Lancaster County Edition
October 2011
Vol. 17 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 Lancaster resident knew he needed something to pour his time into when he retired 13 years ago. âMy wife Mary Anne and I, we donât like traveling too much,â he said. âBut both of us need to be busy. She does sewing and if I didnât do woodturning, my life would be that Iâd be grumpy,â 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 46 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
Special Section: Lancaster County 50plus EXPO page 17