Tonight Gerald Hubbard stood in for the evenings demonstration. He said the decision on what to do was simple bearing in mind the excellent result at Woodworks (see Club Notices page). The practice he put in for the gavel and anvil were ideal preparation for the evening. First he created the handle from a piece of laburnum as a spindle turning between centres, turning the shape and adding decoration as required.
It was sanded and then finished with sanding sealer and a wax finish. The gavel body was turned from a pre-constructed blank with a hole drilled for the handle made from a box wood body with ebony ends bonded to it. This too was set between centres and turned to almost complete, adding embellishments as wanted.
Great care was taken to ensure the body was reproduced as a mirror image either side of the centre hole. The body was sanded but Gerald had to be very careful that the dark wood dust did not contaminated the light colour. To achieve this separate abrasives were used on the different colours. The light wood was sealed with sanding sealer again being careful about contamination. The body was then mounted in wood jaws which were made from pieces of wood screwed to special chuck jaws and then turned specifically to hold the body.
This allowed Gerald to drill a hole in the end for a decorative insert, which were turned and glued into the body. The ends of the gavel were then finish turned and sanded, sealed and finished as required. The anvil black was mounted in a chuck and turned to a pleasing design then finished as required.
The body and the handle could then be glued and assembled. All in all this was a very interesting demonstration and bearing in mind the short time frame for the evening was completed really well. There are lots of techniques and tips that could be taken from the demonstration.