Posted on by Alec Mutch

Report on our meeting 31-03-2022, a demonstration by Errol Levings.

Our meeting this week on Thursday 31st March 2022 was a demonstration by Errol Levings, Errol was demonstrating the use of some of the additional items you might need for your woodturning, these were things like Templates, Jigs and Copy devices. He showed and explained the use of various templates, also some items he had made to assist with his woodturning, there was some discussion on whether some of the items were templates or jigs, whatever you wish to call any of them was of little consequence they were all useful in their own field of use.

Errol went on to explain that templates need to be made from different materials depending on the frequency of use, if you are only doing a couple of items that need to be the same then a stiff card would probably be suitable to make the template from, on the other hand if you were to be making quite a few items that were the same then a more robust material would be required, something like a thin plywood or a piece of acrylic.

After explaining what templates and other devices were used for, Errol went on to make use of a template to make a traditional spurtle. What follows is a summary of some of the templates and other devices Errol used and finishing up with making a spurtle using a template.

1, This is Errol Levings showing a template for a goblet. 2, his presentation table with some of his templates and other devices. 3, a drawing for a candlestick with all the relevant dimensions.
4, Errol explained how the template worked for this type of turning and that it may require more than one template to make the item, this one shows the main body template, an additional template would be required for the top section. 5, another template being shown in relation to the finished article. 6, this is an ear ring stand, a different template would be needed for the centre columns and another for the position of all the holes. 7, a typical template for the holes, in this case it’s been marked out for 20 holes.
8, another type of template used for setting out the corner penetrations. 9, a pantograph can be used to copy a drawing to make it bigger or smaller. 10, Here a small template used as a cut out guide and shown where it might be used, things like a wool bowl require these type of cut outs. 11, here Errol is showing a template made from very thin ply used to make spurtles, he used ply because it’s more durable for making larger batches of any item.
12, Errol had made several round discs from plywood, in various sizes, these he used to mark out discs for turning. 13, Now comes the turning of a spurtle, he has mounted the blank and brought it to the round. 14, now using the back of the template Errol is making ready to transfer the location points for the detail on the spurtle.
15, Here Errol is transferring the detail from the template with a pencil. 16, Making a start on the detail using the pencil marks as a guide. 17, continuing to form the shape using a roughing gouge but following the detail from the template.
18, here Errol can be seen using a skew to make the final cuts. 19, the finished spurtle ready to be cut off the lathe, he would use a fine toothed saw to remove the waste from each end. 20, checking the detail from the template.

That concludes Errol’s demonstration, it was very well received by our members. We hope you found this interesting and something that you feel will help you in some future projects especially if you need to make more than one of anything.

Our next meeting will be on the 14th April 2022 and is being managed by Geoff Potter, there should be all 5 lathes in use and the subject matter for most of the turners will be natural edged turning.

For those involved with the teaching programme our next teaching meeting will be on the 7th April 2022 start time of 6.45pm. This only applies to tutors and pupils who have been notified already.