Meetings & Events

Chris Harkin was our demonstrator for tonight, with Jiminy Cricket his somewhat unusual subject.

Jiminy was made out of three main parts – body, head and hat – plus feet and hands, all joined together as appropriate.

The body was made first, with the blank set up between chuck and tailstock centre and then shaped to make the body segments before burning a line between the segments using a wire. It was sanded all over and finished off with an abrasive wax of Chris’s own making. Finally, it was parted off.

NOTE: the abrasive wax is a mixture of baby oil, beeswax and diatomaceous earth; Chris is still experimenting with exact proportions.

Next, the head. A blank was mounted in the chuck and the diameter trued up with a skew chisel. Chris then used the skew chisel and gouges to shape the head. The tailstock end was left blunt in order to form the nose.

Now for the hat. Mounted in a similar fashion between chuck and tailstock live centre, Chris quickly trued it up then shaped it with a gouge. To finish, he sanded it and then “painted” it with a felt tip pen with the lathe stationary. To reduce variations in colour, he applied wax while the ink was still tacky and then polished it with a paper towel at speed. Parted off and put to one side with the preceding two parts.

The feet and hands were turned as two items made from a cylinder mounted between the chuck and tailstock, parted off and then cut in half with a saw. In readiness for glueing to some welding wire, holes were drilled in appropriate positions – different for hands and feet.

To assemble Jiminy, Chris sanded flats on top of the body and on the bottom of the head, with another flat offset on on the top of the head for the hat. These were then drilled to accept dowels.

Two further holes were drilled in the hat brim to take the antennas which he made by curling the ends of some welding wire with pliers. Chris pointed out that the sharp ends of the cut wire need to be covered with a bead and turned inwards.

He then dowelled and glued the body head and hat together.

Taking some more welding wire, he bent the arms and legs to anatomically correct (????) shapes for an upright stance (he could have decided upon another stance e.g. prone), drilled holes to accept the arms and legs and glued them into position before also glueing the hands and feet on.

Chris drilled nose, sanded it flat and glued a bead on, with other beads being glued on for the eyes.

All was now complete other than for him to make a walking stick out of dowelling, with a coloured knob on top. To hold it securely, he filed a groove in Jiminy’s hand and glued it into position.

Now Jiminy looks ready to embark upon his adventures!

The competition table had a variety of items this month.

1st place was a natural edge bowl by Bob Green.

2nd place went to a set of miniature lidded vases by Viv Harvey.

3rd place was tied between a lidded box by Gerald Hubbard and a clock by Gerry Coles.

The evening started with Roger Gilbert and Mick Denton thanking all of those people involved in making the WoodWorks show such a success. This reflects on the club as a whole in the quality of work exhibited on both days.  Thank you all for your input.

The demonstration for the night was by Ian George, a long term member who has demonstrated before. His offering was a smoking mushroom with a tealight inside.

This is made up from 2 cones made from a Yew branch and having a live edge element to give additional interest.

The project involved reverse chucking both elements so it was interesting to see this in action.

The 2 elements had been prepared before hand so that the blanks each had a chucking tenon in place. The base section was then mounted and the inside rough turned to get the general shape and a chucking mortice created on the inside. 

This gave Ian the opportunity to get the shape of the piece and could then reverse the blank and turn the outside.

The piece was then reverse chucked again and the thickness tweaked until Ian felt it was right.

The top was then mounted on the chuck and using the same processes turned to final size.

The last piece to make was the chimney which was effectively a small cylinder which was then cut roughly in half at an angle then glued back together to make the offset. The top was drilled to take this and it was glued to place.

The last part was to add decoration in the form of windows and a door.

The panes were effectively created by drilling holes and then opening them up with a Dremel. The Dremel was then used to carve out the window and door frames. The tea light was placed inside the base so that the light showed through the windows and door panes. A lighted spill was put inside the top so that smoke would rise through the chimney.

 

As usual our club had a stand at Daventry Woodworks, the annual show that is put on by Tudor Rose Woodturners. The stand was put up on the Thursday night and a good assortment of turnings put out on Friday morning before the show opened: all expertly curated by Roger and his team.

Throughout the show, the stand was attended by club members, to answer any questions, also hoping to entice new members to join up. A lot of interest was shown in the wide variety of items on the stand, produced by many different members.

I’ve slipped in a picture of Gerald’s bowl of fruit here, simply because I loved it!

The display was refreshed with some different items for the second day of the show – it is simply not possible to lay everything out nicely in one go and it adds interest for those who come by on both days.

Once the show was underway, the various competitions also started at the allotted times with the good news rolling in as Roger was deservedly awarded 1^st place in the baby’s rattle competition – and with time to spare.

This was followed by 2^nd place for the display stand and 3^rd place for Gerald’s tazza, noteable for the lovely crisp lines on a beautiful piece of wood.

At the end of the show, this all added up to 1^st prize in the Overall Show Competition, a tremendous result and reward for all the hard work put in by the club’s turners and all those others who helped set everything up and provided items to put on the stand.

Our carousel was unfortunately not placed in the awards but it did receive a lot of compliments from attendees, especially for the way that it stood out for its visual impact.

Likewise, Viv’s square bowl (‘B’ in the picture) did not receive an award but was nevertheless attractive and well finished; I’d certainly be happy for it to sit on my sideboard at home!

No placing either, in Best of Show where the standard of entries was extremely high and the competition fierce!

Almost as important as the turning was an opportunity to meet so many like-minded folk and chat with old friends, many not seen since the last show. Did I mention the demonstrators and stalls selling lots of nice gizmos and timber, all contributing to a thoroughly enjoyable two days.

Thanks to everyone in the club who helped and contributed to our success at this show; it is so nice to end the day on a high!

Finally, a big thank you to Tudor Rose for putting on the show, always such a great occasion that brings turners together from all over the Midlands.

The Annual General Meeting was held today, so the evening was mainly about club business.

The minutes of last years AGM were read and accepted.

The club Officers delivered their reports, mostly along the lines of “steady as she goes” with the club ticking over nicely.

The Treasurer noted that the club’s finances were healthy but that more members would improve this further. He also thanked Tony Malin’s family for a donation from his estate. The accounts were accepted.

The meetings programme is largely complete, although we are always on the lookout for new demonstrators and some different formats are being introduced to add some variety.

There were some discussions with a number of suggestions for adding items to the club’s tool inventory and for ways of recruiting further members.

It was agreed that the members-only WhatsApp group would be better publicised within the club and used more widely as a communication tool.

All current club Officers were re-elected for the year.

There was also time for a couple of other activities.

Mick Denton gave a brief report on the recent visit to the Proops Brothers shop in Leicestershire on 11^th April. There was a good turnout and was adjudged a success with our members given a very interesting tour of the operation and plastics factory where a wide range of items are produced. They were well looked after, with tea and biscuits provided, and many departed with lighter wallets and heavier bags.

A repeat may be on the cards for next year if there’s sufficient interest.

Daventry Woodworks was also discussed with members asked to provide items for display on the club stand, and to help with setting up before the show, and to man the stand throughout both days.

The competition table held a varied selection of work for what is the first competition of the new club year.

1st place was a lidded bowl by Dave Simms.

2nd place was a table lamp by Chris Harkin.

3rd place went to a platter by Duncan Anderson.

The evenings demonstrator was Geoff Warr, a long term club member, who has done quite a few previous demo’s.

The first discussion point was to show how he makes sanding arbours from hard foam kneeling pads and old driver bits. 

The foam discs are cut from the pads using a hole saw with the teeth ground off and the edge sharpened. This is a useful tip for a quick and easy project.

The main demo was to make an owl ornament which was effectively a decorated ball on a stand.

The first task was to mount a spindle blank between centres and turn to round. A tenon was formed at one end and this then mounted in a chuck. The diameter of the blank was measured and then marked out on the blank so that it was equally spaced about the centre line. The ball was then turned out except for the where the tenon was. This was sanded to a finish and the stub reduced as far as he dared go before parting off with a saw.

The ball was then mounted between a wooden block in the chuck and a wooden insert for the revolving centre. The wooden centres were dimpled to take the circumference of the ball.

The ball was turned to round, removing the tenon and was sanded to a finish.

The next part of the process was to mount the ball into a donut clamp which is a jig that Geoff made to hold the ball safely when turning the eye sockets.

With some judicious measurements and lining up within the jig 2 dimples were turned to slightly overlap each other. Each was sanded to a finish before moving to the next.

The eyes were proprietary teddy bear eyes bought off the internet. The beak was made from a small square section of teak cut to form a 4 sided pyramid which was glued in place once a flat section had been sanded onto the ball.

The base was not demonstrated because of time but the process was a simple spindle turning with a dimple created in the top to take the ball.

A great night and a project that will give us something to test our skills. 

The club visit to the Proops Brothers shop in Leicestershire on 11^th 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.

This evening, Ken Garratt demonstrated making an egg-shaped box. For this, he used a sapele blank about 65mm diameter x 125mm length.

To start off, he mounted the blank between centres and put a chucking tenon on each end, after which he mounted it in the chuck.

Next, Ken marked the top and bottom of the box and the widest point of the body, this being one third of the overall length from the base.

He then made a groove to mark the lid and proceeded to shape the egg, before parting off the lid.

With the body still held in the chuck, Ken hollowed it out with a spindle gouge and refined it with a scraper. A mortice was formed in the body with the top edge slightly undercut to ensure a clean fit with the tenon.

Sanding was carried out with the abrasives on a stick for safety, and taking care to avoid the mortice.

It was then dismounted from the chuck – but not before marking its position in the jaws so that it could be accurately re-mounted later on.

With the body out of the way, Ken mounted the lid in the chuck and hollowed it in a similar fashion to the body. Once this was done he made a tenon to fit the body mortice, bringing up the body repeatedly between very fine cuts in order to get the right fit. A very slight taper on the tenon can help this process, with a friction line on the taper establishing an accurate diameter to work to.

As there is no knob or other shape to grasp on the lid, the tenon must not be too tight or it will be very difficult to remove the lid. At this juncture, however, Ken left it just a bit tight and assembled the two pieces before refining the external profile of the two pieces together on the lathe.

The box was sanded overall and the lid removed and Ken then made a shallow “shadow line” to act as guide to the lid position when opening the box. With the lid replaced on the box, he carried out final refinement of the shape and then parted the lid from its tenon at the tailstock end before tidying up the nub with a light touch of the gouge and some sanding. The lid was now finished and Ken put it to one side.

Ken now removed the box body and mounted a disc of wood in the chuck which he fashioned into a jam chuck to fit into the mortice.

With the tailstock brought up for support, he reduced the chucking tenon to a minimum and then shaped the bottom of the box, leaving some flats so that the box will stand up.

Finally, the box was parted off, the nub removed, the base sanded and the mortice checked for any marks left by the jam chuck.

Ken’s usual finish is Treatex hardwax oil, applied by bush and any surplus wiped off after about 15 minutes; this will give a pleasing satin finish. If left overnight, it can be buffed the following day for a shine. On this occasion he wiped it off a bit quicker than he would normally do and the box was left with a low satin finish.

Apologies to Ken – I forgot to align the grain of the lid and box before taking the picture. They did indeed line up seamlessly!

Mick Denton confirmed that the club visit to the Proops Brothers shop in Leicestershire is now on for 11^th April, and it will include a factory tour. Details are on the website home page, but Mick will give an update at the next meeting on Wednesday 20^th March. Proops sell a wide variety of hobbyist and craft items, and visits in the past made for a good day out. Best to go equipped with a list of must-haves!

Mick was our demonstrator for tonight and promised us an oak bowl with a raised foot, made out of another piece of his especially horrible dry oak (a piece of which made Adrian’s life harder at a previous demo).

Approx 150mm diameter x 70mm thick, the blank was mounted on a screw chuck and a chucking recess turned.

It was then reversed onto the chuck and he turned another chucking recess. Mick explained that two chucking recesses are not strictly needed, but it’s something he usually does as it adds flexibility to the turning process and provides an option to reverse top and bottom of the bowl if required for some reason.

Now he trued up the circumference before reversing the blank once again and starting to shape the underside of the bowl. Here, the wood showed its true nature and quickly blunted his bowl gouge so Mick gave it a quick tickle on the grinder and resumed work.

With a sharp tool, he quickly achieved the desired bowl and foot shape, finishing off with light shear cuts for a good finish. A point tool, with all three sides of differing length for different uses, was used to add some detail lines to the underside of the foot.

Final sanding was carried out with the lathe running in reverse, using very light pressure to avoid scoring the wood.

Reversed once again, hollowing out began, with Mick switching to a gouge with a steeper bevel angle for the bottom of the bowl.

In order to undercut the rim, Mick used a small round carbide-tipped tool which allowed him the access he required, and then a final thinning inside the bowl with the bowl gouge. After a quick sanding the bowl was done, although Mick may thin the walls a bit more at home with a smaller bowl gouge. He will also apply sanding sealer in his workshop at home (volatile – can’t be used in the village hall), rub it down and apply hard wax oil.

A tiny natural edge vase was next on the agenda, as Mick had a little time left. He mounted a small piece of yew in the chuck and hollowed it out with a bowl gouge, rounding the top edge internally with the point tool before returning to the bowl gouge to shape the outside of the vase, taking care to leave a natural edge at the top. The shape at the foot was refined using the point tool.

To complete, the vase was sanded with the lathe running in reverse and stick wax applied. The wax was polished with a paper towel, taking care not to apply too much pressure or the wax will drag and come off onto the towel. Finally the vase was parted off and the underside of the foot sanded.

The competition table had a variety of items this month.

1st place was a banksia seed pod vase with turned and carved flowers by Chris Harkin.

2nd place was a canted natural edge bowl by Roger Gilbert.

3rd place went to an eggcup and egg by Colin Humphries.

Gerald Hubbard was our demonstrator this evening, starting off with a brief introduction during which he passed around some books by the sadly departed masters of threadcutting, John Berkeley and Bill Jones. Bill was known as the last of the ivory turners and Mick Denton showed us pictures of some superb chess pieces produced by him. This certainly whet our appetite for what was to follow!

By the way, there is a wonderful video of Bill Jones on YouTube for those who are interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2G3LHZNiuU

Back in the present, Gerald explained that he would be making a small box to hold five £1 coins, demonstrating thread cutting (aka thread chasing) to screw together the top and bottom halves. In total, three threads would need to be cut, two for the box itself, and one for a screw chuck to hold the top whilst shaping the outside. To start, he used a small blank of boxwood about 30mm square x 100mm long, held securely in a chuck and centred with a revolving steb centre.

Base – male thread. He reduced it to a cylinder and then bored out the end with a 7/8” Forstner bit, to a depth that allowed 15mm for the five coins.

7/8” is just a bit too small for the coins so he increased the diameter with a scraper supported by a thread cutter support tool (commonly called a Bill Jones arm rest) resting on the tool rest.

Once this was done, Gerald chamfered the outside edge of the blank and made a small undercut a few mm back from the edge – this is to act as a relief at the end of the thread and to stop the tool from running on.

With a 16tpi cutter, he placed the arm rest and started the outside thread using only about three threads on the cutter. Once the thread was established, he started using more threads on subsequent passes. Gerald then shifted to a very light grip with just a few fingers on the end of the tool handle as he found that this produced a parallel thread rather than slightly tapered as tends to happen with a fuller grip. Lathe speed depends upon many factors (type of wood, size of workpiece etc) but Gerald usually has it running at around 300rpm for thread cutting.

To ensure a clean thread profile, he cleaned the threads with a waxed toothbrush before making the final pass with the threading tool and parting it off.

Lid – female thread. Another piece of boxwood was mounted in the chuck and hollowed out using a drill bit ground with a rounded profile and then the hole widened with a scraper before cutting a female thread to suit the male thread of the bottom part of the box.

Gerald repeatedly tried the fit until he was happy with it; a little Cut ‘n Polish wax may help with this. Once he was satisfied with the thread and the inside of the lid, it was parted off.

Screw chuck – male thread. A male thread was cut in order to make a screw chuck mount for the lid to allow for the external shaping. It doesn’t need to be a perfect lid but it does need to hold securely.

With the lid mounted, Gerald set about the shaping of it, but made a mistake from which he was unable to recover so, unfortunately, this very interesting demo came to an end. By now however, we had all learned something of the techniques, tools and materials required for thread cutting, which was the main purpose of the demo, so there was little lost from that point of view. Fortunately, Gerald had brought along a similar box to pass around, so we could see the more complete article, with a textured lid.

In order to fill in the remaining time, Gerald discussed the use of other materials for this type of work. He pointed out that threads cut well on polyester and resin blanks although the streamers of static-charged material were a bit of a nuisance. Resin can be prone to chipping, but warming it up in water reduces this.

He also showed us a Go-No Go gauge which had ends of different diameters for quick sizing of spigots from which to cut threads. The gauge was made of plastic casein, a product derived from milk and very widely used in the past. It is commonly used as an ivory alternative as it has a grain similar to that of ivory.

Finally, he passed around a thread cutting box for larger threads, typically 0.5” to 1.5”, very handy on occasion, and sometimes used in association with metal-working taps.

All in all this was a very interesting demo, with a good number of tips and tricks passed on to us. Thank you Gerald!

Before this evening’s demonstration started there was a brief discussion regarding progress of the carousel challenge, and Geoff and Chris subsequently spent much of the evening in a huddle over the prototype.

Mick Denton asked if there was any interest in a club visit to the Proops Brothers shop in Leicestershire. A number of people said yes, but it was apparent that more would be required to make it a worthwhile for Proops to make special arrangements for us. As some will already know, Proops sell a wide variety of hobbyist and craft items, and visits in the past made for a good day out, complete with a tour around the shop and facilities. www.proopsbrothers.com

Our demonstrator tonight was Adrian Finch who kept us guessing as to what he was making until well on with the process. He used two pieces of an unknown hardwood, themselves glued together from smaller pieces. Both pieces were approx 150mm diameter x 75mm thick.

The first piece was mounted on a screw chuck, the end trued up and a tenon recess cut into it.

 

Adrian reversed it onto the chuck, centred a template onto it and used this to mark out three holes for drilling with a forstner bit. Once drilled, he noted the depth on the circumference of the blank.

Next, he shaped the outside before making a recess to suit an LED tealight and a groove to suit the top of a jamjar. It was now becoming clear that Adrian was making a tealight lamp with this piece forming the base.

With the blank removed from the lathe he glued three uprights into the drilled holes, aligning them carefully with the template, and set the assembly aside while the glue set – and we had a break for refreshments!

The second piece was mounted on a screw chuck, the end trued up and then a tenon recess cut into it before being reversed onto the chuck and faced off.

Once again, the template was offered up and the holes marked out on this, the top, as for the base.

Adrian then drilled a deep hole with a large forstner bit and widened it to accept the bottom of the jamjar. Why so deep? It is to allow sufficient headroom for the jamjar to be lifted up to allow removal and replacement of the tealight when the battery runs out.

The top was then formed into a flanged dome, resembling the top of a lighthouse. With time running out, Adrian explained that the top would be dry-fitted to the three uprights and the height adjusted to allow for replacement of the tealight and the uprights cut to length before the whole assembly was glued together.

Although this was a stand-alone project, it could also be adapted to form the top part of a lighthouse with any number of variations in shape and finished design – a good inspiration for future projects.

The competition table had a good selection of items this month – some of them “edible”!

1st place was a pair of eggs in eggcups by Roger Gilbert.

2nd place was a miniature set of drinks and goblets by Chris Harkin.

3rd place went to a winged box by Gerry Coles.