Turner of the Month
Doug Bruce
Doug Bruce
Doug has been fascinated with wood since childhood.
Starting with a go-cart built in the 60’s with his neighbour Wayne he built the Bruce Wayne Express & he was off & running.
In his early years he was as most are, primarily doing household projects
such as baseboard moulding, building fences & decks.
During his career with Via Rail Doug rose to the position of locomotive engineer. Because of the out of town work required
this left little time for woodworking so it wasn’t until retirement in 2013 that he was able to devote enough time to his hobbies.
In 1999 his love of golf took him to membership at a private golf course where, with the help of the maintenance staff he now had access
to mature trees that had fallen down due to storm damage. This led Doug to discover spalted sugar maple & soon he was making furniture
with the spalted maple. As Doug says “ if I like you I will make a piece of furniture “.
About 2015 Doug moved his dad’s old spindle lathe to his home shop in the garage & joined the Woodturners Guild of Ontario to learn how
to operate his Delta circa 1946 lathe. The first meeting that Doug attended showed Doug that he was far from the brightest bulb in the room.
The warm welcome that he received as well the information about lathes & turning was a turning ( no pun intended) point in Doug’s life.
In 2020 he & his lovely wife Barbara downsized their Toronto area home & moved to Port Stanley where Doug was able to build
a 1000 sq ft wood shop. This coincided with the covid 19 pandemic although through zoom meetings he was able to keep up with
his new buddies at the WGO. Through mentoring from good friends Brian Campbell & Ron Katz Doug’s interest has shifted from
furniture building to turning pepper mills ( he has sold more than 100 ) and bowl turning from the forest to the table.
In 2019 Doug finally had the confidence to enter some pieces in the year end
salon put on by the WGO where he earned the Michael Bonnycastle award of most promising novice turner.
Doug’s latest foray is into segmented turning which has yet again opened up a whole new chapter in his life.
What's next?
click on a picture to see a larger version
