Club Night Report

Wednesday 15th January 2014

Club Night Report for 15th January 2014 - observations by Vernon Hughes

This was another occasion for reliance on our own in-house resources.
This time one member was to keep us occupied for the whole evening, and it turned out to be the valiant Richard Branscombe. He said that he had responded innocently to the call for volunteers when a trawl for 'likely lads' was made several years ago, but with the passage of time that had slipped from memory so it had come as a shock when his name suddenly emerged from the hat. He did not mention it but we should keep in mind too that he had used up quite a lot of ammunition in June last year when, it will be remembered, he shared presenter responsibilities 50/50 with our Chairman. So what shots were left in the locker?

Richard's first piece was to be a vase in green Ash. The blank dimensions was around 10" long by 4" diameter and it had a 5/8" thick MDF cap of slightly larger diameter fixed to the tailstock end. Curiosity overcame one Member who asked about its purpose; he was assured that patience would be rewarded as work progressed. Richard started by wielding/ applying perhaps the largest roughing gouge ever to grace our venue (Melvyn Firmager's armoury excepted!), and then created a spigot at the headstock end to fit into a 4-jaw chuck. With the blank so mounted he then introduced and set up one of his own self-made steadies; and he repeated the offer made last year to provide anyone who would value it with a drawing of the steady, and a set of notes. The steady was important to the next step which was to drill a large diameter hole down the centre of the blank starting at the MDF cap. No sooner had he started to penetrate though when he changed his mind and began to 'shape' the MDF. To unrestrained hoots of genuine surprise this had the effect of removing much of the cap to reveal a pre-drilled large hole down the centre of the blank. It would have 'bored' us to watch the drilling process he observed. However, even greater depth was needed prompting him to unveil one of the most brutal-looking, square-ended scrapers imaginable. It had three interesting and unusual features in addition to its size/ weight. It had been home-produced starting with a large straight-sided file, a lethal looking cutting edge had been ground perfectly along the whole length of the straight edge as well as on the broad square tip and a paper measuring strip had been glued to the top face to show at a glance the depth of cut achieved. He attacked the blank with this 'weapon' held in the firmest of grips and with a staunch body posture to cope with the forces involved and to achieve the desired depth. By contrast this required a switch to some finesse in the last stages to get the dimensions just right to accommodate a straight-sided glass tumbler as a water container.
Care was taken over the top edges of the vase, including retention till the last minute of the final slice of MDF, to ensure a neat/ unblemished finish. Richard offered two further pieces of advice in the margins, viz: it is advisable to give the inside of the vase a couple of coats of polyurethane to waterproof it and secondly when considering vase designs and shapes it is a good idea to seek inspiration from equivalents in glass and ceramics. In rounding off this part of his demo Richard created a thin, flat jam chuck (just like that) for stabilising the vase top in the finishing process and dealt with the final external shaping, etc. To save time he did not sand, polish or decorate the vase but displayed numerous examples of appealing, finely finished and/ or decorated pieces.

After the break Richard made three more pieces: a small twig pot in Elm, a rapidly-made, truly miniature vase from a conifer twig followed by an off-centre vase.
His purpose in the last-mentioned was to demonstrate the method more than to achieve a finely finished piece, but two examples (of items made earlier) were on display. The 8" long by 3" diameter blank had been partially shaped off-lathe beforehand with a 'lump' projecting to one side at the base. Richard explained that he worked roughly to a proportion of stem to base of 2/1 which is fairly close to the golden mean. It will be seen from the photographs that the two centre-lines run parallel in this mode of off-centre turning (i.e. no angling is involved), the base being off-centre from the main stem centre. It is necessary to decide in advance the measurement to be used between the centres and to mark these out accurately at both ends. In this form of turning it is essential to get used to watching shadow lines throughout.

The order of work involves completing the stem in all respects before tackling the base. The blank

was mounted between centres and the top section was roughed down close to finished size. The stem was then shaped in detail from the top down, and a spigot was turned at the base. The piece was then mounted in the chuck and a 10 mm diameter hole was drilled to the desired depth. The top was shaped and the centre hole enlarged with a spindle gouge. The work was then de-mounted in readiness for the making of a thin, flat jam chuck to fit the top of the vase stem. The two centres were marked out accurately on the jam chuck and the work remounted with a Steb centre at each end, in the off-centre positions. This enabled a new off-centre spigot to be prepared at the base With the new spigot held in the 4-jaw chuck it was then simply a matter of shaping the base, sawing off and tidying up the saw-cut. This was all done at some speed and not quite perfected. However, Richard declared that he had at least succeeded in demonstrating the principles of such work and was applauded accordingly.

A concluding observation about Richard's approach is that no work-mounting or tooling challenge will ever be too much for him! He will devise any and every accessory needed to hold securely, and work, any piece of wood, and he makes it look so 'quick and easy'. As he explained last year he started work in 1951 as a dockyard apprentice at Portsmouth and it is clear that in those days they taught skills, methods and self-assurance to last a lifetime. I'm not surprised. I joined the Admiralty seven years later and became familiar with dockyard and shipyard activity.

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The Show 'n' Tell theme for the evening was: Open Theme - just bring along an item you are particularly pleased with - this was well supported and a number of excellent turnings were on display:


		This month's winning entry was a lovely bowl with inserts, and a carved and coloured design by Brian Oram (on the left) discussing his entry with Mike Crawshaw (Chairman)