Dave Gibbard was demonstrating wet turning with emphasis on retaining a bark or “natural” edge. He had brought a number of examples of different styles which can be seen on the members’ gallery pictures.

He first turned an end grain bowl in yew, i.e. with the core of the wood in the direction of the lathe axis. This is a nice way to present the whole cross section of the branch and the often interesting shape of the edge. However the core is retained and some star cracking is almost inevitable. The outside was partly turned first but leaving a large amount of wood around a spigot at the foot at this stage to give support for turning the rim. Reversing onto the spigot allowed hollowing to start but the important thing is to concentrate on the rim. This will start to move as it dries and there’s no going back with a cutting tool. It’s a good idea to run some thin superglue along the bark/sapwood interface at this stage.

Keeping the bowl mounted on the spigot the outside and inside were alternately worked towards the foot. Normally Dave would have proceeded directly to sand whilst wet but in this case the bowl was put in a plastic bag with wet shavings to be finished later.

The next item was a tulip shaped bowl with the core at right angles to the lathe axis. The method employed was similar but the bowl was initially mounted on an expanding pin chuck. With this orientation the grain is across the spigot and usually in the weaker sap wood. Care must be taken when hollowing as a dig in could tear it off sending the bowl across the room. Dave likes to use a large spigot which is much larger than the eventual foot. The hollowing is quite deep and there is a good case for using a hollowing tool. However, Dave was using a bowl gouge supported by a rest thin enough to insert into the hole as a cheaper alternative.

Off Centre Turning

John started by turning an off-centre female figure in beech which came out somewhat well endowed! The next project was a candlestick. Both these project were turned between centres, shifting the live centre by about 6mm in opposite directions. The candlestick was going very nicely until a lapse of concentration led to a dig in and the wood broke in two. But at least John demonstrated what not to do! Finally John turned a small finial successfully. This was held in a chuck and just tilted in the jaws. John can supply instructions for turning the figure if anyone is interested.

Twists

Bob Hope demonstrated the making of twists on spindles to decorate things like chair or table legs and parts of table or floor lamps. The process can also be used to decorate vases as well.

First the spindle is turned to size and the ends left square to start with to aid holding whilst carving the twist. The twist is then marked out. The first piece was marked out for a double or barley twist. First the pitch lines are drawn at intervals of the same distance as the diameter of the piece. These are then subdivided into four sections and lines are drawn around the diameter. Then four equally spaced lines are drawn along the length along the quarter points of the diameter. This gives a grid and lines are drawn around the circumference joining the crossing points of the pitch and longitudinal lines. For a double twist this line crosses two of the divisions before meeting the next longitudinal line. Two lines are drawn from opposite sides of the piece. For a single twist the line will cross every corner.

A saw cut is made along this circumference line about 5mm deep and the hollow is made with a file or microplane to a depth of one third of the diameter. The high points or bines ore rounded over with a file and the hollows and bines and blended in and sanded. He then demonstrated a hollow twist where a hole is drilled before turning the piece and involves deepening the hollow to break through into the centre hole and carving and shaping the bines.

Many thanks to Dave, John and Bob for dem0nstrating.

Some of the supporting activities were run by committee volunteers for the night to allow the regular operators to participate in the quiz. Lynda and Derek Barkaway dispensed free tea, coffee and snacks including some of Lynda’s wonderful biscuits and cakes. Keith Barnes and his wife took over the raffle, the prizes tonight reflecting the occasion. Geoff Spierling and Helen, however, ran the shop as usual. Geoff had gone to a lot of trouble making things for the challenge to make a Christmas decoration but forgot to bring them. What a shame as the response from everyone else was disappointingly poor, just 6 items on the table.

People formed themselves into 6 teams. The first task was to think of a name and they chose “I Told You So”, “Hogwarts”, “Outnumbered”, “Brain Dead”, “Crawlers” and “The Young Ones” (!) (the exclamation mark is mine- Editor). The quiz master was chairman John Holden with rounds provided by himself, me (Dave Gibbard), Robert Long, Denis Hilditch, Lynda Barkaway and Keith Barnes. Phil Bristow and Bob Hope also contributed rounds but such was the response that they were held over for next time. Nothing like getting ahead of the game! Alan Sturgess kept score.

Quiz rounds were “Around the World”, General Knowledge, Sport, “Who turned that?”, Scrambled Phrases, Parliamentary Quotes, People Dates and Places and Christmas Carols.

By the second round, “I told you so” had their noses in front and managed to stay there in spite of an abysmal knowledge of Christmas carols. In fact no team managed to identify more than 4 carols from the lines within them provided by Lynda. Obviously woodturners don’t sing.

The teams were invited to vote for their favourite decoration. It was close but the winner that eventually emerged was Gerald Nicholson’s bell.

Dave Gibbard

I’ll just give an outline description. Details are available via Mark’s website www.marksanger.co.uk. I’ve already circulated an Email with the details of how to access it. If any member who does not have internet access would like a copy, please let me know.

His first project was a shallow bowl in sycamore with a broad rim decorated by carving and scorching. He started with the bowl on a screw chuck and with the tailstock in contact to give additional support. Mark employs the tailstock in this way whenever possible. He advocates this for additional stability and precision though the tailstock can cause some obstruction and requires a small amount of hand finishing at the end.

Mark favours a long gouge grind which allows the same tool to be used for a variety of purposes. The tip has a tight radius for details whilst the wings present a long edge for removing wood on shallow curves with a smooth cut. The long edge can also be used in a scraping mode.

The outside was turned with a spigot onto which the bowl was reversed for hollowing the centre.

He used a power carver to cut random patterns of grooves in the rim which he then scorched with a blow torch, being careful to ensure the scorching didn’t penetrate the carved grooves. If you are worried about burning the bowl, the centre could be hollowed after the rim has been scorched.

To finish the outside, he reversed the bowl against a friction disc (carpet underlay glued to a wooden disc) holding it in place with the tailstock.

Interestingly Mark only sands to 320 grit, the fine finish he achieves coming from burnishing.

He described 2 methods (simplified for the demo). Where possible, Mark likes to finish off the lathe. The surface is sealed with
diluted sanding sealer then burnished on a polishing wheel mounted on the lathe loaded with a buffing compound (Mark uses “Hyfin” polishing bar). A microcrystalline wax (like Renaissance) is then applied and buffed by hand. The idea is that the
wax protects the surface which is already well finished rather than being the finish itself.

The other method is to use up to 5 coats of satin lacquer, cutting back between with wire wool before burnishing to a shine. He uses satin even for a shiny finish because it seems to cover better and keeps the matt option open. Finally, protect with wax as before.

The second project was a shallow hollow form with a very small hole in the top. It would be impossible to hollow through such a small hole, so the trick is to do it from the bottom and to plug it.  Holding the blank from the top on a screw chuck, Mark shaped the bottom leaving a long parallel spigot. This was parted off and first a pilot hole was drilled right through followed by a wider hole with a Forstner bit to a depth 10 mm from the top. The bottom opening was turned for the spigot to be re-fitted. The inside was hollowed with a pointed scraping hollowing tool. It is not necessary to get a good finish since the inside will be inaccessible. The spigot was then glued back in, making sure the grain is lined up. Reversing, holding on the spigot allowed the top and hole to be turned and finished. Reversing again, driven via a small scrap cone in the hole and supported by the tailstock, the bottom was finished and the spigot joint disguised by a series of grooves.

So if you can’t see or feel the inside, why not just leave it solid with a small hole in the top?  The answer is to make something which is light to hold and feels hollow.

Mark’s programme was so full that there was no time for a gallery critique. In fact Mark was reluctant to do this anyway without knowledge of the turners and their individual abilities. This was a pity since members had gone to some trouble to put good quality items on the table. All the gallery items can be seen on our website but I feel I have to make particular mention of the superb monkey
puzzle hollow form made by Mike Haselden. The shiny oiled finish must have taken a large number of coats and a great deal of time. Brilliant.

Finally, thanks to all those who have contributed to our charity. This was the last collection of donations and was swollen by a lot of items made by the late George Gale donated by his widow Betty. See the separate report in this issue.

Write up by Dave Gibbard

The categories were:

A – Make an item or items from a single piece of wood 3” x 3” x 8” (which attracted 9 entries)

B – Interpret the phrase “Run of the Mill” (8 entries)

C - Interpret the phrase “Autumn Leaves” (6 entries)

The clear first choice of the 51 members voting was Brian Matcham’s jug (category A) with Dave Gibbard’s art deco vase second (also A) and Adrian Smith’s box with coloured leaf patterns third (category C).

Time had been allowed for all those entering to say a few words about their entries and take questions. Everyone joined in the banter and the session proved informative and amusing.

Thanks to Bob for booking in and vote counting and Lynda for hand writing the certificates for the 3 top choices.

Remember the next challenge is to make a Christmas decoration and bring it to the December meeting.

In the middle part of the evening, Chris West put on a very accomplished presentation of making salt and pepper mills and shakers, based on his recent book. This is the sort of job where detailed drawing is essential to ensure the result looks right and fits together. Even then Chris likes to have a rough go at the shape first because it often looks different in 3-D compared with a drawing.

There were plenty of design suggestions and tips- different types of mechanism, the advisability of drilling from both ends not straight through and my favourite – knobs. Well finials strictly. There are numerous alternatives to the metal knob that comes with the mechanism. I particularly liked the threaded inserts that allow you to make your own to suit your design to give an individual appearance.

I’m not going to try to write all this up; Chris has already done that in his book to which I happily refer you.

Dave Gibbard

A – Make anything from a single block of 8x3x3 wood

B – Run of the mill

C – Autumn Leaves

His themes for this evening were types of decoration that could be used for box lids (in particular off-centre inlays) and turning long thin spindles under tension.

Chris had brought examples of complete boxes but for the demo he concentrated on lid variations. He started with a square section blank held in a 4 jaw chuck, making sure the jaw ends dug well in and marking orientation on the wood for future re-mounting.  After turning the lid with a flattish top, the reason for the square section became clear. Removing an opposite pair of jaws, say 1 and 3, allowed the lid to be held off-centre in the remaining 2 jaws. Obviously the off-centre distance can easily be adjusted. He bored a blind hole with a Forstner bit to take a contrasting disc, in this case a piece of black acrylic rod. The lid, complete with insert, was then re-mounted in the 4 jaws and the top re-turned and sanded.

For further embellishment it is possible to repeat the process on different offsets to insert other overlapping contrasting inserts.

Chris also showed another effect by tilting a lid in the jaws to cut some crescent shaped grooves in the top which could be filled with coloured paint.

I’ve done some off centre turning but I’ve not tried doing it this way. It seemed a quick if somewhat limited way of getting some interesting decorative effects. I must try it.

Another thing I must try is the way he ground his skew. I generally curve the edge a bit to allow a slight concave to be followed but his curve was extreme. (See picture). He admitted this grind was not his own invention but he now uses only this method and guarantees it is impossible to dig in. (I suspect some of our members are about to prove him wrong!). The theory is that dig-ins occur when a part of the blade other than the part being used to plane accidentally touches the surface. By curving the edge the likelihood of this happening is much reduced. I can see the logic of that and it’s something else I will try. I can see that another advantage is that a planning cut can be made with any part of the edge rather than a very limited area near the point, so it won’t need sharpening as often.

After tea Chris demonstrated another “neat idea”. When turning long thin spindles, it is difficult to support them. Applying more thrust from the tail stock makes matters worse as the spindle starts to bow. Chris uses a tensioning device, the tension being applied using the tailstock in the reverse. The spindle obviously has to be gripped in a chuck rather than a pronged drive and also gripped in the tailstock. The device for doing this uses a modified revolving centre in the tail stock adapted to take a cup into which a spigot on the end of the spindle is inserted. The cup has holes to allow the spigot to be pinned in place. The revolving centre is tapped at the end which goes into the tailstock to take a threaded rod which protrudes at the far end of the tailstock and retained by a nut. Got all that? If I can find enough spare bits I’ll try making one and let you know.

Time limitation constrained his tensioned spindle demo to a fairly short one though he had brought examples of much longer ones. His invitation to the audience to imagine this was 12” brought a show-stopping comment from a woman visitor:  “That’s what my husband says!”