Our next club meeting on the 21st March will be all about making things with natural edges, there should be 5 turners working the lathes, Bill Munro, David Hutcheson, John Ruickbie , Bob Chisholm and myself. Using wood where the natural edges are left intact lends itself well to bowl making and I’m sure there may be more than one turner doing exactly that, but natural edges can be left on a variety of turnings in both bowl work and spindle work. Below are a few of the different items that can be made with natural edges.
Here are 3 very different types of things made using the natural edges, left, is an Ash bowl made from a log where more than 1 branch intersected the main stem, centre, an Elm burr that has been turned into a shallow bowl leaving all the irregular shape round the outside, right, a Laburnum bowl that has been made making use of the end grain, this gives the appearance of 3 different woods, when in fact what you are seeing is the heart wood at the bottom, a middle layer of sap wood and the bark layer on top.These 3 are all made from Laburnum, left, is a bowl made from the intersection of 2 branches that grew away from the main branch, centre, this one is also from an intersection but this time I cut it further away from the meeting point to create the gap at the front of the bowl, right, this one comes from a straight log of about 150 mm in diameter and cut in length to about 200 mm, giving you the boat shape when turned.These are examples of natural edges being left on some spindle work. Far left, a Banksia nut turned into a Mushroom with the natural edges left on both the base and the head of the Mushroom, Left, a Christmas tree decoration made from a piece of Laburnum with the natural edge being left on the base, you will note the tree has been turned off centre, Far right, another Mushroom, this time made from a branch of Yew with the natural edges left on both the base and the head. Right, a piece of Elm burr made into a Candlestick, the only turning on this item was to level out the base and a small amount of turning to the top where the brass candle cup was fitted.These 8 pictures show the piece of Laburnum I started with and the sequence of events in turning the bowl and the finished article.
I hope these pictures give you some idea of what can be done with some very unpromising pieces of wood, it is my conclusion that there are no unpromising pieces of wood, there is something that can be made from anything, it’s thinking what can be done that’s difficult.
Our club meeting on Thursday 7th March 2019 was a demonstration by Alec Mutch on the use of Pebeo paints in woodturning. These paints can be used to enhance the appearance of an otherwise plain or bland piece of wood, making their use very valuable. The following set of pictures will take you through the making of a shallow plate and also the paints being put to use. Most of the pictures were taken by Richard Comfort with a few of my own taken at my workshop. The turnout for the meeting was excellent.
This weeks meeting on the 7th March is a demonstration by Alec Mutch on the use of Pebeo paints in woodturning, mainly used on small to medium sized plates or platters. These paints can be used to enhance the look of a fairly bland piece of wood making it a very useful product to use.
Here are some examples of small shallow plates where I have used the Pebeo paints, the plate on the left is Ash and I have used Pebeo Prisme in 3 different colours to create the decoration. The middle plate is Sycamore and here I have used PebeoVitrail black for a base coat with spots of Pebeo Moon in blue on top, the plate on the right is Sweet Chestnut and here I have used Pebeo Ceramic black for the base with Pebeo Moon in blue on top. All these paints are reactive paints and need to be left to develop for a period of time after use, they will not look anything like they are on application but will develop into something quite different with some time, the drying period can be as long as 3 days and they need to stay flat during that time.Here are samples of the 4 different Pebeo paints I use, these are all solvent based paints that require white spirit as a cleaning agent. Some of these are available in the Hobby shop in Inverness but with a very limited range of colours and only available in handy packs of ready made up colours in 15ml jars. For a wide range of colours in all 4 types and in bigger jars of 45ml go to, www.pullingers.com, they are also a lot cheaper in the bigger size and the choice is better. You will require pipettes and spatulas for applying these paints as some of them need some depth to react fully.
After this years renewals, we currently have just 6 spaces open for new members. If you’d like to join us, please email us with the subject “Membership”, and we’ll get back to you.
Given that the membership is usually full year on year, we don’t expect these spaces to last long, so please get in touch as soon as possible if you’d like to join.
Our competition on the 21st February 2019 was all about making a turned box. The number of entries for the novice group were very good, as was the number of entries for the experienced group, however the intermediate group had far fewer entries, this has a lot to do with the way the groupings are arrived at and that is something the club is going to address for future competitions. The standard of work in all 3 groups was excellent which made the judging very difficult, it was hard to pick a winner, the judging was done by Alec Mutch and Gordon Leitch. The pictures for the competition were taken by Alec Mutch. In addition to the competition all of our 5 lathes were in operation during the whole event with the turners doing their own things, 2 of those turners were on the lathes for the first time at the club. The pictures for these turners were taken by Alec Mutch and Phil Moore.
For a larger picture and some more information click on any picture.
You only have a few days left to make a box for this week’s competition on Thursday 21st February 2019. We want to see lots of entries from all 3 categories, if you need any inspiration, there are quite a lot of box designs and ideas on this web site , good luck with your entry and do remember there is a £25 prize for each of the winners in all 3 categories. There will also be all 5 lathes in operation during the evening whilst the competition judging is going on, there should be something for everyone to see and enjoy.
Our AGM on Thursday 7th February 2019 went very well. We had a very good turnout of members and all the existing committee members were present. The chairman made an opening statement, followed by the secretary presenting the minutes of the previous AGM. The chairman did a report on the years events, that was followed by the treasurer giving a report on the financial status. Topics discussed were , the constitution, skype and the internet, membership fees and training fees. As the committee had shrunk to just 7, we voted a few more members onto the committee taking it back up to 12. There were a few items raised under A.O.B. that the chair announced would be discussed at the first committee meeting.
The committee would like to thank all of you who attended the AGM. For a larger picture and some more information, click any of the pictures.
Our AGM is to be held this Thursday 7th February 2019, start time of 18.45pm. We are looking for a good turnout as there are positions to be filled on the committee.
This is likely to be a shorter meeting than normal as there won’t be anything happening out with the AGM business.
Yes, we have all been there at some time in our turning experiences.
Our club meeting on Thursday evening 24th January 2019 was a one to one meeting, where an experienced member would take a less experienced member through the process of doing something that they find challenging, this could be some element of turning or it could be sharpening the tools. We had 3 lathes in operation and the sharpening station. Bill Munro was showing Dave Line some of the finer points of spindle turning. Errol Levings was doing long hole boring with Graham Charge, (Graham is a new member to our club). David Hay was at the sharpening station demonstrating the art of sharpening, we had asked the members to bring in a tool to get reground or sharpened, suffice to say David was kept very busy. Lastly I Alec Mutch was demonstrating the use of a bowl gouge with Bill Henderson, Bill has been using tipped tools thus far but now felt it was time to try and use the gouge. The turn out of members was very good and the evening went very well, Peter Lawrence was the manager for this session.
Click any picture for a full sized picture and some text.
All the pictures were taken by Mike Day
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRead More
