16 Aug 2022 – Workshop Night

Having survived the hottest day of the year at last month’s workshop, this month twenty eight members sat down in front of their computers to escape the rain falling outside in hope of entertainment, courtesy of our two resident online turners Chris and Zak.

Chris, following on from his successful venture into spoon turning last month, had decided to turn a scoop. He mounted a blank (5.5” long by 2.75” diameter) between centres and turned it into a round using a spindle roughing gouge. Chris pointed out that he used a 450 grind and as the gouge had a straight edge it was possible to use all of the cutting surface not just the central portion. A spigot was formed for mounting the piece in the chuck. That done the intersection of the handle and the bowl was marked and shaping of the bowl commenced. Having achieved the required shape the piece was sanded before the next stage of hollowing out the scoop commenced. Chris started the hollowing process by drilling a hole to the required depth and then continued the process using a spindle gouge. A round scraper (700 grind) was used to achieve a fine finish on the wall before sanding completed the task. Care needs to be taken with using the scraper and the sanding in order to achieve a consistent wall thickness. If it is not consistent it will be very obvious once the bowl is cut away to form the actual scoop.

It was now time to start shaping the handle. The key points here are determining the length required and taking care at the point where the handle and bowl of the scoop meet. Chris used a half inch spindle gouge to achieve the look he wanted and then blended the bottom of the scoop and the handle together. The final design of the handle was achieved and as always is simply what the turner thinks looks right for the overall design of the project. Now came the interesting bit, transforming the closed bowl into an open scoop. Many suggest this can be done by cutting the bowl on a bandsaw but this was seen as too dangerous by both Chris and his audience. The answer therefore was to sand away the unwanted wood on a belt sander. A few minutes later the finished article had emerged and the scoop existed. Chris then pointed out that if there were any small inconsistencies in the wall thickness these could be remedied by some careful hand sanding. There then followed a discussion about how to make variations on the style Chris had made with some very complex suggestions that even had Chris scratching his head!

Zak, obviously oblivious to what Chris was up to had come to the evening with some pieces of yew but with no plan as to what to do with them. Unfazed by this however he mounted a piece onto the lathe and unleashed his creativity. The first offering would be a lidded box. Zak marked out his dimensions and started the process of shaping the outside of the lid. The shape achieved, Zak parted the lid off from the body of the box. At this point had there been any keen eyed observers amongst the audience a slight flaw in the proceedings may have been noticed – more of that later.

Hollowing out of the box was next starting with a forstner bit to drill out some of the wood and establish the depth required. Zak then used a gouge and a carbide tool with a square cutter to complete the hollowing. As with all boxes there comes a time when it is necessary to create the lip onto which the lid will fit. However in order to do that the inside of the lid needs to be hollowed out but since the aforementioned keen eyed observers had left the room (or were never in it in the first place) that process had not been carried out. Undaunted by this minor inconvenience Zak remounted the lid and carried out the necessary hollowing. He was then able to reverse the lid, hold it in expansion and reshape the top. When completed Zak was disappointed by the lack of colour in the wood and stated that he might burn it, by which he meant pyrography, but strangely enough some of his audience thought he meant otherwise!

We were then onto Zak’s second offering which was to be an owl. The head would be in the form of a sphere which would sit into a hollowed out base. With the wood mounted in the chuck Zak shaped the first half of the sphere. He then reversed the wood and held the rounded half in a jam chuck. Unfortunately the (half) owl’s head had other ideas and leapt out of the chuck. Following a suggestion from the audience Zak pushed the piece back into the jam chuck and secured it with hot glue allowing the formation of the sphere to continue. The sphere was repositioned a couple of times so that small indentations could be made to form the basis of the eyes. Sadly by this time the evening had come to an end and the owl was not able to fly off into the darkness and hunt for prey.
We shall no doubt see the finished specimen in the not too distant future.

The other highlights of the evening were exhibits from four members in the show and tell section and a video from Dai showing how he coloured a bowl he had turned at the hands on night the previous week.

Numbers for the show and tell were lower than normal but this was doubtless caused by members being reluctant to venture into workshops in very high temperatures.

Another month, another evening of entertaining woodturning, thanks to Chris and Zak.

For all the screenshots taken please have a look in the Gallery HERE

Don’t forget we have another new Turner to our screens on the 23rd Aug 2022, Trent Bosch from Colorado, USA, so hopefully we will see you all there.  I have sent out the Zoom Meeting email invites this evening, so check your inbox, mark it or flag it so you can find it again easily next week.  If you have not got it, check your spam or junk mail in case it has gone into there and then mark it as not spam, junk and add the email address to your safe sender list if you have one.

As normal, PAYG Members need to be purchasing a ticket as soon as possible if you want to watch this demo.  I have also sent an email to all PAYG members with all the necessary information.  Any problems with purchasing your ticket, contact us.

The Training Day on the 24 Sept 2022 is now fully booked, so thank you to all those booking with us and look forward to seeing you all on the day.

Would you like more of these type of Training Days?  If so, please comment below. 

Please note, all comments you submit on any News Post have to be manually approved by me, (Martin) before they will appear below.  This is to prevent spam from being posted on our website.  Club member comments will always be approved, once I get time to do it.  Thanks.