Williston Crossing RV Resort & Wood Turning

I noticed an interest posting on the board while we were at the RV resort in Williston Florida. The Williston Crossings RV Resort has a full wood shop that has a couple of table top wood lathes. I have recently wanted to learn how to make some small wooden items on lathe – wood turning. Another new hobby!

The Williston Wood Shop

This RV park has a very large list of amenities and activities. Even more in a non-pandemic year I have been told. That is one of the reasons that we selected this location to try for a month. More on the RV park later on in this post.

The wood shop is well appointed with all of the major power tools and a large supply of hand tools as well. And having a nice wood shop was another reason to select this RV resort. Well, there was one small problem.

There had recently been a turnover in the wood shop manager position. Currently they had no manager but a mafia of old gents that had staged a coup of sorts. The wood shop club was no longer accepting new members. I’m not sure what all the bitterness was about. When we checked in and I was told this, it was a bit disappointing. But, plenty of other stuff to do.

Then about a week later I saw a sheet of paper posted on the “activities” board asking for people to sign up if interested in learning how to operate a wood lathe. Well, that was great as that was my primarily interest in the shop!

Wood Turning Lessons

One of the park winter residents (Tom) was in charge of the one on one lessons. He had me and another guy sign up. Tom was very knowledgeable and is a hobbyist like me, not having spent a career in this field.

We first did a practice piece of 2×2 pine by finding the center points on both ends. Then loading the board on the lathe’s fixture and tailstock. Tom explained there are three types of tools that we will use. A bowl gouge, spindle gouge, and a cutoff tool.

It was pretty easy to turn the piece using a variety of sizes of the tools mentioned above. The first pass was to round off all four corners. Then is was on to design some grooves and ridges. Just like a chair spindle!

Finally we sanded the piece with 8 different grits getting finer as we went. Sanding is done with the spindle turning on the lathe. Then to finish with some special wood wax sealer material.

The next project was an old fashioned pepper mill using the same process as above with the only difference is we bored a hole through the piece of walnut. The hole is made by chucking the wood piece into the lathe and using a drill bit loaded in the tail stock. Quite easy. When it was finished, I attached the pepper grinder using a couple of small screws. It looks great!

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The Search for the Perfect Winter RV Destination

We have now stayed at many RV parks in many different states. Some are no more than a parking lot with some utility hook ups while others are more like resorts with many amenities. Our all time favorite place is down in south Texas by the Mexico border. Yes, Llano Grande is the pinnacle of RV resorts for RVers who are escaping the winters from Up North. The only downside is the long distance from our place in Virginia – about 1,500 miles.

Other winter locations have some great attributes, such as Buttonwood Inlet RV Resort that is the perfect beach location, but only a few amenities. And then there is Citrus Valley in Clermont FL that is beautiful, but no activities.

All of these are fine places, but to spend 5-6 months over a winter, we prefer more things to do within the park. I also just enjoy hanging out with friends, reading a book, or relaxing, but at this stage of our retirement we enjoy a few more activities and entertainment.

Williston Crossing RV Resort

We found this park last year and stayed for a couple of nights on the way back to Virginia. It is very nice having many amenities and quite a few activities as well. It is a 55 and over resort and has the following amenities: pickleball, shuffleboard, horseshoes, a library, hiking trails, campfire gazebo, fitness center, clubhouse, and activity center. They also have the normal laundry, shower house, and more I’m sure. Plus they have the wood shop that is currently off limits as referenced above.

They have some planned activities that have restarted this year and having been cancelled most of last year. The park is also very well landscaped and maintained. The monthly rates were about $1,300 but are reduced by staying multiple months.

They look to be about 95% full to capacity, so an early winter reservation would be the ticket. We would return again.

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Wrap Up

Thanks for following along! Next up will be our one week stay in Cedar Key Florida! Take care and God Bless.