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Mick Hanbury was our demonstrator for April and his style is very much towards decorative work. He turned the basics for two of his designs, the first being a square edged bowl from a piece of myrtle burr with a perforated sycamore lid having an African blackwood finial. His second piece was to be a hollow form with a decorative collar. The myrtle burr blank for the bowl was mounted on a screw chuck and the outside shaped to the form of an ogee. (At this point he turned sideways to show that his belly was his template that went everywhere with him!!). This bowl was to have a foot to stand on and to grip when hollowing out. Before reversing it in the chuck to turn the outside he sanded it with a power sander but took it no further at his stage saying he wasn’t here to show us how to sand. He then shaped the inside to a wall thickness of about 3mm and formed a recess for the lid to fit into. To keep fingers at a safe distance from the flying wings of the square edge he used his power sander again. As a nice contrast to the bowl the lid was made from a piece of sycamore. He turned the blank to a cylinder and formed a spigot to fit the chuck. Gripping this he turned both the inside and the outside as far as he could go down to the chuck to obtain a thin and even thickness wall, about 3mm. To finish it off he mounted it on to a jam chuck and took very careful cuts, any rough treatment at this point and he would lose the lot. While still on the jam chuck he decorated it by piercing it with a small rasp held in a flexible drive attached to a Dremel drill. The final touch was to turn the finial which was a tight fit and protruded through the hole drilled in the lid to create a decorative centre on the inside. A battery operated candle lamp fitted inside turns this into a very attractive item. After judging the entries for this month’s competition he started on his next project which was the hollow form. I didn’t make a note of the wood he used for this but I’m sure most of you were paying more attention than I was! The shape was a simple vase which he completed the outside of but didn’t hollow out except for creating the hole in the neck into which the spigot of the decorative top would fit. He wanted the time to show us how to turn the top. This was made from another piece of sycamore that was held in the chuck while he turned the inside to follow the shape of the vase exactly and turned the spigot that would fit in to the neck. He also turned the outside as close to the chuck as possible so that he could measure its thickness, leaving the final shaping to be done when it was fitted to the vase. He then reversed it in the chuck and held it by the spigot while he finished shaping the outside and then carved the decoration to form the collar using the Dremel again. Mick then sanded it to a fine finish and sprayed it with Chestnut ebonising lacquer before fitting it to the vase. The only other news for the month had been the trip to Yandles which went off very well. We had a full coach and no one was late so we were off on time and after an uneventful drive down to Somerset we arrived at Yandles at around 10.45 am. The place was heaving with bodies which made it impossible to get any photos to put in this newsletter but everyone enjoyed the day and a few even parted with some money. The pub up the road did a roaring trade at lunch time and the result was a few heads resting on chests on the way home!! Our next meeting is on Saturday 10th May and Mark Hancock will be with us for the day. He is a highly skilled turner having had commissions from all over the world including the Foreign Office to provide gifts for visiting dignitaries. He sounds like a demonstrator not be missed. I will be there and, I hope, so will all of you. See you all on the 10th Graham Please alter the entry in your Membership Directory.
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