Plan to visit the club's demonstration area at the 2026 Syracuse Maker Faire at a date to be determined. We expect to return to the Horticulture Building. We are looking forward to the event!
Over 30 members of the club provided demonstrations, instruction, and information to visitors at the 2025 Syracuse Maker Faire on Saturday, May 3rd, 2025. Again held in the Horticulture Building, our space features a variety of demonstrations. As in the past, we had carvers, scrollers, and turners, but this year added a chair weaver and a members working on mortise and tenons with hand tools! We also projected the demos on the white wall throughout the day. Enjoy photos of our demonstrations!
Our (50' x 20') runs along the back wall of the Horticulture Building. We lined up our equipment across the front of the booth: chair weaving first, then traditional mortise & tenon joinery, then turning, a table with various Show & Tell items and club information, scrolling, pen turning, carving, and finally our touchable toys area manned by the carvers. The white wall is perfect for us to project images from the four cameras deployed in our booth. We used two projectors, showing all the cameras on each image. Each collage below provides a few photos highlighting each area, the first one with miscellaneous photos.
CHAIR WEAVING
Eric Hovater led the chair weaving demos. There was often a group of folks asking about the process. New member Hanne spent some time learning from Eric and weaving one of the chairs.
TRADITIONAL JOINERY MORTISE & TENON JOINTS
Jeff Handel brought a portable workbench to demonstrate cutting mortise and tenon joints. He worked with ash milled and donated by Charlie that will eventually become a new portable workbench for club demonstrations at future events.
CARVERS
Six of our many established carvers attended this year's event plus one of our new young carvers, Issac, who received one-on-one instruction from Grampa Ed. A wide variety of completed carved projects were on display, including the automata of Mike Bloomquist. The carvers also engaged visitors with our touchable toys played with by many kids and adults as well.
SCROLLERS
Two of the club scroll saws - the Pegas and new Bauer - were busy all day long with a variety of demonstrators including our club president, Doug North, who normally turns. Later on Saturday afternoon two of our newest young scrollers, Sadie and Luc, joined us. They learned scrolling in September at a Saturday workshop. Both are already creating some challenging projects.
PEN TURNING
The club participates in a national program [Pens for Troops] that produces pens for active military and those in rehab. Last year Arlene produced over 100 pens on this small pen turning lathe she acquired second hand. Arlene is also a carver. During this event, Arlene produced 10 pens. When Collin arrived with his siblings, she worked with him to turn two more pens.
TURNING
The club membership includes many folks that are turners of varying skill levels. At events like this, the Farm Show, and the New York State Fair, our members turn a variety of items from finials to bowls to tops. Traditionally at Maker Faire, we've also introduced turning to one or more members who never turned before. This year, Charlie showed Hanne and Lisa how to turn with Rick taking over for Charlie as Lisa completed a fuzzy tree from green wood.