After the hall doors opened there were a few side attractions in the form of some banksia seed pods on sale and a prototype carousel for discussion, but everyone busied themselves setting out chairs etc and after a welcome from Chairman Roger Gilbert our demonstrator tonight, club member Adrian Finch, was ready to make a start.
Typically, Adrian had come up with a slightly unusual subject for his demo – in this case, a meal kit for a Civil War roundhead soldier!
The first item was a plate, made from some very dry oak – something of a challenge but overcome without any fuss. The blank was about 200mm diameter x 50mm thick.
Adrian mounted the blank between centres in a similar fashion as for all three items, using his home-made multi-point centre to drive it, with a live cup centre in the tailstock.
He formed an internal tenon and then reversed the blank onto a chuck to shape the underside and place another tenon on it. After a quick sanding, he applied beeswax polished it and then reversed the plate and hollowed it out with a bowl gouge.
The surface of the plate was cleaned up with a scraper and then Adrian sanded, waxed and polished it.
The next item was a bowl, commonly used in the past for pottage, a thick soup or stew.
The oak blank, about 165mm diameter x 100mm thick, was mounted between centres and then turned to a bowl using pretty much the same procedure as the plate, but deeper.
A nice touch was the 16th century spoon that Adrian brought along to go with the bowl!
The final item was a goblet (very important!), with the an oak blank, about 100mm diameter x 150mm long mounted between centres as with the bowl. This though was endgrain turning, unlike the plate and bowl.
He formed and tenon and mounted the blank in the chuck then shaped the cup of the goblet and hollowed it out with a spindle gouge.
Next, Adrian shaped the stem and foot before partially parting it off.
It was finished off by sanding, waxing and polishing and then fully parted off.
Now he’s ready to go into battle.
Or at least he would be if someone hadn’t already claimed the plate!
The competition table had a selection of smaller items this month.
1st place was a lidded pot by Dave Simms.
2nd place was another pot, this one by Gerry Coles, with threaded boxwood inserts for the lid.
3rd place went to a square bowl by Viv Harvey.
