Hi

I’m still on holiday, and as I haven’t been in the office lately, I haven’t been able to collect any questions. So I thought I’d share a couple of the unusual feedback and comments we’ve had recently. I think they’re worth a read, we always enjoy hearing about how our products are being used!
See what you think!

I wonder if you remember a question from a couple of weeks ago, about cleaning some pews and headstones in a church? I was contacted by regular reader Ian (aka Rev.O.Lutions). He once told me that the weekly Newsletter was always his cue to write his sermon; he’s now a retired Vicar, but still turning. He told me that:
‘In some instances, cleaning of headstones, brasses and other grave markers might need special permission before attempting.
The church planning consent process is called Faculty.
Sometimes the planning folk get itchy about things being over cleaned. This is especially true in a churchyard setting, where we are not allowed to clean headstones and memorials where lichens etc are present. It can be harmful to the environment, and we must take care of the flora and fauna in churchyards as conservation areas in themselves.’
Thanks for helping avoid any unpleasant repercussions from overkeen church helpers, Ian!

Another oddity came from Bruce, showing that thinking outside the box can be an asset! He told me:
‘I use bifocal safety glasses when turning and over time they had picked up a few scratches, of course in the wrong places, making things a bit indistinguishable at times.
Chestnut domed polishing mops are great for buffing up plastic lenses after rubbing them with toothpaste, the mops are as you know washable, great to be able to see clearly again!’
It’s not something we could recommend, but it obviously works for Bruce, thanks for letting us know!

Finally, in my round-up of strange things…you might have noticed (and if not, you soon will) that we’ve changed the style of our 500ml and 1 ltr metal cans.
We’ve had to stop using the cans with the protruding central metal neck, and have switched to cans with a plastic neck, still on the top of the can but at one side. The caps have changed at the same time, we’ll no longer be using the metal screw caps or the plastic ‘click-lock’ caps. Instead, the cans will have plastic caps, with ones you have to squeeze to release, where needed. Why have we done this, you may wonder? Is it a cost-saving move?
I wish it was that simple. Believe it or not, the ‘click-lock’ caps are no longer being made in the sizes we use. It’s thrown us (and other companies) into a bit of turmoil, as we have thousands of cans in stock but no lids! (They don’t come as a pair, or even in the same box/pallet quantities. That would be too easy!). The new cans are the only option to maintain the legal requirement of the child-resistant-closures, so we’ve been forced to make this change.
And yes, of course this imposed change is more expensive!
(Ooh, that last bit sounded like a bit of a rant, sorry! But I hate it when things get changed and no reason is given, at least now you know why we’re doing this. We wait to see how popular (or otherwise) it is. Sadly, there’s no going back!)

We launched the tickets for our Woodturning Weekender recently, initially to subscribers to our bulletins. I’m very pleased it has been so well-supported already. Judging by the locations of some of the ticket purchasers, people are willing to travel long distances to attend. Thank you for your support.
We’ll be updating the Weekender website next week with more details of the event, if you want to find out more and maybe even join us, keep a watch-out for it.

I’m back in the office early next week, and will be back in your inbox later in the week too! See you then.

Terry