More from the NEOS Picnic 2012

Day two of the NEOS picnic is over and I'm worn out. Again today I was able to meet many new friends from all over. To all of you who came up to say hello I just want to say thank you. You guys and gals made my weekend special. I enjoyed speaking to all of you and learned so much.
As usual for a day two the attendance was a bit slower but there were still several visitors through out the day.
Towards the end if the day the contest winners were announced. Spencer Bloom took Best of Show with his incredible wavy ribbon. Spencer was kind enough to take me aside and show me a pictorial of how he built the jig and made the cuts for this piece. It was a intense session and I hope I can remember enough to give it a try myself.
This beautiful military themed cross took the blue ribbon for the show. I have to apologize that I did not get the name of the winner but I will re-post the picture as soon as I can ask. This cross was expertly cut. All the cuts on the piece had great detail and I could find very few if any flaws. The high gloss finish was clean and added to the look of the final project.
Here he is with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place ribbons. That was a mantle stuffing day if there ever was one. All the pieces were worthy of ribbons.
Lee Neiden, President of NEOS is pictured with both of the shows top winners. Congratulations. The work was very high quality.
Spencer was the grand prize raffle winner. Here Stephen Raffo, President and CEO of RJR Studios offers him congratulations on his winning a brand new Sand-Flee. Not only did he win the grand prize today he also won a couple of nice prizes yesterday and was the Best of Show winner in the contest. I would say Spencer is having a nice trip home today with winnings. I'm sure jealous. What a weekend he had.


The following pictures are just a small sample of some of the beautiful work on display at the show. I'll try to post more later.




The following video is probably something you have never seen before. Mike Anderson of Thunderwood fame was asked to make a few thunderized bangles for some of the women at the show. We took his thunder equipment outside and turned up the voltage.

What you are about to see is what happens when you turn 12,000 volts of electricity loose on a small wooden bangle. The end result is beautiful but the experience of watching the creation is breath taking. I edited the video late in the hotel room so excuse the typos.

Please remember that Mike is a long time employ of the Ohio electric company and he is highly trained to work with this type of voltage. This looks dangerous because it is. There is the possibility of death if you make a mistake. Please do not try to duplicate what Mike is about to show you.

If you are reading this in the email newsletter you may not see the video. Please click this link and watch it in your browser.