The demonstrator for the evening was Dave Simms who introduced his theme as simple forms.
The first project he undertook was to turn between centres 2 teardrop shaped forms one about one third the size of the other . these were to create a bird using the larger of the 2 pieces for the body and the smaller the head. A small hole was drilled in both to take a dowel to connect them together. Dave showed a branch that he had adorned with 4 or 5 birds. He also showed us a slightly larger form of a single bird mounted on 1 leg (wader style) on a plinth.
The next project was similar but much larger in scale. This time after roughing out between centres he mounted the place in a chuck. This allowed him to turn the larger teardrop forms.
This bird was mounted differently in that he created a neck from a wooden curtain ring cut in half. Both head and neck were drilled to accept the neck and 2 holes drilled on the underside of the body for legs. The finished item mounted as a pair of birds looked very effective.
The final project was a slight deviation from the bird theme to a fish which involved a similar process but the tail was actually formed as a shallow cup and then the sides cut away on the bandsaw to create the lobes of the tail. Again this was very effective. The little stub left from parting off was cut slightly on the saw to form a mouth.
This all gave many of us ideas for “quick and simple” projects that will appeal to many.
Our first meeting of the new year was saved by Chairman Roger stepping in to do a demonstration after Geoff had to cancel. Despite the short notice, Roger came well equipped with a selection of wood and tools.
Roger laid out his blanks and asked for suggestions as to what to make, eventually settling upon a long-stemmed goblet made from a piece of nicely spalted beech.
The goblet blank was about 250mm long x 100mm square and posed the first problem, as Roger didn’t have a Forstner bit with him and the chuck jaws were quite small, so hollowing with a spindle gouge was found to be impractical due to vibration of the wood. To get around this, he shortened the blank and remounted it to make a goblet with a shorter stem.
With less vibration, Roger quickly hollowed out the cup with a spindle gouge and then supported the work with the tailstock live centre pressing against a rubber ball in the cup. With this support, he shaped the outside of the cup using a spindle gouge and a skew chisel.
Moving onto the stem, he cut slots to form two upstands and then started forming them into captive rings with a thin parting tool and a captive ring tool.
Roger used a wire to burn a line in each of the rings and then released the rings with the captive ring tool.
Holding the rings out of the way (fiddly), he turned the stem to it’s final shape and sanded it. The inside of the rings he sanded by securing abrasive around the stem with some tape and then running the lathe, manipulating the rings as necessary.
A final refinement of the cup was followed by sanding and the goblet was then parted off to complete the job.
The competition table had a good selection of items this month (sorry, no picture of the table).
1st place was a segmented clock by Roger Gilbert.
2nd place was an ash bowl by Gerry Coles.
3rd place went to a box with a hinged lid by Chris Hawkins.
Arguably, the main attraction tonight was the food! As something of a social evening, members brought along plenty of food to tuck into throughout the meeting, and there was still plenty remaining after close of play.
Still, woodturning is what the club is about so two lathes were set up and Dave, Mick and Roger turned a variety of items which generated a lot of interest and some useful ideas for many of us.
Roger made a nice little baby’s rattle with three captive rings. He made the captive rings look deceptively simple!
Dave made a snowman (why do they always have top hats?) to add to his display collection of snowman and other items, some of them decorated to add a splash of colour.
Mick turned a fencepost finial. As his blank was only just big enough for the desired diameter of the finial, he marked the centres very carefully to avoid undersizing. The marking-out method he used was a new one to many of us and was designed to obviate the inaccuracy of determining precisely the corners of a wooden blank when scribing the diagonals. He laid a steel rule carefully along each of the sides in turn and drew a pencil line along the rule in each position. This formed an inner square on the end of the blank, with sharp corners that allowed accurate diagonals to be drawn and thus the centre to be determined.
Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the marking-out but here’s one of the nearly completed finial.
A number of potential new members also attended and were given plenty of advice (sometimes conflicting?) about what to buy, what not to buy etc. Mick also set up a sharpening station and sharpened new woodturner Kyle’s tools whilst showing him how to do it for himself.
All in all, a very nice relaxed evening with plenty of time to chat and catch up with each other.
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.
Chairman Roger Gilbert opened the meeting with a few words of welcome and an outline of the plans for our Christmas meeting on 20th December. It will be a social meet, with two lathes set up for Mick and Roger to demonstrate on, and with snacks and food available. Club members were asked to bring along food on the night so that we have a good variety of Christmas goodies to tuck into.
Our demonstrator for this evening, club member Dave Simms, explained that he’d be making a wine-pouring ensemble for us (red wine of course) using oak for the goblet and bottle, and spalted beech for the base.
Starting with the goblet, Dave mounted the blank between centres, made a tenon on one end and mounted it in the chuck. He then squared the end before forming a recess to establish the “wine” level. Bringing up the tailstock for suppport, he shaped the outside and sanded overall. The “wine” was then applied with an acrylic pen to impart a nice beaujolais colour.
Dave had prepared the base earlier so he now parted off the goblet and mounted the base in the chuck. He cut a recess to suit the foot of the goblet and checked its fit before removing the base.
He now mounted the bottle blank between centres, rounded it, made a tenon on one end and mounted it in the chuck. Next, he parted off a slice from the end – this will form the bottom of the bottle later on. Using a forstner drill in the tailstock, he bored out much of the bottle in order to reduce its weight and prevent the completed assembly from toppling over.
The tailstock was brought up for support, and the outside of the bottle shaped and the bottom re-attached. A quick sanding and parting off, and everything was ready for assembling.
The top of the bottle and the top of the goblet were drilled to suit the piece of wire which was to represent the wine “flow” and then bent to shape before inserting in the holes. Finally, Dave painted the wire with his acrylic pen so that it matched the contents of the goblet.
With a little time to spare, Dave started making a simple mystery item, shaping the wood and then applying a few craft shop items to make – a pig! For completion, he would later sand a flat on the underside so that the pig stands upright.
The meeting was opened with a few words of welcome from Chairman Roger Gilbert and our demonstrator tonight, club member Viv Harvey, then took over and explained that he’d be making a number of straightforward items for us, with a Christmas theme.
The first item was a snowman LED tea light holder, made from a 94mm cube of redwood.
After a brief discussion of different methods of marking the centres, the blank was mounted between centres with a steb centre driving the blank as this is better on the soft wood.
Quickly rounded using a spindle roughing gouge, a tenon was put on one end and the blank reversed onto a chuck. Viv next marked out the blank and then drilled a hole about 15mm deep on the end with a forstner bit to suit the LED tea light.
With the prep work completed, he squared off the end and started shaping the hat (tea light holder), next moving onto the brim of the hat which he pointed out looked better if the diameter is a bit less than that of the head. Closer to the chuck now, Viv turned the neck, leaving a thin disc of wood to protect against contact with the chuck. Moving back to the mid-section, he shaped the head with an all-rounder gouge and finished it off with skew chisel used as a scraper.
With the shape now well defined he cleaned up a few chips on the hat brim and took off any sharp edges then opened up the tea light recess a little with a spindle gouge because it was a slightly tight fit. This type of apparently identical tea lights do vary a little in size so a specific drill size rarely fits them all.
It was quickly sanded all over and parted off, and the base sanded on a disc in the lathe chuck. Viv also demonstrated the use of the parted-off chuck tenon with a suitable disc for making a sanding disc with hook and loop for attaching the abrasive sheets.
He uses cheap acrylic paint for colouring the hat, with emulsion for the head, and adhesive eyes and hat band from any craft shop. He didn’t have time to demonstrate making the nose but any small piece of wood could be used for this.
Continuing the Christmas theme, Viv then made a number of items from a broom handle of bamboo(?). Such handles are cheap and usually turn well, so ideal for small items such as these. He cut a number of lengths off the handle, ranging from about 125mm to 250mm long and followed a similar procedure for all of them, i.e. held in a small chuck and steadied with a live centre.
Snowman bottle stopper: Mount on lathe, mark out; only critical length is the part upon which the rubber stopper is mounted – turn this first then move on to the body and hat. Sand and part off. The pen is just to give an idea of size, not for advertising!
Honey dipper: Mount on lathe, mark out; no critical dimensions. Turn the handle first and shape the end. Use a parting tool to put the loading grooves in the pickup end, on this occasion, about 6mm deep). Sand and part off.
Potting dibber: Mount on lathe, mark out; no critical dimensions. The dibber has two different end shapes; one for pricking out, and one for potting. Turn both ends, sand and part off.
Christmas tree decorations: Mount on lathe, mark out if necessary and make whatever is desired. With a Christmas theme this could be a tree, a bell or – as Viv did – just a decoration to hang from the tree. He turned them to taste, then sanded and parted them off before fixing small brass eyes on them.
Finally, a completely different (not Christmassy) turning, using up small waste pieces from the earlier projects.
Hedgehog: Mounted in the chuck, he turned a conical shape and parted it off, and then repeated as there was still a small piece of wood protruding from the chuck. No wastage of wood here! Viv then produced a pine cone hedgehog and explained that all was needed was to put one flat on the end of a pine cone and another on the side and then to glue the small piece of wood into place – he uses hot melt glue. Add eyes and nose to your liking to complete the job.
This was a great demo by Viv with lots of ideas for small Christmas gifts, greatly enjoyed by everyone – thank you Viv!
The competition table had a good collection of items this month.
1st place was by Gerald Hubbard with a collection of banksia seed pod apples displayed in a nice bowl.
2nd place was an oak dish by Dave Rostance.
3rd place went to a pair of spalted salt and pepper grinders by Roger Gilbert.
The meeting opened with some introductory words from Chairman Roger Gilbert and a welcome to our demonstrator this evening, Ian Ethell.
Ian brought along some examples of his work for us to see and explained that he would show us the making of a winged bowl, of which there were several examples on display.
He quickly ran through the seven fundamentals of woodturning – Wood grain; Chucking; Sharp Tool; Tool Rest Height, Rotation Speed; Stance; Technique – and said that much of his turning would be done using a bowl gouge with a 40/40 grind as espoused by Stuart Batty, and the heel ground off. He later provided a handout explaining the seven fundamentals in some detail – useful.
The bowl would be made from a yew blank of (my estimate) about 200 x 100 x 50mm in size. The blank was mounted between centres and a groove cut to suit the chuck jaws, and the blank then reversed.
Next, the waste in way of the wings was removed, taking care to keep clear of sharp edges. The bulk of the wing waste was removed with a bowl gouge, starting on the outside, and moving in in steps, and then squared off with a negative rake scraper. There is a lot of air when turning a bowl of this type, so Ian held the lathe speed down to about 800rpm. As it is the burr on the scraper that does the work, trips to the grinder after every 20 or 30 seconds of scraping were required to restore the burr.
This step process was repeated until the mass of wood remaining in the centre was ready for shaping into the bowl. With the tailstock removed to improve access, he made a series of cuts from the tenon to the wings in single fluid movements. Once satisfied with the shape, Ian made a tenon on the bottom of the bowl (bowl gouge: included angle 80 degrees – ideal) and then reverse mounted it in the chuck.
He then started thinning the wings in stages on the top side of the bowl, using the same process as for the underside. As the edge of the bowl was approached, he started looking closely at the shape so that the bowl curve followed through the wings.
For the final clean-up at the bowl/wing junction he used a beading and parting tool, ground with a burr on all edges.
Next, Ian hollowed out the bowl with his 40/40 bowl gouge, switching to a gouge with a steeper grind to finish the bottom of the bowl. This was followed up with a scraper to remove the central pimple and clean up.
Next, the bowl was reversed and held by the tailstock onto the jaws of the chuck, suitably protected by tissues – a jam chuck. Finding it difficult to gain access to the foot of the bowl with the tailstock in place, he ground his bowl gouge bevel to 60 degrees-ish and proceeded to refine the foot and underside of the bowl, finishing off with a skew chisel used as a negative rake scraper.
There was no time for a finish to be applied but the bowl looked pretty good as it was, although Ian did explain that a significant flaw running through both the wing and the wall of the bowl meant that he couldn’t go as thin as he would have liked. There was already plenty of air without separating into multiple pieces!
This was an interesting demo with plenty of explanation by Ian on how and why he was doing things in a particular way, and quite a lot of interest was shown in his sharpening grinder setup – Christmas is coming after all!
The meeting opened with a welcome from Mick Denton and an introduction to our demonstrator this evening, Paul Hannaby (https://www.hannaby.com/).
Paul brought along a selection of black poplar bowl blanks and a variety of woodturning consumables for members to buy.
He had previously asked us what we would like to see demonstrated and it had been agreed that it would be a goblet with barley twist stem, so he brought along some suitable blanks and selected a somewhat knotty piece of box, explaining that he was not using yew because of the toxicity under demo conditions.
He discussed options for ensuring that knots and the (weak) pith did not affect the finished goblet – although not a major issue with box – and then mounted the piece between centres such that the knots would not be in the cup portion of the goblet.
A spindle roughing gouge took the worst of the lumps off before making a tenon on one end with a parting tool. The blank was then mounted in the chuck and the end squared off before he removed the tailstock.
Using a spindle gouge with a fingernail grind, Paul then bored out and commenced hollowing the cup. At this point he pointed out that a half round scraper could be used instead of the spindle gouge or, once the opening is wide enough, a ring tool. The ring tool is his favourite and he proceeded to demonstrate its use at the bottom of the opening to ensure proper bevel support. He said that his website has a description of how to modify a shielded cutter to work in a similar fashion.
Finally he shaped the rim of the goblet with a spindle gouge and the ring tool and sanded the inside, working through the grits in the usual way.
Paul next turned his attention to the outside of the cup with a spindle roughing gouge and spindle gouge, taking care to leave plenty of wood lower down to keep it from vibrating too much. However, as the cup walls become thinner, vibration does become a problem so he used the tailstock and a live centre to hold a polystyrene ball in the cup for support.
Once down to about 4mm wall thickness, Paul sanded the outside of the cup, taking care to avoid rounding over the crisp edges.
The spindle gauge was used to turn the stem (in stages to maintain its strength) with a skew to add V cuts marking the transition from stem to cup and stem to foot. To finish off the main turning operations, the foot was shaped ready for parting off later on.
Before commencing the barley twist, Paul explained that he generally uses a selection of small round files of varying sizes and degrees of coarseness and also sometimes uses a microplane file.
With the lathe turned off, and starting at the foot, he held the file at around 45 degrees across the stem and turned the chuck by hand whilst filing the wood, until a spiral groove was formed along the stem to the cup. Note that tailstock support was still in place as the stem becomes weaker as grooves were filed into it, and some co-ordination is required to ensure constant spacing between the grooves.
As this was to be a two-start twist, Paul then repeated the process, starting the second groove equidistant between the turns. Once complete, both grooves were deepened to about half the diameter of the file – this usually takes him two iterations but with the hard boxwood, he needed three. The spiral grooves were then widened somewhat with a larger diameter file.
This left grooves with a square edge so he went lightly across the grooves with a file at 45 degrees in the other direction (90 degrees to the spiral direction), then again at 22 degrees to knock any remaining corners off. The resulting grooves were than cleaned up with his finest file, first in the grooves and then across them as before.
Now the lathe was restarted and the grooves sanded with a piece of abrasive wrapped around a piece of dowel sized to match the grooves, moved back and forth along the stem in the same direction as the grooves.
Finally the tailstock was pulled back and the goblet parted off, holding it by the stem, not the cup.
Paul said that starting the grooves at the cup end of the stem would result in an opposite spiral on a goblet, left hand and right hand spirals being particularly effective if making a pair of goblets.
Throughout the demo, Paul explained clearly what he was doing, and why, which was especially interesting when he came to demonstrating the ring tool, something that many people shy away from.
The competiton table this month had a good collection of items.
1st place was a rounders bat with fractal burning patterns by Chris Harkin.
2nd place was small box (walnut?) by Ken Garratt.
3rd place went to Dave Simms with a laburnum bird on a yew base.
This being a hands-on meeting, two lathes were set up, with Mick Denton presiding over his sharpening station to one side.
The more experienced turners gave assistance to a number of members, helping them to overcome problems (rotten tool control in my case – thanks Roger) and Mick helped with sharpening issues, whilst Ken was working with Graham on spindle turning.
Roger even had time to try out one of Mick’s tipped hollowing tools – nice to use.
Those who were not directly involved had plenty of time for a good chinwag, all of which led to a very pleasant evening.
The meeting opened with a welcome from Roger Gilbert, the Chairman, and a reminder that membership annual subscriptions are now due.
Robert Till was our demonstrator this evening (https://www.roberttillwoodturner.com/), making one of his signature candlesticks using involuted turning.
Robert brought a number of items along to display his work, including a couple of samples of the candlesticks.
To start, two 300mm lengths of 43mm square pinewood (from Wickes) were glued together with a paper joint to make an oblong turning blank – PVA glue, a layer of newspaper on each piece. They can be clamped together or just held with tightly with masking tape until the joint has reached full strength. As this takes one or two days, Robert brought along a previously prepared blank.
He took care to mark the centres accurately as any errors will be very apparent in the finished article, and mounted it in the lathe with a revolving steb centre in the tailstock to avoid splitting the paper joint.
When marking out the blank, he filled in material to be removed with a marker pen as pencil marks will not be visible once it’s spinning.
To achieve a good finish he turned up the speed as high as possible so that his spindle gouge was not bouncing in and out due to the alternating air/wood as the blank rotated. Once the shape was developed, he sanded carefully, with the lathe spinning or stationary as appropriate (lots of air!).
This was the inside of the candlestick now completed so he removed it from the lathe and split it along the glue joint with a chisel.
The blank sections were then rotated 180 degrees and glued together, this time just with PVA; no paper joint. Robert advised not to overglue as the cleanup can be fiddle in the inside areas. Once again, he used masking tape to clamp them together as this is less prone to slide the two halves out of alignment. They can then be further secured with clamps until fully dried.
Before turning the new blank, Robert mounted a forstner bit in the headstuck chuck and drilled one end for a candle cup before forming a tenon on the other end to suit the base.
Robert then mounted the blank between centres and started shaping the middle section, again at a high speed (2500 rpm) and with regular stops to check progress and ensure that the inner and outer shapes mirrored each other exactly. Any centreing errors from the early stages will show up here!
Once satisfied, he shaped the rest of the candlesticks, forming a number of fillets, beads and coves.
After a few final checks and sanding, he removed the candlestick from the lathe and mounted a blank on a screwchuck for the base.
First of all, he trued up the edge and face with a bowl gouge and then formed an internal tenon with a shaped centre which will be included in the finished foot.
After reverse mounting the base, he drilled it to suit the tenon on the candlestick and then proceeded to shape the base and apply some details. The base and candlestick were then pressed together, mounted between centres and the assembly shape refined where necessary.
After a quick sand and a final check on diameters, the demo was complete, although Robert will apply a finish in due course.
Throughout the demo, Robert explained clearly what he was doing, and why, along with plenty of useful tips and a drawing of suggested dimensions for the central portion. Finally, he presented the club with a finished candlestick (the black one above) for the club raffle.
All of this made for an excellent and much appreciated demo – thank you Robert!
The competiton table had a good collection of items this month.
1st place was a goblet with a long barley twist stem and captive ring by Andy Blackwell.
2nd place was a novel carousel by Dave Simms.
3rd place went to Viv Harvey with a curvacious walnut bowl.
