Tri-State Woodturners to feature Beau Bunn at June 20 meeting

Beau Bunn brought a sphere-turning demonstration to Tri-State Woodturners on June 20, giving members a practical look at one of the cleanest tests of control at the lathe. The club met at Woodcraft of Chattanooga, 5824 Brainerd Road, at 1 p.m. on its regular third-Saturday schedule, with the group again leaning on a demonstrator who knows how to teach the work as well as do it.

Tri-State Woodturners describes itself as a local chapter of the American Association of Woodturners, and its membership spans a wide range, from novice to skilled professional. Some members make all or part of their living from woodturning, and the club says it emphasizes both personal and environmental safety. Its public meeting materials also say the meetings are open to anyone interested in wood turning and are held every month except December.

Bunn fits the kind of demonstrator that club turners tend to remember. Public woodturning bios identify him as a North Carolina native now living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and say he has been involved in woodturning for more than 12 years. They also note that he has taught or assisted week-long workshops at John C. Campbell Folk School for more than a decade, a detail that carries weight in a shop where clear tool handling and repeatable technique matter more than a showpiece result.

His background reaches beyond the classroom. Biographical notes say Bunn served as president of a woodturning club in Raleigh and helped start and grow the Chapel Hill woodturners before moving to Cottondale, Alabama. That mix of club leadership and hands-on instruction helps explain why his name keeps surfacing across Southeastern turning circles, including an Alabama Woodturners Association newsletter that described him as a return demonstrator after both a sphere demo and an ikebana-vase demo.

Tri-State’s own meeting video archive showed Bunn was already familiar to the club, having demonstrated at its April 18 meeting by turning a sphere. For turners deciding whether to make the trip to Brainerd Road, that is the kind of session worth circling on the calendar: a repeat demonstrator with real workshop mileage, showing a form that demands accuracy, patience and clean presentation at the lathe.