Kennet Valley Woodturners set Saturday workshop on stacking tapered toy
A simple toy project became a real spindle-turning test at Kennet Valley Woodturners, where members tackled repeatable tapers, ring fits and clean profiles at Padworth Village Hall.
Getting a stack of tapered rings to sit true is the sort of job that shows every mistake in your spindle work. Kennet Valley Woodturners used that exact challenge for its Saturday workshop on May 23, with Denis Winter pointing members to a session built around a stacking tapered toy with rings.
The club put the workshop in its regular fourth-Saturday slot, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Padworth Village Hall in Padworth, Reading, RG7 4HY. That schedule matters because this was not a one-off novelty class. It was part of a monthly hands-on rhythm the club uses for members to meet, talk through problems and practice turning techniques in an informal setting, with refreshments served mid-session.
The project itself was a smart choice. A stacking tapered toy sounds straightforward until you start making the parts repeatably. The taper has to read cleanly from piece to piece, the rings have to fit, and the profiles need to stay consistent if the finished toy is going to stack properly and look balanced. For newer turners, that means basic spindle control, measurement and finish work. For more experienced members, it is a test of duplication, symmetry and how well a shape can be repeated without drifting.
Kennet Valley Woodturners has been at that sort of club work since October 1997, and the May workshop sat inside a broader setup that includes monthly demonstrations, competitions, a club shop, a tool bank and a gallery table. The contact page lists Mike Allen as chairman, Malcolm White as secretary and Ray Brindley as a committee member, all part of a structure that keeps the club running well beyond a single Saturday morning. The club has also started a mentor scheme for new members and novice turners, which makes a project like this especially useful for anyone still building confidence at the lathe.
That wider support system showed up in the club’s May 2026 competition results too, with Jim Telford taking novice, Mike Williams winning intermediate and Philip Sampson coming out on top in advanced. Add in the free lending library of books, videos and DVDs, plus the tool bank that lets members borrow unusual and expensive tools for a small fee before buying, and the workshop starts to look less like a stand-alone class and more like the club’s main way of turning shared advice into finished work.
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