Journal

How to make and use Jigs

This is a topic that is close to many of our member’s hearts – the many and various ways to hold wood in the lathe to achieve your aim. Making a sphere for example. We were shown several ways that wood can be held in order to turn a sphere – jigs to turn that sphere accurately and other jigs to hold it for further embellishments.

Jigs to make scoops, spirals, pendants and more were demonstrated by several members along with homemade items to hold a variety of projects.

Thanks to all the contributors to a really interesting evening.

It was great to welcome Steve, an old friend, back to the club tonight. His chosen project was a little ring box with a central dowel, and, as usual, he gave helpful tips all the way through his demo about technique. This could be particularly useful as this is a project that many of our members could attempt.

To mark his 20 years as an in – house demonstrator at the club Alan brought in many of the items that he has demonstrated over that time. Quite a collection!

For tonight’s project he chose to turn a hanging pomander. Beginning with taking a mahogany blank to round he quickly made tenons on either end before drilling a 6mm hole in the end which would become the lid. He then reversed the blank and drilled a 10mm hole in the other end before parting off.

The next step was to roughly shape the lid before putting the body into the chuck and hollow using a bowl gouge and a BCT – after he had made his apertures with a Forstner bit.

Using the body as a jam chuck he then replaced the lid and completed the finial this way. When completed he finished the piece, first with sanding sealer, and finally with Hampshire Sheen/Yorkshire Grit. And to complete the piece he fashioned a stopper to fit the 10mm hole drilled earlier. A great demo enjoyed by everyone. Thanks Alan.

Airbrushing Technique with Phil Sheldon

What a great demo on such a wide – ranging subject as airbrushing by Phil tonight. The first part of the demo covered the equipment that he uses or has used in the past including what nozzles to use, what paints/stains to employ and how to prepare them and, importantly, how to clean everything afterwards.

The next section took us through using the airbrush free hand initially then with stencils (bought and made) to achieve a variety of enhancements – all the time explaining the myriad ways to mask the work and spraying techniques.

He finished the session by ‘playing’ with a few ideas to illustrate what can be done and encouraged his audience to do the same. Here are some of the results he achieved in a very short space of time. A really inspiring demo Phil!

Skew Chisel Masterclass by Richard Findley

Wow! What an evening! It did exactly what it says on the tin. Richard served up a treat for members of all levels of ability to apply to their own work.

In a logical progression he took us step – by – step through the various tools you can use – explaining the merits of each and ways to sharpen them. Using a planing cut he went through the do’s and don’t’s of each as well as correct stance and tool presentation etc before progressing on to peeling cuts for tenons.

In the second half he introduced us to V cuts which progressed through to the techniques for turning a bead and how to avoid the many pitfalls. All the time he was answering questions and giving us tips and tricks from a lifetime in production turning.

And finally he gave us some exercises to practice our ‘new found skills’. A brilliant demo all round. Thanks Richard!