Ed Oliver was our demonstrator for our February meeting and he had a set of four projects for the day.

His first was a bowl that turned out to have a really nice grain that he was reluctant to trash but the object of the exercise was a bowl with a finger painted surface. He mounted the blank on a screw chuck and trued the diameter then turned the back leaving a chucking spigot and sanded it to a fine finish. He then reversed it on to the chuck and faced it off and sanded it, again to fine finish. Next he sprayed it with black ebonising paint in his home made cardboard spray booth. "It keeps the lathe clean". Then with a variety of colours he finger painted it in a swirling pattern ending with gold around the edge. For this he was using Golden Artists Colours. Finally he turned the bowl and used a beading tool to give definition between the coloured area and the bowl and rim. He would normally finish it with a coat of acrylic spray but for demo purposes he gave it a wax finish because the spray could upset anyone with breathing problems.

Ed's second piece was a coloured vase. He turned the outsde shape and then hollowed it out. To colour it he would burn the outside, or you could use ebonising paint, lightly sanded it back and then air sprayed it with two tone liquid Golden Artists paint. Unfortunately we could only see black.

He followed this up with another hollow form but this time texturing the surface with a high speed burr. The dentist came to mind with this operation. He textured about 2/3 of the length and the remainder he decorated it with a beading tool. After sanding off the "fluffy bits" he dabbed two tone iridescent gold paint on with a cloth, or you can use a small brush and then went over it with Liberon verdigree wax, brushing it in to the pattern to give it a weathered look.

Next he got quite adventurous. He had a burr that looked really challenging and he wasn't sure how much of it would stay together. He removed any loose bark before switching the lathe on at a low sped. As he got in to a balanced shape he put the speed up and turned the outer shape keeping as many of the features as possible and a chucking spigot. He reversed it on to the chuck and then using various hollowing tools after drilling a starter hole he hollowed it out waiting for. the break through. He didn't take the wall too thin but we saw daylight in several places.

His last piece of the day was to show how to turn a rice bowl in under 5 minutes. Basically you just shut your eyes and go for it!!

Our next meeting is on Saturday 14th March and Colin Smith is with us for the day. Colin is the east of England rep for the AWGB. Sooo I imagine he will use a lot of his chat trying to encourage us to join. Was he the guy who came to us on a mission last year? It was a big no no then.

See you all on the 14th

Graham