Chester County Edition
October 2011
Vol. 8 No. 10
Turning Wood into Wonderful In Retirement, Local Man Takes on Fulltime Woodturning By Beth Anne Heesen He might be retired, but Robert Gochnauer is hard at work dawn to dusk most days. In his home-based woodturning shop, that is. The 75-year-old knew he needed something to pour his time into when he retired 13 years ago. “My wife Mary Anne and I, we don’t like traveling too much,” he said. “But both of us need to be busy. She does sewing and if I didn’t do woodturning, my life would be that I’d be grumpy,” he said with a laugh. What makes woodturning unique from other forms of woodworking is that the wood rotates while the artist works with it. Gochnauer places a log on a machine tool known as a lathe that turns the log while he cuts and shapes it into something beautiful. He likes to work with wet, green logs. Among his creations are bowls, plates, pepper mills, clocks, miniature Christmas trees, and other Christmas ornaments. He makes pens and letter openers for graduation gifts. Some of his favorite pieces are a set of bowls with bark left on them. He also makes specialty items for antique dealers, who might need a special rung for a chair or a doorknob smaller than anything they can find in a store. please see WOOD page 18 Local woodturner Robert Gochnauer compares a completed bowl, left, to a work still in progress, right.
Inside:
Medicare
Forum
Free Medicare Forums to Be Held This Fall page 3
Elizabeth Taylor Collection Sparks Global Exhibitions page 9
Landisville, PA Permit No. 3
PAID PRSRT STANDARD U.S. POSTAGE