Journal

Turned Candlestick with Inside Out Centrepiece

Tonight the club welcomed accomplished turner and demonstrator Robert Till to Droitwich. His chosen project was a turned candlestick incorporating an inside out element as it’s centrepiece. He began by showing us how to glue 2 pieces of shop – bought pine together and mark up his intended design.

Having executed his design using a spindle gouge he parted the 2 pieces – reversed them and then re – glued.

Using a series of beads and coves Robert completed his spindle before separately turning a base for the candlestick.

Thanks to Robert for a very clear and concise demonstration.

The club organised a couple of all day sessions using some of our newly – qualified lathe leaders where new members, in particular, were able to enjoy some 1 to 1 tuition in the basics of woodturning.

As usual on our Hands On evenings we get out our 4 club lathes for members to have a go under the watchful eyes of our lathe leaders. The project set tonight was to make a needle case and a number of members, new and not so new, tackled the task.

A number of people completed the task. Well done everyone!

This evening all members were invited to bring in projects that they have been working on or, tonights theme, something from YouTube. They would then discuss their methods of working and problems they’d encountered. Roy kicked off the evening with a follow up to his recent demo on pen making.

Our MC Russell then introduced a number of diverse projects from the table in front of him which sparked some informative and lively debate in the room.

Next an impressive contribution from Eugene – a competition standard chess set that he had made as his first turning project (putting many of us to shame with the quality of it!!). He had even designed and built his own tools to ensure uniformity of the pieces. Well done Eugene!

The evening was concluded with contributions from two of our more experienced members Roger Borwell and Alan Edwards.

As Alan mentioned on the night this was one of the best Show and Tell’s the club has had with many contributors and a wide variety of woodturning experiences that we can all learn from.

Hollowing a thin – walled vessel with Phil Sheldon

Phil began his demo by roughing down a green ash log to round and explaining the various tools and techniques he uses to do this. He followed this by making a longer than usual spigot in order to mount the wood securely into his jaws.

Once the piece had been mounted securely Phil began to hollow the inside of the vessel with a variety of cutting and scraping tools whose functions he explained as he went along.

Now satisfied with his finish after sanding he then inserted his homemade lighting rig (mounted into the tailstock) into the cavity. By the transluscency of the wood as he turned away material he could gauge the wall thickness as he shaped the outside of the piece.

The technique can be applied to any thin – walled vessel you would like to try. Alan Jones suggested checking out the work of Ole Jakob Nielsen for inspiration. Thanks to Phil for a hugely informative demo.