Saturday October 10TH our demonstrator will be Greg Moreton https://www.moreton.co.uk/

The carvery at the Tudor Rose has been booked for Sunday November 22nd 1pm. The menu has been emailed to those who put their name on the list. Please let Fred know your selections.
If you would like to add your name to the list please let me know.

Jason Breach was our demonstrator for September.
He worked for Axminster for many years until he was recently made redundant. Now working for himself, he focuses on enjoying turning and life. The importance of this outlook really came to light after his friend Nick Agar passed away recently at a fairly young age, following a brief battle with cancer.

The first piece was going to be a pagoda box, made from a 5-inch square with tenons preformed on the top and bottom. This was mounted using a revolving ring centre, which prevents too much penetration into the wood. Jason started with the lid, hollowing out the underside and forming the pagoda shape before sanding very carefully because of the square edge.
Once sanded, the recess for the join was cut. It is important to ensure that the edges of the join are parallel. This was then finished with cellulose sanding sealer applied using a brush, before being cut back with wax and sandpaper. The base was then mounted in the chuck, and the top of the body was rounded while leaving the base square. This was turned until the stem of the box reached full round, and then an ogee shape was formed on the top of the section that would form the feet.
Once happy with the foot area, Jason started to form the join between the lid and the bottom. A peeling cut was used to cut the first shoulder, which was then trimmed to size using a planing cut. Once the lid fitted, the top surface was cleaned up. Jason emphasised the importance of how the tools are held and gripped to avoid run-out. The body was partially shaped, the lid attached and the tailstock brought up for safety. The curve of the lid was then formed, the tailstock moved away and the finial formed with a fluted beading tool.

After the tea break, Jason continued to work on the body, drilling it out with a spindle gouge before hollowing it with a 1/4-inch bowl gouge for bulk removal from the middle. The inside edge of the box was then straightened using a square scraper based on a bedan tool. The opening was rounded using the bead end tool before sanding through the grits. Once the inside was complete, the lid was reattached and the outside sanded. The piece was then finished with Cellulite sanding sealer and microcrystalline wax.
The sacrificial block was then mounted in the chuck so that the base could be reversed onto it as a jam chuck. This allowed the feet to be cut. Jason reiterated the importance of sharp tools to reduce resistance to the cut, which could pull the item out of the jam chuck. Once a small finial had been formed, the base was finished to the same standard as before.

The afternoon piece was to be a Saturn bowl, or wobble bowl. This is a bowl with a rounded base and an offset wing. A large 8-inch by 4-inch ash plank was mounted on a screw chuck. The wing was marked out as a 1-inch band, and wood was removed to outline it. This was trimmed, sanded and finished before the piece was mounted in an offset hole around 15 millimetres from the centre hole. The edge of the piece was painted black before the bulk of the reverse was removed. A low speed was used because of the imbalance, and a chucking point was left as the bowl was formed. Once the waste was removed, the chucking point was recut and formed properly.
The piece was then reversed onto the chuck, leaving the screw chuck in place. The top side of the bowl was formed before the piece was returned to the screw-chuck mount to finish the bottom of the wing. Once complete, the base of the wing was sanded using an Abranet sanding block to keep it completely flat. Once sanded, it was reversed onto the chuck once more and the screw chuck was finally removed. The rim of the bowl could then be created before the bowl was hollowed and the wing finished to thickness. This was then sanded. The bowl was hollowed out using various bowl gouges. Once sanded, the bowl was reversed onto a jam chuck to finish the rim, using lots and lots of tape to secure it. The chucking point was removed, and the base was rounded and then sanded to a finish.
Jason then added a wedge to the special jam chuck that he was using. This tilted the bowl slightly so that it could be cut at an angle, creating the offset rim. The rim was then sanded and the finish applied.

The final piece of the day was to be a head for an owl. Jason showed us the entire piece but only wanted to demonstrate how he cuts the eyes and head. He started by making the eyes from a cocobolo pen blank, which was trimmed down using a 10-millimetre plug cutter and then drilled through the middle so that a small dark rod made from wenge could be glued in. Two 10-millimetre pieces were cut using a V-cut and a Japanese saw.
With a new piece mounted in the lathe, Jason turned a ball freehand by cutting the corners away. He then used a pipe cutter that had been ground and mounted on a rod to smooth the ball. Once rounded, the ball was mounted between drive centres to be refined, rotating it frequently between the different mounting points. It was then sanded, again rotating it between the drives as he worked. The position of the eyes was worked out and marked on the blank, and the ball was mounted in a special chuck so that each eye could be formed. First, a hole was drilled and the cocobolo eye socket was mounted and trimmed. It was lightly domed using a skew, after which the head was rotated and the process repeated to fit the second eye. The beak was then carved by hand before the head was displayed on a pre-made body.

Paul/Fred