December 2019 Newsletter

Ed Oliver was our demonstrator for November. Ed’s style varies from chunky to decorated and his first piece of the day was an oak goblet of chunky proportions. He started off with a square block, turned it to a cylinder with a chucking spigot, reversed it on to the chuck and started shaping it. The timber had a hole in it, sorry, feature in it but this would almost disappear as he turned it and as you can see. This was the end shape and I didn’t get a photo looking down on it but it does have a fairly thick wall. A good solid looking piece. Next piece was totally opposite. A thin wall hollow form. For this he used a piece of “green” sycamore. Ed’s tip. If you have a piece of wet wood and you want to keep it that way to turn at a later date, wrap it in several layers of cling film and put it in the freezer. Take it out the day before you want to turn it and bingo, wet turning here we go. This piece he also turned to a cylinder between centres with a chucking spigot and then mounted it in the chuck. Ed turned it to the outside shape first and his preferred tool for this is a bowl gouge with a long grind bevel. When he faced it off he had a little dig in, whoops, and so a design opportunity presented itself. We can all do that!! Next he hollowed it out using callipers to check that the wall thickness was even until he reached about a 10mm thickness. He mounted a light in the tailstock and this highlighted where the thickness varied. The darker areas are the thickest. Ed wanted to achieve the amber colour all through leaving a 5mm wall. No pics but he decorated this using a very hot pyrography machine dabbing large and small blobs around the surface. You can of course use any design you choose. For pierced work he would take the wall thickness down to around 3mm and then use a miniature burr fitted in to a (very expensive) micro motor. Ed’s next item was a dish looking much like a shield. He used an elm blank for this which had a split in it. He faced quite a lot off the face to reduce the depth of the split and then decorated it creating beads and coves as you see here. And that’s just the back. jpg 023

He treated the split in the spigot with super glue before reversing it on to the chuck. He turned a domed centre and then coves and troughs, sanded it all to fine finish. This is important when using wood stains because they will highlight any scratches left on the surface. He used Chestnut spirit stains to colour it followed by a light smear of Chestnut gilt cream. Another Ed’s tip. If you are worried about knocking your tin of stain or anything over, drop an earth magnet in the tin. Now it sticks to your lathe bed. There you go. All set to go to war with your new shield. And so on to item number four. A Sycamore bowl. He mounted the blank between centres and trued it up and turned the back to an ogee shape leaving a chucking spigot. Then he reversed it on to chuck and hollowed it out leaving quite a wide rim. Yep, he’s sanding it here. Once again he achieved a fine finish before going on to colouring. Fine finish? He told us then when judging in some competitions he uses plus 3 ready read glasses to look for sanding marks. How about a deerstalker hat and a magnifying glass? For colouring this piece he used Mark Sanger straw stain then stone blue, then burnt orange, then ruby red and then honey. To finish he dabbed white over it before framing it by forming a bead to the inner and outer edges. Last of all, a coat of acrylic lacquer. For his last piece of the day Ed turned another sycamore bowl and cut a groove in the front face and a recess in the centre. If you go too far with the recess and end up with a hole, turn and fit a disc of wood and fit it in the hole. Turn a small groove round it to prevent the paint you are going to use from going places you don’t want it. To fill this and the recess around the edge he used REBEO paint, available from Hobby Craft shops. he dabbed it on using a wooden stirrer. It is time consuming but the effect is very good. Ed gets a lot of his colour ideas from studying Monet paintings. All in all a good day was had by all. Our next meeting and the last for 2019 will be on Saturday 14th December. It is a club meeting so anything can happen Come along and have a bit of fun. If anybody would like to make use of yhe club lathe on Saturday, please let me or any committee member know. With this newsletter you will find your renewal forms for 2020 and once again membership fees have not gone up. Please be sure to tick the box at the bottom if you want to be included in the club directory. I know some of you filled in the form earlier this year but this is something that will be repeated each year now. I need the forms whether you post your subs to me or pay at the next meeting by cash or card. Graham

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