July saw us being entertained by Tony Walton. Last time he was with us he turned a pot on a three legged stand which involved a lot of hand carving and sanding.
This time he was going to do it differently.
The pot first and for this he had chosen a piece of African hard pear, a hard wood with a fine grain. Once turned to the round he turned a spigot at either end and parted a portion off for the lid. The body was hollowed out using various tools, some catching at the bottom , some giving a better cut until he was satisfied with the end result, leaving enough thickness at the neck to support the lid. The outside was turned, tapering to a point at the base.

Next the lid. The piece was mounted in the chuck and a spigot was turned to fit the pot. Then another one was turned to take an African blackwood ring that he would make later. Reversing it on to this second spigot he turned a similar spigot to take another blackwood ring so that it would form a sandwich and drilled a hole to take a finial, also made using African blackwood.

Now the base. Here the new approach was demonstrated. Tony had a triangular piece of, I think it was ash, which he mounted on a screw chuck, making sure it was dead central to the three points. First he turned the outside to a cone shape and bored a hole to accept the body of the pot. Then he reversed it and held it in the chuck by the hole and turned the inside to follow the cone shape of the outside ending up with a very neat tripod base.

The next item on the agenda was a bowl from an ash blank about 10” in diameter. The blank was mounted on a screw chuck and the back turned to a sweeping shape with a small foot which would be used to hold on to when turning the front. It was sanded to a fine finish and coated with black ebonising spray followed by a coat of gold gilt cream and finished with a couple of coats of Danish oil. The blank was reversed and the front faced off. The face was then textured with an arbotec tool. The roughness of this was cleaned up with a rotary plastic mop. Tony then stained the outer edge with black wood stain, lightly cleaned off and then he applied red wood stain, also lightly cleaned off. The centre was then hollowed out to the depth and diameter he wanted, sanded to fine finish and the whole surface was given a couple of coats of Danish oil.

Two more items for the day. One was a useful tip on what to do with that last lump left in the chuck. Face it off and bore a hole deep enough and of a diameter to take the top of a can of any finish you might have in the workshop. Turn it round and face it off. Glue the top in to it and the next time you want to open the can and the lid has stuck you no longer need to use grips to open it because you have a much stronger purchase on the lid when twisting it open.

The last item was turning a sphere by turning a series of angular flats, starting at 45 degrees, on your cylinder, held between centres, and then blending them in to form a smooth curve. Then turn a jam chuck that the ball fits in to tightly and follow round the curve to turn away the small spigots you were holding on by.

Graham

Notice board

Two important dates to look forward to We will be at Farming World again this year on August 24th, 25th and 26th. We would like donations of your unwanted but dearly loved items of turning to flog there for charity please. The charity we will be supporting is again Macmillan Cancer Support (Nurses). If you want to sell stuff and donate 10% to charity that’s ok but please bring it in and come and take home any unsold items at the end of the show.

We are also at the SAW show at Mytchett again on October 27th. We need ten better than superb pieces to show so that we can once again come home with the trophy!! Dig deep into the firewood box and see what gems you can come up with.

And last but not least. The fish and chip lunch is all set for Saturday 5th October. Turn up at about 11.30 am and the food should be arriving at 12 o’clock.