The Lost Trades Fair venue changed this year to a new home at Bendigo’s race track. The show had previously been at Kyneton’s race track but the venue had become a little small for the numbers of people attending.

It was with a little trepidation that a few of the usual suspects headed up to Bendigo for the March long weekend. At this point I should thank Mick Connolly, Bill De Kaste, David Rivers, Will Matthyson, Duncan McHarg and of course myself for spending time promoting the club at the event.

The new venue turned out to be a great success, we had quite a good area to display the pieces that we had taken along. The spot had one side of windows that people could look through to see what was being done but no contact then the other side open for those interested and wanting to ask questions.

20,000 people went through over the weekend there was lots of space and places to sit and watch some of the Artisans at work, we had a projector and screen set up with video from a microscope that was capable of showing the turning of a balance staff and other small scale work. We also had a camera taking video so that people could see the other demonstrations we were doing at a larger scale. This allowed people to see what was being done without crowding around the tables.

We were very lucky with the show as it was just before the shutdowns of public gatherings etc. which would have cancelled the whole thing.

We had the gear cutting display and small turning set up in the Cabana Bar, along with some clock and watch tools in the window.

The photos below feature:

• Fergus showing Bills latest project.
• Bill doing some gear cutting which people could view through the window without any chance of fine brass chips being thrown their way.
• The other part of our display, the Tower Clock prototype which we set up for the weekend with the Grasshopper escapement that Will had made from Gidgee. The clock ran well though the time keeping needs to be adjusted.
• We displayed various clock from numerous eras along with one of Wills new creations.
• And a few views of the stand from various angles.