The demonstrator for the evening was Viv Harvey who offered us cakes, unfortunately not edible. His empty cake stand was to be loaded with turned wooden cakes of various types.
First up was a cup cake which was a spindle blank mounted between centres and turned to round. A tenon was created on one end and the blank then mounted in a chuck using the tenon. The basic shape for the cake base was made with a slight taper and a small bead at the top. He then cut a mortise in the top face to accept the topping. The base was then abraded, sealed and friction polished. It was then parted off and the base cleaned up and finished.
The topping was made from a contrasting wood and sized to suit the mortise in the base. The top face was shaped and finished in the same manner as the base. Once parted off it was glued into the cake using quick set PVA glue. The finished cake was embellished with a cake case.
Viv then created a jam tart which was made in exactly the same way except the base was made shorter in height. The “filling” was made from a light coloured wood and painted to look like jam. The final flourish was a turned wooden strawberry with little shallow holes drilled to look like seeds and painted red.
The next confection was a macaroon, again the process was exactly the same, making 2 shallow domed discs which were coloured and the paint wiped back so that it was a colour wash not solid. Another slightly smaller disc was created to act as the filling. Once it was all glued together it looked quite realistic.
The next option was a chocolate eclair again created as a simple cylinder which was given a slight cove over its length to make it look like an eclair. Viv then used a sanding disc mounted in the chuck to abrade 2 flats on opposite sides of the cylinder. He then cut to shape and abraded a thin piece of sapele to represent the chocolate top which was then glued to place.
Next up was a chocolate chip cookie, although the blank needs making first so Viv did the “Blue Peter” trick of here’s one I made earlier. It was a piece of sapele with several holes drilled randomly in the end to accept white dowels. This was mounted in the chuck and the end turned to a slight dome and finished as previously. This was parted off and the back face cleaned up and finished. This looked just like a white chocolate chip cookie. He showed us a similar cookie made from white wood and brown and white dowels to represent a normal cookie.
The last of the sweet treats was a cheese cake, although this was made from bowl blanks the principle was exactly the same. The topping was finished off with some simple domes of sapele to represent chocolate buttons. The cake was then cut into segments and the edges finished up.
The whole cake stand looked very impressive
With the time left Viv quickly made an acorn key ring to show how “simple” it is.
The very last thing for the evening was the March competition which this month was themed on tea cup and saucer. This was aimed at finalising the designs for the WoodWorks show competition.
Equal 3rd were Jerry Coles and Dave Simms
Second place went to Geoff Warr.
And first place went to Roger Gilbert
With the design being approved the various components of the teaset were allocated to various turners so we should get a good feedback over the next couple of meetings with their progress.