28 Sept 2021 – Jeff Hornung Online Demo

28th September 2021 Club night online demonstration IRD with Jeff Hornung all the way from Florissant in the USA. Jeff has been demonstrating using online IRD’s since 2019 so a relatively ‘old hand’ using the tech.

The evening started with usual club notices about returning to the hall for traditional “Hands On” meetings and news that our full program for 2022 has now been formalised and published.

Jeff started his demo with a description of his evenings plan with for using standard tools to turn a thin square platter with contrasting inlays, he went on to show several examples of shapes designs that can be achieved. One of the features shown was using the tenon as the finished foot, this was shaped in such a way that there would be no need to reverse chuck at the end.

An air-dried square Oak blank was mounted on a worm screw chuck, with padauk inlays set in 4 corners. Safety tip when turning a square project is to use tape on the tool rest to highlight where square edge is revolving to remind you to keep your digits away from the flying corners.

The base shape was started using a bowl ½ inch gouge; turned at high speed to overcome to dead air when turning square a 50mm tenon was formed. Throughout the demo Jeff described safe ways to present tool to a square workpiece, stressed safety on working with square stock.
With the bottom turned down to meet the inlay plugs creating the basic shape to the base Jeff used skew chisel as a negative rake scraper to refine the bottom corners, he also showed several negative rake scraper options that anyone might have, stressing the heavier the less movement you get on the tool rest. The tenon now needed to be refined to its final shape to make sure that the chuck jaws would give maximum grip with minimum damage. He undercut the foot to form a bead which then reduced the need to modify the base at the end of the process.

Moving on Jeff took the piece from screw chuck, reversed onto tenon, brought up the tailstock again to give maximum support. Explained in great detail all processes.

The evening was going well as Jeff began to turn the upper surface of the platter starting with the outer edges, this to maintain maximum stability as he intended to turn it thin: This he did, went a bit too thin, turned down to about 16th inch. A disaster? NO Jeff explained that you can recover by changing the end shape and refining your outcome to suit the particular circumstance. Let’s face it we have all been there, many times. Not to be beaten he went on to remove more of the centre material to achieve the final shape and managed to turn the whole piece down to less that 8th inch. The whole evening showed the technique of how to turn a square inlayed piece and not to be discouraged if things don’t go quite to plan.

At the end of the demo during question time Jeff took the opportunity to explain the ways you can manipulate shapes to deceive the eye when displaying your piece of work. We would all like to thank Jeff and agreed a really good demonstration

Next Tuesday 12 Oct, we are opening our doors again at the West Ashby, Village Hall to welcome you all back to the very popular Hands on Nights.  We hope to have 3 lathes set up, so why not come along and have a go or get some Woodturning advice from our resident experts.

Our first night on the 14th Sept was a good night and it was great to see a lot of faces that we have not seen for a long time due to Covid, plus good to see those in person who have been taking part in the Zoom meetings.

Whilst it was well supported, we would love to see more of you back there, even if it’s just to pop in to visit the Club Shop, which will be open and happy to take your money in exchange for all your Woodturning Supplies you could ever wish for plus items you never knew you needed.

Following the Government easing of Covid restrictions in the UK, the LWWA Committee made plans for a phased return to physical meetings in the Village Hall. There is however a need to ensure the health and safety of all our members, especially those amongst us who are vulnerable, we would therefore request that attendees be fully vaccinated against Covid and take note of the following guidelines:

• “Hands on Nights” are on the 2^nd Tuesday of the month until the end of the year when the Covid situation will be reviewed.
• Meeting times will be 07:00pm to 09:30pm, the hall will be open to attendees from 06:45pm.
• Face Masks/Shields are to be worn at all times by attendees inside the hall, (evidence of exemption from wearing a mask to be displayed).
• We ask attendees to use the hand sanitisers when moving between different areas of the hall.
• Committee members will be monitoring that health & safety measures are being followed, and we ask attendees to respect the wellbeing of all.

We hope that you appreciate the need for caution and look forward to seeing you.