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That was the last of our Winter month meetings and we had Greg Moreton to show us his style of turning. Greg specialises in turning monkeypuzzle logs and when we saw some of his work we could see why. The markings are beautiful, as you can see in the photo in the gallery. The morning was taken up with his first piece which was to set up a large log between centres and very slowly at first, started to turn off the knobbly bits and begin to shape the outside. He had another one “that I made earlier” to illustrate the shape that he wanted to achieve as shown in the photo in the gallery. If took some time to get the outside roughed down to the shape he wanted before starting to hollow it out. As he worked he left a spigot inside so that he could maintain pressure with the running centre for as long as possible to prevent it from taking off at a rate of knots and also give it stability as the walls got thinner. He kept going until he reached the point where he would have to transfer it to a four Jaw chuck for finishing, leaving a series of steps on the inside to bring the gouge up to to prevent it skipping at the start of the cut. The whole piece was sprayed with oil to slow down the drying process between now and finish turning in a few months time. This brought us up to lunch time but we had decided to have the entries for the monthly certificate for the best presentation of the day judged at mid morning. This was to avoid the crush of people rushing to get away for lunch that usually hampers the presentation. There was not so many pieces to judge this month but even so, Greg gave them all some serious thought. He finally chose Howard’s clock for the first prize. He said that although there was not a lot of turning in it he was very taken with the design. The runner up was our youngest member Michael. Greg liked the flow of the shape he had achieved on the inside but suggested that on his next attempt he should make the foot a little smaller. He chose it over a much larger hollow form produced by Tony Handford which he admired but for his taste it was too heavy. In the afternoon he discussed the merits (or not) of buying small bowl blanks. His feelings were that they don’t give you much chance to come up with a very interesting shape or design. However, he did give us some ideas of what to look for when buying a bowl blank, mainly in looking at the grain and deciding what you would make with it if you bought it. He then went on to turn a bowl from an 8” x 2 1/2” maple bowl blank describing what he saw in the grain and how he would shape the bowl to show it at it’s best. His final piece for the day was to turn an off set natural edge vase in yew. The top edge was turned and finished before going on to the waist and base. Again it was finished using oil, which he also used quite a lot when sanding both to give a good finish and to keep the dry dust to a minimum. The start of Spring and our next meeting is on Saturday the 8th April and John Berkley will be with us for the day. This is different to the diary. John Berkley couldn’t make it in September so he has done a swap with John Johnson who will now visit us in September. Now then!! There have been a few occasions when some of you have complained that the membership card/badge is too big to go in your wallet. A nuisance because you want it with you when you go shopping at Poolewood. So, with the kind permission of my dear ‘er in doors I have made use of her laminator and produced a new card for everyone. It is credit card size and will also fit your lapel badge. Wow, I sometimes wonder how I do it! Finally, I have been asked to ask those of you that attend the Thursday evening meetings that you bring your own tools and wood blanks. Thank you. That’s all I have for this one. I hope we have a big turnout on the 8th and I look forward to seeing you all there and flashing those new cards. Graham |
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