We welcomed Les Thorne today. Les started the demonstration by saying that although he was going to make something, He wanted to explain to us how he was using his tools to obtain the best result possible.
Les put a piece of ash in the chuck. He talked about the roughing gouge with a cutting edge of 40 degs. Having made a cylinder, he used the 'wings' of the gouge to 'plane' the cylinder to a fine finish. From the end of the cylinder Les cut a 'biscuit', to be fitted into the end of the cone when hollowed out. Les hollowed out the cone using various hollowing tools.

Les had with him a model on an enlarged chisel end that one of his contacts had made, to indicate which part of the gouge causes 'dig-ins' if used incorrectly. having gone as far as he could with a spindle gouge, he introduced a Simon Hope carbide hollowing cutter. He finished smoothing the end grain using a scraper, finally cutting a groove in the base to receive the biscuit cut earlier. Then the outside of the cone was worked on to achieve the desired shape. The work was then removed from the chuck, and placed on a jam chuck. A very small hole was drilled into the top of the cone to receive a finial. The surface of the cone was textured using a thread 'chaser' which was surprisingly effective and made a pleasing surface.
Making the finial, Les placed a square piece of wood in the inside of the chuck and made a suitably shaped finial to place in the hole drilled in the top of the cone. The work considered suitably completed, he moved onto the next project.

Les produced another piece of ash as a bowl blank which he held using a screw chuck. Once 'trued' up he made a spigot and turned the blank around. Having trued up the edge he began to hollow it out using a 1/4" bowl gouge and undercut the rim. He talked at some length as to how to undercut a rim. He left a slight mound in the base of the bowl giving the illusion that the grain changed direction. It was a very good demonstration that we all enjoyed, such a shame there were so few of us.

Note from Graham.
Once again I was unable to come along to the meeting but it is with thanks to Matthew for the write up and Fred for the photos that I can get your newsletter out to you.

In last month´s newsletter I said that the Garden of England club were in financial difficulties. This is wrong because I miss read the information passed on to me. I should have said that they are looking closely at their finances. My apologies to them for this error. We are all considering how we move forward in these ever increasing difficult times and keep our clubs still active .

Ok. On to next meeting on Saturday 8th October. We were to have had Tony Handford spend the day with us but unfortunately he is unable to do any turning at the moment so Chris Withall has offered to stand in for the morning and do a demonstration. At the time of writing this Matthew is still working hard to find someone to fill the afternoon gap.

Once again I will not be there. This time it is because it is Chris’s birthday and we always try and book a week at Warners Hotel on Hayling Island for both our birthdays. Mine comes up at the end of Feb and is also booked already. Al we have to do now is hope we are both well enough to go for it!!

Graham/Matthew/Fred.