Report on our virtual all day meeting 25-07-2020

Our latest meeting should have been on Saturday 25th July 2020, it was to be our annual all day meeting where we allow members of the public to come and see what we are doing. It was to be organised by David Hobson, David had arranged for 3 people to be demonstrating in roughly 2 hour blocks, due to covid-19 this was abandoned and made into a virtual meeting. The members were then invited to do any turning they could and send the pictures for publication on our web site.

I have to tell you that apart from 3 very dedicated turners the rest of our membership failed to send any pictures at all, I really shouldn’t complain about the members when only 2 of the 12 committee members produced any pictures, me being one of them.

However here are the few that I did receive and thank you to Dave Line and Nick Simpson for taking the time and making the effort to try to keep the interest in this club alive.

For my own contribution to the gallery, I have shown just some of the items I have been working on during the lockdown.

For a full sized view of any picture just click the picture in the gallery, it will also give you some text relating to the picture.

Our next meeting should be on the 6th August 2020, this will not be happening due to the continued lockdown for clubs like ours, it was to be organised by David Hobson again and David was working on the idea to have a one to one session. We would like to see some of you pictures before that time, so please take part you know it makes sense.

We are working on a safe practical policy for when the restrictions ease to allow us to re-open, further information on this will be available soon, but things will not be the same.

Virtual all day event 25-07-2020.

Our annual all day event should have been happening this Saturday 25th July 2020, this is now a virtual meeting. The day was being organised by David Hobson, it would normally start at 10am through to 4pm with 3 turners working the lathe in roughly 1 & 3/4 hour sessions. This meeting was open to the public for a small fee.

As there is no meeting I am inviting you all to make something of interest to the rest of the members, it can be anything at all, turned or otherwise, but do make something and send the pictures along with a bit of text on what you have made.

The 3 people that were to be demonstration are, Pam Harris from 10am to 11.45am, Gary Lowe from 12pm to 13.45pm and Andy Walters from 14.00pm to 16.00pm.

I have included a few pictures from past open days for your viewing and possibly to give you some inspiration.

This off set goblet was made by Fred Houghton from the North Highland Woodturners in 2018, Fred was one of our visiting turners invited to demonstrate.
A wall hanging made by Mark Sutton at our 2019 meeting.
Here we have a very interesting take on a spinning top, made by Gary Lowe our guest turner in 2019.
A natural edged bowl I made at the 2018 meeting, the bowl is Spalted Beech.

Please get into your workshops and produce something to remember this day, you have until mid day on Sunday the 26th July to make and send me your pictures before I upload them to our web site.

Pictures to, mailto.a.j.mutch4321@btinternet.com

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Report on our virtual meeting 09-07-2020 Candle holders.

Our virtual meeting this week was on Thursday 09th July 2020, it was all about making candle holders, it was to be organised by Errol Levings. Errol had suggested a variety of different candle holders that could be made from standard candlesticks to using nightlight candles and for the more experienced he suggested offset candlesticks.

The uptake was again very disappointing in so much that we only had 5 people contributing to the virtual meeting, we would obviously want to see more and hope the future virtual meetings will be better represented.

Now not all of today’s entries are of candle holders, but those that are not are just as welcome and we hope they keep coming.

I have divided the post into 2 sets of pictures, the first being those who did put some pictures in along with some pictures of various candle holders from previous meetings by some of our members, these will be seen in the first gallery.

The second lot of pictures is a tutorial on how to make a small Sentinel Candle holder by Myself.

The next set of pictures are from my tutorial on how to make a small Sentinel Candle holder.

For a full size picture of any picture in the 2 galleries just click the picture, and I hope we have given you some encouragement to take part in future virtual meetings.

The tutorial is probably one of the easiest candle holders to make, why not have a go and send me your resulting pictures.

Do Remember the clubhouse remains closed.

This week’s virtual meeting 09-07-2020 Candle Holders.

This Week’s virtual meeting on Thursday 9th July 2020 is all about making Candle holders, they can be made for small nightlight candles to large pillar candles and everything in between, you could also try to make some offset candle holders. This meeting was to be handled by Errol Levings and he was going to demonstrate the making of an offset candle holder.

Here are a few examples of different candle holders that you might like to try.

A natural edged candle holder, made to take a standard 22 mm candle.
Here are a couple of candle holders made to take a sentinal candle and makes use of a glass globe as well.
Here we have Colin MacKenzie with a set of 3 electronic candles set into a piece of wood.
This candle holder was made by Bill Munro, and had a 3 inch brass candle fitting set into the top to take a large pillar candle.
Here is an example of the offset turned candle holder, It was made by Errol Levings at a club meeting some time ago.

I hope these few examples have given you some ideas for making your own candle holders. We want to see many of them, photographed and sent to me for upload to our web site.

The virtual meeting is on Thursday, you have until Lunchtime on Friday 10th July 2020 to send your pictures to me, don’t forget to include some information on what you have made and possibly even why.

Click my email to send them to me at,

a.j.mutch4321@btinternet.com

Report on our virtual meeting 25-06-2020 competition by Errol Levings.

Our virtual meeting on the 25th June 2020 was to be a competition, being handled by Errol Levings, the Novice category were asked to make a Natural Edged Bowl from 1/2 a log, the Intermediate category were to make a Natural Edged Bowl from a whole log and the Experienced category were to make an Inside Out Turning. There wasn’t going to be any judging it was all for the experience of doing it.

I have to tell you that the uptake for this competition was very very poor and quite disappointing I received very few pictures, but those I did receive will be shown here along with some of my own pictures just to pad out the post.

We do have pictures from Bill Munro, Dave Line, Jeff Buttress and myself.

To get a larger picture of any of those shown in the gallery below, just click the picture.

We are hoping for a better uptake for the next virtual meeting, that will be on the 9th July 2020, it’s also being handled by Errol Levings and the subject matter was going to be making an Offset Candle Holder or any Candle Holder. Lets get lots of pictures from our members for our members, start now and get the pictures to me for inclusion in our web site.

We hope you are all still keeping well and avoiding this deadly virus.

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Competition virtual meeting 25-06-2020

This week would have seen our 2nd competition for this year, this will now be handled virtually, it should have been taking place on Thursday 25-06-2020, it was being organised by Errol Levings and Errol had laid down the criteria for the competition. He wanted the Novice group to make a Natural edged Bowl from half a log, he wanted the Intermediate group to make a Natural edged Bowl from a whole log, and the Experienced group were tasked with making an Inside Out Turning. Whatever group you are in can you still make something in line with what Errol has asked for, there will be no judging taking place, do it for your club or do it for Errol, I will let Errol see all the entries and he may well decide to comment on some of them. Firstly we want plenty of entries in all 3 categories, you have up to Thursday evening to get your items made, photographed and sent to me, I will be uploading them to our web site on the following day.

Don’t let Errol down, I know he is looking forward to seeing what you all have made.

I have given you 3 pictures of things made using Errol’s criteria.

This is a Spalted Beech bowl that was made from half a log, the type of thing Errol is looking for the Novice group to make.
This is a Laburnum bowl made from a whole log, this is a little more difficult and would suit the Intermediate group. This one was made from a “Y” piece but a straight log will be all that’s required.
The final group, the Experienced members, you are being asked to make an Inside Out Turning, it can be any size or shape.

Our entries over the past few weeks for virtual meetings or just for publication have been very poor in number, we would like to see you all entering your work much more than has been happening, so please enter into the spirit of the virtual meetings until we eventually get back to the clubhouse, we are aware that may be some time yet so the only way we can keep in touch is through the internet.

Send your pictures to me at,

a.j.mutch4321@btinternet.com

Remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Report on our virtual meeting 11-06-2020 making weed pots.

Our virtual meeting on the subject of weed pots was held on Thursday 11th June 2020. It was being organised by myself, the usual criteria was in place, the members were to make the weed pots and send their pictures to me for publication on our web site. It was looking fairly clear to me that by Tuesday evening I had very few pictures from only 4 members, this was to say the least very disappointing, so as I was the organiser I decided to do a tutorial on the making of a weed pot, if only to make it worth while to do a post.

I have also change some of the ways I used to present the entries, I do hope you approve of my new method, it will be presented in 2 parts, the 1st part will be the members entries and the 2nd part will be the tutorial.

Part one, the members entries. Click any picture for a larger view.

Here’s a short video of Mike Day’s Weed Pot

Part two, a tutorial by Alec Mutch, on making a weed pot, see the gallery below, there are 24 pictures in 12 entries, just follow the pictures 1 to 24 and you should produce a weed pot at the end if it, click the pictures.

I hope you have gained something from this post from both the members and myself, I hope we can get a better response from our members in the future, our next virtual meeting was to be a competition organised by Errol Levings, this will now be a virtual meeting. Errol wanted the competition to be on 3 subjects, the Novice group were to make a Natural Edged Bowl from 1/2 a log, the Intermediate group were to make a Natural Edged Bowl from a full log The Experienced group were to make an Inside Out Turning. Now I would like you all to follow what Errol has asked for and make something in line with his requests, there will be no judging, but then there doesn’t need to be, just do it for your own satisfaction and remember to send the pictures to me.

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Weed pots virtual meeting 11-06-2020

Our meeting this Thursday should have been all about making weed pots, it will now be handled on line by means of a virtual meeting, it was to be organised by myself, what we would like you to do is to make a weed pot or more than one and send the pictures to me along with some text for publication on our web site. These are not difficult things to make and they use up odd bits of wood that would otherwise not be used.

We had a real disappointing entry for the Inside Out Turnings, I hope we can do a whole lot better with this subject.

If you need some guidance on what a weed pot is and how to make it, click the link provided below for a full description on how to make one.

http://howtodowoodturning.com/weed-pot/

The pictures and text need to be sent to me by Friday 12th June at the latest, email them to a.j.mutch4321@btinternet.com

Do remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Report on our “Inside Out Turning” virtual meeting on 28-05-2020.

Our virtual meeting on “Inside Out Turning” was on Thursday 28th May 2020 It was to be organised by myself, I was going to demonstrate the methods used to produce an Inside Out Turning, however as this was not possible due to the lockdown we made it a virtual meeting instead. I was to be the only turner for this demonstration, we were not going to use all the lathes as is the normal practice. On that basis I decided I would handle this more like a tutorial rather than the normal proceedure where we just show some pictures with a little text, I will take you through the making of an Inside Out Turning.

The membership were invited to do an inside out turning to be shown on this post, however I have only received one other entry for the Inside Out Turning, I was hoping for a few more but I do realise that this type of turning may have been a step to far for the some of our members.

I did receive a couple of pictures of other turnings from another member, and they will be shown here, I did invite everyone to enter any piece of turning if they felt the Inside Out Turning was not for them.

First up is the only Inside Out Turning I received from Nick Simpson, this is what he had to say about his picture.

Morning Alec

If you are short of photos this is one I did a while ago.

It is 9” tall and made from sycamore. The inside is spray painted gold and the outside stained with spirit stain and satin lacquer.

Regards

Nick Simpson.

Next are a couple of pictures from Dave Line, not Inside Out Turnings, just items he has made recently, this is what Dave had to say about them,

Hi Alec.

I tried inside out turning after John Ruickbie demonstrated a couple of years ago but the result was a complete disaster so when I saw the programme for this year I was looking forward to this week when Alec would be demonstrating inside out turning so I could have another go.

So no inside out turning but 2 items I have made in the last couple of weeks.

The first is a lamp, 280mm high and 120mm Dia. The body is Ash and the feature rings are Sycamore and Sapele , it is finished with wood wax and friction polish.

The second is a clock of 150mm Dia it is very simple but my first use of millput which I think sets it off quite well, the wood is Copper Beech and finished with melamine lacquer.

Now for my own tutorial on Inside Out Turnings.

For those wishing to follow the tutorial start at the fourth picture and go through them in sequence they are all on a step by step basis for you to follow, and good luck with this, if you don’t try you will never know how interesting it can make woodturning, for a larger picture and the text just click any picture, a full sized picture should appear.

Our next Virtual meeting is on the 11th June 2020, that too is being organised by myself, it’s on a much simpler turning this time, it’s all about making weed pots, now that something that everyone can do and can enter for publication, so get to making weed pots and lots of them and send your pictures to me but don’t forget to tell us all about them.

Remember the clubhouse remains closed.

Inside -out turning virtual meeting 28-05-2020

Our next meeting should have been on the 28th May 2020 but due to the lockdown this meeting will be handled virtually. It was to be organised by myself demonstrating how to make an inside-out or involuted turning. This type of turning usually consisted of 3 or 4 pieces of wood held by temporarily gluing the pieces together (paper joint method) to create a cylinder where the turning that would ultimately be on the inside is turned first on the outside with the ends untouched at this stage, the whole assembly would then be taken apart and reversed so that all the turnings are now on the inside, the pieces would then be glued permanently, allowed to dry and then turned. I have given you a few pictures of one I did myself and one that John Ruickbie did at a demo in 2018, you can follow what we did if you wish or come up with your own idea for any form of inside-out turning, but do have a go at this and send your pictures to me.

This is one I made some years ago, it’s made from Sycamore and has a miniature bottle of whisky inside.

Do have a go at this and send me the pictures, some of them could be as it’s being made along with the finished article and some information to go with it. If you don’t feel comfortable to make one of these turnings, send me pictures of anything else you make instead, we still want to see your pictures, so keep them coming.

All pictures to be sent to me at, a.j.mutch4321@btinternet.com

Do remember that the clubhouse remains closed.