Carlyn Lindsay was our demonstrator for September and today she was going to make a crush grind pepper mill in the morning and a matching salt pot with lid in the afternoon. For these she used blocks of laminated woods using a base wood of sycamore and coloured veneers sandwiched in between them. Well she would after a couple of technical hitches were resolved. No Paul or Steve at this meeting so setting up lights etc. was a bit of a challenge. And no Bert. You can’t adjust them by hitting them with a lump of wood !!!
Carlyn started off with the block between centres and turned it to a cylinder with a spigot at one end for chucking purposes. She then mounted it in the chuck and turned it to the finished shape before drilling the holes for the mechanism starting with the largest one first and finally the smaller one that goes right through to hold the pepper corns.

After judging this month’s entries on the competition table Carlyn went back to work to make the top which she made from a plain piece of sycamore and finished it by painting it, selecting one of several colours she had had made up especially to match the veneers. For this one she used a pale green.
The afternoon project was the salt pot using a matching block of laminated wood to make the pot. It would have a small base and lid made from plain sycamore and the finishing touch was a small finial made from the remains of the laminated block. All put together it looked like this.

Our next meeting is on Saturday 14th October and we will have Phil Jones with us for the day. Phil’s work seems to range from fairly basic spindle work to very artistic pieces. He runs Acorn Woodturning in Buckinghamshire and teaches as well as doing production work. What’s he got in store for us? There’s only one way to find out. Come along and see for yourself. This is also the last chance to bring along that brilliant piece of work you have been hiding in the shed that we can show off at SAW on Sunday 29th October to help us win the trophy for best display. We were a very close run second last year so this year …….Let’s do it.

Graham.