Club Night Report
Wednesday 10th July 2024
Club Night Photos for Wednesday 10th July 2024 - Guest Demonstrator: Les Thorne
The demonstrator for the July 2024 meeting was a welcome return of Les Thorne (see website: www.noturningback.co.uk) who last visited us in February 2023.Les started the evening with a statement that he "was not going to do my day job - which is production turning - it's boring and tedious". However, he would be showing us some of the techniques learnt in production turning, that we could add to our own turning. Warming to his theme, he enquired if we knew of a TV programme called "Myth Busters" - he then declared that he would be showing his own version of the show called "Pith Busters"! He said he would be discussing some of the myths surrounding woodturning. This is Les's view, which is an educated view - for example: A spindle turners take on bowl turning - it's just a spindle in a different plane. Throughout the evening, Les employed a high degree of deliberately controversial, tongue-in-cheek statements, questions and opinions, with a good degree of repartee, delivered with humour, anecdotes and idioms, with a lot of audience interaction.
Tonight's demonstration was a project with 'added value' - using small bits of timber to make a simple bowl with an inserted ring. The timber (Canadian hard maple) - approx. 8" diameter by 2" thick, was mounted on a screw chuck. The evening was peppered with challenges and audience participation and comments. For example - "you can't use a spindle roughing gouge on a bowl" - the why's? and why nots? were discussed. The blank outside diameter was turned round, and the outside bowl shape was rough turned. A lengthy discussion on the merits of pull cuts versus push cuts took place - and where to use them. A quick reference - use pull cuts to get the shape and push cuts to get the finish. This was followed by the question of whether the bowl should be held in a recess or on a spigot (which is the better option?) when it was reversed for the next operation. Les suggested that the reason a lot (possibly the majority) of recesses were in use was historical. Traditionally, woodturners had screw chucks, jam chucks and faceplates - then the all-metal collet chucks, such as 'Masterchuck' and 'Multistar' arrived. These demanded the use of a very accurately cut recess, owing to their very small range of adjustment and worked well. Then, the 4-jaw scroll chuck became available - along with standard internal, external, and shaped jaws and less need for highly accurate holding diameters - and the option of using a spigot. A bowl with a recess can (typically) be completed in two-operations, whereas a bowl with a spigot needs three, as the spigot needs to be removed to properly finish the project. Another statement for the audience was - turning hard wood blunts tools! No, it's not the hardness of the timber - it is the abrasiveness that blunts the tool. Similarly, timbers like oak are very good at wearing out sandpaper.
Les used callipers to mark the spigot diameter - then used a bowl gouge to turn it. The outside profile - a simple ogee (a flattened letter 'S') was then completed with a number of push cuts. During this, Les showed shear cutting to produce 'angel hair' shavings. The finish achieved was classed as the same as you would get via 240 grit sanding. There were many snippets of advice delivered here, such as: Learn to really 'look' at the surface of the wood - for tear out! Torn grain equals a 'hole' - which is very hard to just sand-out. Grain direction IS important - there are very good reasons for the old old expression: "going against the grain" - think about how you would sharpen a pencil - apply this to your woodturning and always attempt to cut 'with the grain'. When sanding - "pretend to be a random orbital sander" - keep it moving! Worn out sandpaper is scrap.
The bowl was reversed and held on the spigot in a 4-jaw chuck. The face of the bowl was cleaned up using pull cuts and the initial hollowing was started. A square recess was cut for the ring insert. The 4-jaw chuck (and bowl) was removed and a screw chuck holding the padauk blank was mounted. Les proceeded to cut a ring on the outside of the blank - cutting a groove to gain access for shaping the inner surface of the piece. The ring was parted off.
The bowl was remounted and the recess was carefully recut - ONE cut at a time to 'sneak up' on the desired press fit for the ring - which was then finish turned in situ. The ring was removed and the inside of the bowl was finish turned. Note: a pull cut inside a bowl is stupid! - use a push cut. The inner surface was power sanded - at the 3 o'clock position - it's between 6.00 o'clock and 9.00 o'clock for hand sanding. The padauk ring was then pressed back into place to complete the piece.
To end his demonstration, Les showed some of the basic cuts used in spindle turning. A pine blank - 2" square by 10" long was mounted between centres and three pommel cuts - square face to round, curved to round and ogee shape to round were shown, then the planing cut to round, followed by vee cuts and beads were shown - all made with Les's signature multipurpose tool.
That was quite an evening! - full of audience participation, questions and answers, along with Les's usual fine display of humour, skills, advice, techniques and precision. A night to remember. Thank you!
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The Display Table was well supported with some interesting items on display...
Arthur Kingdon showed 'the smallest box' he had ever made on his ornamental lathe. The box (made as a gift), in African blackwood
has a threaded lid. Matching the tapers of the thimble (made of gold with an amethyst tip) was the most challenging part.
Mark Cable
presented two small bowls made of jarrah. Martin Barrett displayed a recent 'disaster' where a thin stemmed goblet broke on a small
knot to become a 'parasol'. He also showed an unbroken thin-stemmed goblet made in wet hawthorn, along with a couple of black stained
ash pots and two small ornamental cherry bowls which were also turned wet.
Frans Brown showed a large oak 'Viking style' bowl, made of
brown oak and mounted on three spherical feet - the outside of the bowl had been extensively pyrographed.
Dave Branscombe continued his
theme from last month's display table, with another example of geometric pyrographed designs and staining, on a plywood dish.
Tim Mortimer
presented a large oak 'acorn box' with a close-fitting lid - inspired by last month's demonstrator Steve Heeley.
Sean Snook showed a
large olive ash bowl and a smaller bowl made of cherry - both finished with multiple coats of gloss lacquer.
Steve Alexander displayed a
large oak dish made from an old floorboard from a house renovation project, along with another oak bowl and a smaller bowl made in mahogany.
Roger Hoare showed two large segmented turned vases. The larger vase stands 33" (840 mm) high by 18" (460 mm) diameter - the timbers used were mahogany and sycamore.
And the smaller, open segmented vase stands 13" (330 mm) tall by 10" (225 mm) diameter - made from walnut, sycamore and pink ivory.
When asked for an opinion, Les Thorne commented that the larger vase was "Amazing - and it should be in a museum".
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