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May saw Cohn Simpson with us for the day and he kicked off the morning (that one for the footy fans!) with a short talk on wood and the different grain effect you get from the way the tree is cut, He also talked about tool shapes that he likes to use before going in to his first piece which was a sycamore platter. We had to help him out a bit here. He hadn’t got his O’donnel jaws with him. That’s ok, we lent him ours. Then his prepared blanks were a bit too big. That’s ok. Norman cut them down on his band saw. We’re not proud, we will help anyone in a fix! Lovely people these Orchard Woodturners. When the face of the platter was finished turned and sanded, the finish must be good because texturing will not hide unsightly tool marks, he textured it using a small angle grinder fitted with an Arbotec having three cutting teeth. He then showed how cutting on the centre line will give a radial texture while cutting above the centre line gives an angular texture. He also showed that with care you can run the lathe in reverse to give an opposed finish. After texturing Cohn coloured it using three brushes with different colours and stippled the surface causing the colours to blend in with each other. The centre was then finish turned and the rim also, to highlight the coloured texturing. The finished platter using the Arbotec is in the gallery. We took a break at mid morning for Cohn to judge the many pieces on show and after much deliberation he awarded the winning certificate to Norman Smithers and the runner up certificate to Michael Fryer. After lunch Cohn did two more bowls which he textured using the Robert Sorby texturing tool. This has a choice of three cutters. One has pointed teeth, a bit like a sprocket, that gives an orange peel effect and two others which are wider and are used to form a spiral finish. All of these will give a different texture when worked at different speeds. The one in the gallery was given the orange peel texture and then painted blue. Cohn limed it before taking a very light cut over the surface leaving a highlighted finish. The centre and rim were then finish turned to define the pattern. His other piece was done using the spiral cutter and he spread car body filler mixed with acrylic paint into the texture and left it to harden. This was then lightly faced off to give another interesting highlighted finish. Sorry folks. I didn’t get a photo of this or one of his last items of the day which was a natural edge yew bowl with square ends. How useless can I get?? What a great presentation of work, It gave Cohn a hard time deciding who to award the certificates to because it was all of such a high standard, But now I am going to put a bit of a damper on it. It’s going to be quite costly to print all of these pictures so in future can you please bring just one item for entry in to the competition. Bring in more if you like but let me know which one you would like to see printed in the newsletter. I will still take a picture of the table of exhibits. (Edit by Fred: I will, if photos provided by Graham. Put the photos of non competition entries on the web site) Our next meeting is on Saturday the 10th of June and Bill Jones will be with us for the day. Bill has been demonstrating since forever and has so many skills to pass on to us. I have tried phoning him for information on what he will be doing for us have been unable to contact him. I am sure it will be a very interesting day. So let’s see lots of bums on seats. See you all on the 10th Graham Notice Board Michael had a great time at the Ripon Woodturning Symposium and would like to thank all members of the club for our donation towards the cost of his mother's expenses so that she could keep him company. Thanks also go to Hegner Machine Tools for sponsoring him. |
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