March 2017 Newsletter

For our February meeting we had Jason Smith with us for the day. As with last year his demonstration was all about decoration. He did four pieces and the first was an oak bowl that he turned from scratch, turning the back first leaving the smallest spigot possible to hold on to when he reversed it to turn the front face.

He turned the front face, hanging on to that tiny spigot, leaving a groove close to the rim for decorating. He treated the face with a spray on sanding sealer before applying first a white acrylic paint followed by spots of red. Over the space of an hour or two these would merge in to a fascinating finish as pics show.

Jason’s second piece was what he called a “Deep in thought” bowl and for this he used maple. He turned the back and then the front face forming a wide rim based on the two thirds one third proportion rule. He took the finished turned bowl off the lathe still in the chuck the and mounted it on to a Simon Hope carving jig mounted in the tool post holder on the lathe. Then he carved patterns in to the rim using a carving tool before re mounting on the lathe

Then came the fun part. After spraying the face with two coats of ebonising paint he started adding colours using acrylic pearlescent paint. First a dark blue then a lighter one and followed up with another even lighter blue. To add texture to this he applied it using a blowgun ( don’t suck whatever you do unless you want to glow in the dark) with the lathe running and he varied the speed of the lathe to give differing effects. This can be messy, especially for those observing from the front row so Jason called upon Fred to assist by holding up a protective sheet to shield those in close proximity. Getting the picture? Well Fred wanted to see what was going on as well so he was peeping over the top of the sheet and ……….—He got it off his forehead eventually

On to project three and this was a bowl decorated by using acrylic VIVA3D stamp paint. After turning the bowl he sprayed it with ebonising paint and when dry followed on by finger painting the acrylic paint in spots. He textured this by using a plastic bag screwed up and dabbing it on the wet paint. You can use anything. Chris Withall was doing this at the last club day using bubble wrap. The end result was as you see in the pic.

Item number three was another bowl which was carved and then painted with ebonising paint and coloured this time by hand applying various coloured acrylic INCA gold paste much like gilt cream. After application it was finished using finishing oil.

The final item of the day was a small bowl turned and sanded and sprayed black. When dry this was then sprayed with Dupli-Color car paint. The colour used was sunrise. The more coats applied the more the colour changed resulting in a fascinating hologram effect finish as you can see in the pic

Notice board Our next meeting is on Saturday 11th March and we have Ed Oliver with us for the day. I have just had a quick look at his web site and his work seems to be intricate and decorative. More than that I know not so to find out more bring your body along and see for yourself. See you on the 11th Graham

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