that schedule with a project that is meant to be as conversation-starting as it is technical. The club’s stated educational objective is to think outside the box, and this one does that immediately, turning a familiar breakfast image into a woodturned showpiece.

Cole is a fitting demonstrator for a project that rewards both creativity and control. He got into woodturning in 2000 after taking a basic bowl-turning class, then joined the Honolulu Woodturners club as an affiliate of the American Association of Woodturners. His biography also shows a long connection to the wider turning world: he has served on AAW boards and committees, and a Florida Woodturning Symposium profile says he attended his first AAW symposium in 2003 and has not missed one since.

His work has leaned toward the expressive side of the craft. The Hawaii Forest Industry Association describes Cole as someone who finds satisfaction in turning flawed and blemished pieces of wood into works of art, with a specialty in natural-edge bowls and natural-edge nested bowl sets. Nohea Gallery’s profile of Cole says he intentionally chooses blemished pieces of wood, a choice that matches the kind of eye a playful project like Sunny Side Up Egg on a Plate tends to reward.

The rest of the evening looks just as practical. Tommy Uno is set to give a tech talk on moisture meters, a subject that lands squarely in the day-to-day realities of turning green wood, watching wood movement, and managing how stock behaves as it dries. The basic-skills talk will cover high-speed steel, keeping the program grounded in tool care and cutter selection alongside the more imaginative demo.

Honolulu Wood Turners is also using the meeting to recruit future presenters, with Rob Faris listed as the contact for members interested in demonstrating at later meetings. That kind of ask matters in a club with about 110 members, because it keeps the knowledge flowing from one turner to the next instead of letting the program sit on a few familiar names. Cole’s presence, along with Tommy Uno’s practical tech talk, gives the May 12 meeting the kind of mix that makes a club night feel worth the drive: one memorable project, one useful shop subject, and one more reminder that turning can be both precise and a little bit fun.