Joey Richardson was our demonstrator for our June meeting and her work is very much aimed at highly decorated items.

She started off by telling us a little about herself. Her skills in piercing and artwork came from time she spent with Binh Pho whilst in America.

Her project today started with turning a thin wall sycamore vase. She turned the outside first to the shape she wanted and then hollowed it out by first using a sawtooth bit and then opening it out with a Simon Hope tool. Hers had a flat bar with the cutter mounted at an angle as seen here.
Where we have seen other turners have light on the inside to judge the thickness as they turned the outside Joey prefers to have one at the back of the piece and hollow it out until the colour showed the same thickness throughout.
This was all the turning she had to do. The rest of the day was a lesson in decorating.

First she transferred an image of a rose on to the vase. She gets her images by either photo copying a picture on a photocopier or on a laser printer. An ink jet printer will not work. Ok. (for a photocopy try your local post office or copy shop. copiers are toner not ink.) The transfer is taped on to the vase face down using masking tape and then cellulose thinners is brushed over the back of the transfer to transfer the image on to the vase. To get a perfect image a final firm wipe over with your credit card does the trick.
Next Joey started piercing.
When she first started she used a dremel tool and cutters but soon went on to an air drill as in dentist drill. (Paul had fond memories of the sound from only a couple of days before) Also her cutters are now dental burrs. All very expensive but for her work, essential. She recently finished a commission for Faberge that earned her a few accolades. These same burrs will also do any carving you want to introduce to your work.

Joey shaded out the areas she wanted to cut away by piercing and carefully cutting away small areas. Next she carefully sanded away any traces of ink or small rough edges using 320 grit paper. Then she started airbrushing with the different colours. More masking is needed to avoid paint getting in where it’s not wanted.
To give the piece the character that is Joey’s mark she first drew outlines of wings or petals, depends on how you look at it, then shaded in the areas to be cut away. It looked right so cutting started. If the bottom of the cut made the wall look thick she would shave down the edge of the cut to give the appearance of a thin wall all the way down.

The afternoon was spent with Chris and Paul trying their hand at pyrography. Fred sent me some pics shown in the Gallery. Joey showed more of her pyrography and airbrushing skills, as Fred said in his note to me, how the professional does it

Our next meeting is on Saturday 9th July and Matthew has managed to get Emma (the tiny turner) Cook to come to us for the day. We have had Emma visit us before and she is a very interesting turner to watch helped along with a touch of Yorkshire humour so come along, even bring your friends, and enjoy a good day. Besides, we need all the bums on seats that we can get to pay for her. See you ALL on the day. Graham.