Club Night – 3rd April 2024

The club visit to the Proops Brothers shop in Leicestershire on 11th April will include a factory tour. Details are on the website home page. Those going should make their own way to 24 Saddington Road, Fleckney, Leics LE8 8AW to arrive by 1230, and we’ll all meet up there.

Today’s meeting was Hands-On with two lathes set up for members to use; one principally used for Gerald to demonstrate thread cutting and attempt to teach a particularly inept club member (me!) how to thread cut. Gerald kindly provided a piece of boxwood for the exercise and progress was made, but lots more practice is needed.

Help was available on bandsawing and tool sharpening for those that wanted it.

As well as close inspection of what was happening at the lathes, there was plenty of time for socialising – and drinking tea and coffee!

A threaded pink ivory box being made by Roy on the Record lathe generated a lot of interest.

He didn’t quite complete the project but the beautiful wood took a good finish and we all hope to see the finished product in the future.

Gerald was meanwhile progressing a threaded box, in the process showing how he uses the Bill Jones arm rest to support the threading tool. He made it look very easy but there’s definitely a knack to this.

Gerald didn’t complete the box he was working on, as he spent a lot of time explaining and demonstrating the techniques, but we could see the finished product as he brought along a lovely little example of the same type that he had previously made.

Not much bigger than 25mm in diameter, it is slightly unusual in that the thread is directly into the body opening, rather than on a tenon at the top of the body. This avoids the risk of running up against a shoulder whilst cutting the thread and, in my opinion, looks good. Another tip from Gerald – he uses a bull nose (rounded) drill to initially hollow out the box in order to avoid leaving a “nib” at the bottom which is awkward to remove in such a small box when using gouges or scrapers.

By the way, the pictures don’t do it justice; it looked far better in the hand without the artefacts caused by the reflection of the camera flash.