Author: West Northants Woodturners

The evening was hosted as a demonstration from one our members, Adrian Finch, who introduced his project as a quaich. This is a traditional Scottish celebratory drinking vessel with 2 handles to allow the drink to be passed around the group. (Unfortunately Adrian did not supply any whisky to pass around).

The project was to create a bowl with a wide brim which is then partially cut away to leave 2 small handles . Sounds simple but was tricky to complete, however, Adrian managed this with great skill even with all of the light hearted heckling and barracking from some of the audience.

                                         

Overall a very entertaining and educational evening and we would hope that it gives some inspiration to the people there. Maybe we will get some quaich’s put in for the August competition table. 

 

This evening was the first installment of a 2 part demonstration by David Simms over 2 consecutive meetings. David is well known for his creation of watch fobs and clock and the first demonstration showed the making of a fob watch with stand. David used Acer for the fob surround and the stand base with oak for the spindle. 

This entailed a high degree of accuracy in machining the clock insert mortice and the mortice and tenon for the base (although the sizing on the night was a little tight).

The end product though was a very elegant assembly, as shown in the centre of the group on the photo below.

David started his project for the next meeting which is the hinged lid box clock which is back left on the photo. This should prove to be of real interest as the accuracy of machining will be paramount.

The evening demonstration was done by Geoff Warr who showed us how he makes a set of coasters with a plywood basket weave pattern insert.

The insert was pre-prepared by gluing the plywood strips together then turning them to round. The body of the coaster was made from a piece of ash by creating a recess for the insert then gluing it to place. It was then skimmed flat and sanded to finish and was then parted off.

However, this was not so successful as Geoff was using a club chuck and his tenon was set for his own chuck. The workpiece was not held securely and came out of the chuck. Unluckily for Geoff the incident was caught on camera, but thankfully no one was injured.

This just goes to show even the best turners have problems and you should always make sure you size the tenon correctly to the chuck jaws.

Geoff went on to make the holder for the coasters by ran out of time before it could be finished. Even so it was an entertaining and insightful demonstration giving most of us ideas for our future projects.

The June competition table produced some lovely work and the first place went to David Hartley with his 3 legged table.

Second place went to Geoff Warr for his set of coasters.

Third place was a 3 way tie with Bob Green and his deep bowl, Roger Gilbert with the small square bowl and Dave Simms with his clock and stand in a beautiful piece of snakewood.

The evening comprised of 2 turners doing a joint demonstration. The first part of the evening was done by Ian George who turned a birdbox with lid and finial. This involved some deep hollowing and showed many skills to achieve the final result.

                   

The second part of the evening was Gerald Hubbard who created one of his signature makes, a clock based on a wooden sphere. Making spheres is always considered a difficult skill but Gerald explained the technique and made it look achievable. Maybe this will inspire us to have a go.

                   

The evening started with the Annual General Meeting where Mick Denton explained what has happened with the club over the lockdowns and brought the members up to date with our current status and aspirations. This information will be summarised and issued on the Club Notices page in due course.

There was a quick break for tea and biscuits which is something that was not allowed during COVID 19 restrictions, so this was a really nice step back to some sort of normality.

The remainder of the evening was taken up by a small demonstration by Richard Coleman and then Mick Denton which rounded the evening off really well.

The monthly competition could almost have been themed as there were a number of plates and platters on the table. All very nice to see.

The yearly prize of woodturner of the year was announced. Third place went to Bob Green, second place was Roger Gilbert and first place went to Dave Simms.

The evenings demonstration was done by Mick Denton making a long stemmed goblet. Unfortunately during the demonstration Mick felt unwell so closed down early.

The demonstration for the evening was by Adrian Finch who made three items. However, he played about with coloured wax and achieved some interesting finishes which proved to be aim so overall a very interesting and entertaining demonstration.

Richard Coleman provided the demonstration for the night with 2 bowls, one in elm and the other in spalted beech. 

Even though the elm blank blank was quite dry and caused Richard a few headaches the final result was a nice bowl with lovely grain pattern.

The competition table was well represented and there was a draw for 1st prize which was taken by Dave Simms with his birds on a limb and Roger Gilbert with a bowl.

Second place was a thin wall bowl by Bob Green.

Third place went to Geoff Warr for his purple heart box.

This evening was a hands on and was well represented. There were 2 lathes set up along with the bandsaw so there was plenty going on to keep us all amused. The 2 lathes were used continuously with the novices among us gaining experience and instruction, which is primarily what the evening was set up to do. This also allowed other members to start the process of sorting out our equipment and inventory, so overall the evening was a success.

The demonstrator for this evening was Geoff Warr who is a club member and he has done many events for us. His introduction confirmed that he would be doing a couple of off centre turning projects, the first being a tea light holder and the second a small ornamental styalised bird.

For the tea light holder the workpiece was held between centres and the offsets were 5mm and each was taken in turn so that he produced a column that resembled a crankshaft. he then turned the holder itself and then joined the 2 together.

The second project was held in the chuck and the offset created by moving the work piece at a slight angle. The head and neck were then turned and finished before doing the opposite offset. The body and base were then turned to a finish and the bird parted off. The beak was made from a bobbin blank by turning to a point. The 2 would then be glued together.

The February competition was also held at this meeting. Although the number of entries was less that normal the overall quality was high.

First place went to Richard Coleman with his spalted beech bowl.

Second place was a pair of styalised birds.

Third was another bowl and again this was by Richard Coleman