Our demonstrator for October was Stewart Furini. He's an ex-English teacher that focuses a lot on decorating and colouring his work although he always likes to leave some of the natural wood present.

Stewart began with a quick talk about safety and the type of face masks that he uses when spraying. It's important to focus on using an A1/P3 rated mask, which isn’t the usual type of mask in a Woodturners shop,
If you can smell the fumes then it's probably not rated high enough!
When deciding on which colours to use a colour wheel can help. A colour wheel shows colours next to each other that are harmonious and opposite each other that are complementary to create a direct contrast.
The first piece that Stewart created was coloured with royal blue and turquoise and then a contrasting red was used. This was coloured heavily before being passed around. This piece was coloured about 3-4 times during the day to build up a very strong colour.
Stewart began his second piece he talked about how blanks can be used several times while practising and he showed with a much older piece that had existing colouring on it. The existing colouring was cut away with a light cut and a fresh new surface exposed. This provides a new surface for colouring without wasting lots of wood and allows you to practice using the same piece many times.
After skimming this blank, Stewart talked about the types of airbrushes available, starting with a cheap Nail Art airbrush that he obtained from Amazon for about £40, then a slightly more expensive set-up with syphon fed (paint in a small jar) airbrushes and a small compressor (about £70.00 without an air tank).
He demonstrated airbrushing, showing that when held close to the work, the airbrush lines are denser and narrower, but when held slightly further from the work, the lines are more diffuse and wide. He demonstrated blending colours by changing the angle and distance from the piece.
This colour sample was then skimmed off of the piece and another technique using cardboard templates with the airbrush was shown. Mixing colours added layers to the texture with black at the end adding shadow lines for depth.
For the next demo, Stewart used masking tape across the already coloured front of the piece. This created areas that were then edged by spraying black along the masking tape, creating shadow lines on the edge. Further tape was added to create criss-crossing zones that were further sprayed with black. When the tape was removed the effect was very pronounced. With the colour finished, Stewart showed the importance of framing the coloured area with clean lines edging the work.
Ebonising lacquer was applied over the top to begin the next colour demo, when this was dry a Chestnut yellow paint was applied heavily to the centre of the piece whilst it was rotating slowly. The piece was then covered with a bag before turning the speed right up to 2000 rpm to spread the paint. Once set, this was repeated with a pink colour in the same way creating a radial pattern from the centrifugal force. Ebonising lacquer once more to cover the previous demo before dabbing silver and bronze metallic paints across the black, then adding Red pearlescent paint (Jo Sonja – thinned with flow medium) painted unevenly around the centre of the piece. This was then spun again at high speed to create another orbital pattern.
The next demo was a new piece of wood, with a beech blank turned to an Ogee shape for the back of the piece. When turned around, the face was prepared for use with the Proxxon grinder.
Stewart talked about safety with this tool, with the cutter being used whilst the work was not rotating the 1-3 O’clock position, whilst the left-hand rotated the work from the safety of the hand wheel (Or behind the chuck for those without a handwheel!).
When cutting with the lathe running, Stewart switched to the 6-9 o’clock position with the cutter at about 30 degrees to the wood. (This was done using Manpa cutters in the Proxxon) Stewart showed a number of cutting techniques as well as some different cutters throughout the next few demos (A great example of this is on YouTube -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRSX_SuwclY )
Each time the texturing was done, it was cleaned up using a nylon rotating brush in a drill. Once completed, Stewart showed a selection of different colouring techniques from both the airbrush (showing how different angles colours the sides of the textures) and with brushes and cloths.
On the next blank, with ebonising lacquer in place once more, concentric rings of colour were added across the blank with the lathe running slowly, this was then spun again to create a colour burst effect across the piece. The last heavily colour piece received 6 coats of different colours of Montana 94 spray paint, with each layer added before the previous could set. This was finished with a layer of black to cover all the other layers. Then a scrunched-up piece of newspaper was used to push into the paint before removing immediately, turned to a clean piece and then pushed in again, repeating until the surface shows all 6 layers of colour through a random surface pattern. This piece would then need a good 24 hours to dry before turning further and cannot be accelerated with a hair dryer due to the layers of paint.

Overall, a very entertaining demo that convinced even a few die hard natural wood fans that colouring might be worth giving a go!

Paul

Our next meeting will be November Saturday 11th. will be a club/hands on day.