February meeting and Andy Coates was our demonstrator for the day.

Andy had been to us before and his theme then concentrated quite heavily on his methods of decorating. Although he still does this his demonstration today was more on producing an article that could be decorated but it was not necessary.
His first piece was to be a bowl with a lid.

At this point he told us of his hate of wasting wood you have paid good money for. For instance, when he turns a large bowl instead of going straight in to shape for the outside he cuts the wood away in steps and parts off as he goes a series of rings that he uses as inserts in other projects.

Today’s project was a small bowl so he went straight in for the final shape leaving a spigot to reverse it on to. He turned it round and mounted it in the chuck , faced it off and then with a parting tool took out the core before hollowing the bowl.
This core would become the lid. Yep, nothing wasted.
The bowl was finished to a fair finish but he wasn’t going to waste our time while we watched him sanding.
He removed it from the chuck and set the lid up in its place and turned this roughly to the shape he wanted.
The bowl went back in and was hollowed out and the recess cut for the lid to be a jam fit.
Back in with the lid and it was finished to nicely blend in with the shape of the bowl. A hole was bored to take a finial which would be made from a contrasting wood.

Andy’s second piece of the day was a box shaped like a nut.
He took a square piece of, I think it was oak, and mounted it between centres and turned a spigot at either end and then with a skew chisel nicked a vee in four places and turned a curved face on either side with room to run a parting tool between the two sections.
Then he turned the square partially away to give the impression of a pair of nuts. Then he turned the body down to just form a cylinder and cut grooves to represent a thread. See picture. The two were then separated and the base hollowed out.

Item number three was a small hollow form to be turned thin enough to allow light through and it would be just that. An upside down light bulb. For this Andy used a piece of silver birch. He shaped the outside to a sort of pear shape and then hollowed it out using a light source to help gauge the final cuts to show up the thickness and that it was even around the wall. While doing this he demonstrated some of the many tools that are available for hollowing.

Andy’s last piece to fill in the last few minutes was turn a simple food bowl. It was turned from ash and was left with just the tool finish which he has found from experience that his customers quite like. It is easier to hold than something shiny. He uses wooden plates and bowls all the time at home.

As I think you all know by now there are no more meetings at Milstead until May. next month we are at the Detling show ground where we have a stand at what is now called the South East Woodworking and Power Tool Show. In April we have the coach trip to Yandles. This year it is quite heavily subsidised by the club funds for club members and their wives/friends/partners at £15. Non members pay the full £25.

In May we have Sue Harker with us for the day. Sue was accepted onto the Register of Professional Turners run by the Worshipful Company of Turners in London in 2007.

She teaches woodturning, writes for the Woodturning magazine and has produced two instructional DVDs. her work evolves as she introduces colour, texture and piercing to her turning.

That's your lot. See you in May

Graham



Notice board

We welcome two new members
Mike and Denise Goldberger joined us last month.
Their email is email at mikegolddotplusdotcom