World Wide Wood Turners updates site with segmented-ring tutorial and newsletter archive

A club site built for turners who are already in motion

The sharpest thing on World Wide Wood Turners right now is not a splashy announcement, but a working lesson: Roger Wollam’s segmented-ring tutorial shows how a double-segmented insert is built, cut apart, and fitted back into a larger segmented bowl. That is the kind of project that rewards a turner who is ready to measure carefully, clamp cleanly, and think a few steps ahead before the blank ever reaches the lathe.

The May 20 newsletter sits inside a site that feels less like a bulletin board and more like a shop bench in digital form. Alongside the featured tutorial, the homepage points to In Memorium by Joaquin Juatai, Thin Walls and Piercing with Matt Harber, Lathe Drilling Helper by Bob Grinstead, and a registration reminder for LEVEL-UP 2026. It also offers downloadable handouts, past newsletter compilations, and even a patch and sticker store, which gives the whole page the feel of a club utility center built for people who actually use the material.

What the segmented-ring tutorial is really teaching

Wollam’s piece is about more than a decorative insert. The design is a double-segmented construction, and the example he uses is sized at 2 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches, with a 4-inch outside diameter to make room for the internal pieces. The core ring is made from 16 segments, then built up with 1/8-inch veneer to bring the dimension down to .625, plus a 1/8-inch spacer to separate the halves.

That sequence matters because it shows the true discipline behind segmented work. After the glue-up, the piece goes into Cole jaws, a 1 1/8-inch hole is drilled in the center, the clamp comes off, a 1 1/8-inch center piece goes in, and the work is reclamped. From there, the insert is bandsawn apart through the spacers, the bottom edge is flattened on a disk sander, and the final sizing happens on the table saw with a miter gauge.

If you are heading into the shop with a segmented blank on the bench, this is the kind of tutorial that gives you a real next move. You can check your ring geometry before cutting, think through how the veneer and spacers change the finished size, and plan the sequence so the fit into the bowl is deliberate rather than improvised. The lesson lands because it treats segmented work the way turners know it actually works: arithmetic, jigging, patience, and a lot of dry fitting.

Why the May 20 newsletter is worth opening

The newsletter matters because it bundles the parts of club life that active turners actually use. Memorial notes, technical articles, and event promotion all sit together in one place, which means the issue does not read like a one-off post. It reads like a snapshot of the club’s current conversation, with enough variety to serve both the person looking for a new project and the person tracking what the club is doing next.

That structure is backed up by the archive itself. The newsletter page identifies the May 20, 2026 issue as the latest newsletter and points directly to past newsletters and yearly newsletter compilations. In other words, the site is building a readable trail of what members are making, teaching, and remembering, not just posting a headline and moving on.

The April 2026 newsletter reinforces that pattern. It also included In Memorium by Joaquin Juatai and the same Making the Sun Rise design ring article by Roger Wollam, which shows how the club is treating core technical content as something worth re-featuring inside the newsletter stream. For a reader who wants to follow the club’s thinking, that repetition is useful rather than redundant. It makes the archive feel like a living tool chest.

Level-Up 2026 pushes the newsletter into the shop

The May 20 issue also works as a setup for LEVEL-UP 2026, which the club describes as a three-day, immersive, hands-on experience. Registration is tied to September 17–20, 2026, in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, and the event schedule makes clear that segmented turning is not being treated as a side topic. It is part of the advanced path.

Roger Wollam is listed for a prereq-based Segment Layout & Cutting class off the lathe and for Segment Bowl Turning on the lathe. There is also an Open Segment Vessel demonstration on Saturday. That lineup gives the newsletter’s segmented-ring tutorial a practical follow-through: the article is not just something to read and admire, but a preview of the sort of work the club wants members to take further at LEVEL-UP.

For someone deciding whether to open the issue, that is the payoff. The newsletter is not merely announcing that content exists. It is showing the next rung up the ladder, from a detailed design ring tutorial to a hands-on event where the same language of segments, layout, and bowl turning becomes a live class schedule.

A weekly rhythm that keeps the club active

World Wide Wood Turners backs all of this with a steady weekly cadence. Meetings are held Wednesdays from 6:00 to 9:00 PM CT, and the club says they typically include how-to demonstrations, tips and tricks, safety moments, a video gallery of turned projects, and live show-and-tell. That mix explains why the site can support both memorial tributes and highly technical how-to material without feeling scattered.

The instructional pages also carry a liability disclaimer stating that the content is for informational and educational purposes only. That matters in a community built on tool use, careful setup, and personal technique. The site is encouraging members to learn from one another while making clear that the tutorials are guidance, not shop supervision.

Taken together, the May 20 newsletter, the archive, and the Level-Up schedule all point in the same direction: this is a club site built for turners who want to improve right now. The segmented-ring tutorial gives you a specific project to study, the archive gives you a trail to follow, and LEVEL-UP 2026 shows where that skill can go next when the work moves from the page back to the lathe.