Totally Turning 2026 Brings Expert Demos and Techniques to Saratoga Springs

Forty-eight woodturning demonstrations across six rooms, four rotations a day, and a 10-inch bowl with walls measuring 1/8 of an inch thick: Totally Turning 2026 made a strong case for the regional show format when it ran March 28 and 29 at the Saratoga Springs City Center alongside the Northeastern Woodworkers Showcase.

The symposium, presented by the Adirondack Woodturners Association, brought national, international, and regional demonstrators together under one roof, with rotating schedules giving attendees repeated shots at different skills and styles. Separate woodturning and woodworking galleries flanked the vendor aisle, and the full demonstrator lineup included Donna Zils Banfield, Dennis Belcher, Matt Monaco, Kevin Jesequel, Eric Lofstrum, and Tod Raines.

Each demo covered distinct ground. Raines, presenting remotely, kept his piston-box session in beginner territory: pine stock, drill bits, and a couple of gauges to tune the exterior diameter of the inner cylinder. It was a precise, low-intimidation look at fit-and-function turning that beginners rarely get demonstrated step-by-step. Belcher worked a board-to-vase sequence and spent real time on the problem most turners dread: what to do with a cracked blank. His answer was splines, using them to bridge and stabilize rather than scrap the piece. That technique travels directly back to the shop.

Kevin Jesequel's hollow-form demonstration was the kind of improvised-tool session that justifies attending in person over watching a polished video later. He worked hollowing strategies using sharpened allen wrenches and small hardened steel cutting bits rigged into functional tools, producing clean interior curves without a dedicated commercial hollowing rig. For turners who have been putting off hollow-form work because the entry cost feels steep, watching Jesequel's setup recalibrates what's actually necessary.

Matt Monaco closed out the high end of the skill range. Using a bowl gouge and a spear-point scraper, he produced a 10-inch bowl with walls running between 1/8 and 3/16 of an inch, what the show's program framed as art-object turning. Getting that dimension across that diameter requires tool control and a read on grain response that live demonstration communicates in a way recorded footage simply cannot match.

Marc Sitkin, who covered the event on the ground, noted that "there was something for everyone to enjoy." He also flagged the vendor contraction that returning attendees will have noticed: the aisle was smaller than pre-COVID Totally Turning editions, with fewer dedicated tool vendors and more carving and fine-woodworking representation filling the space. Thompson Tools and Oneway both had steel at the show. The broader multi-vendor tool shopping floor of earlier years has narrowed, which means arriving with a targeted list matters more than it used to.

The Saratoga City Center's logistics remain one of the show's underrated assets. The Saratoga Hilton has special rates for attendees, and the surrounding downtown offers walkable dining and shopping, which matters when convincing a partner to make a full weekend of a woodturning symposium. For Northeast-based turners, 48 demonstrations in two days at that venue is hard to replicate without making the trip to a national symposium.