Blackcountry Woodturners all-day event.

This was the first all-day event that Blackcountry Woodturners have hosted for the past several years.

The Aims…

The aims of the day were to provide some well-earned entertainment for our current members, provide an opportunity to invite woodturners from other West Midlands Clubs, and with the aid of local media publicise Blackcountry Woodturners to the general public. This gave like-minded people the opportunity to visit and view the day’s events, talk to current members, and see what we as a club are all about.

There was also the opportunity for club members to buy and sell their unwanted/unused second-hand tools, purchase project wood, and bring in some of their own work to display, and refreshments were provided to all who attended during the day.

The club had secured the services of professional Woodturner Paul Hannaby from Gloucestershire, Paul agreed to complete three different types of projects throughout the day, ranging from basic through to advanced woodturning techniques.

The day’s summary…

It started at 8 am with early bird members arriving to set the rooms out for the day’s events, the main body of people began to arrive just after 9 am, the first job of the day was a hot drink, biscuit and general chat. The tool sales started in earnest along with the wood project sales. The first project, bowl turning techniques commenced at 9.45 am. Paul explained how not only to approach such projects but also design considerations, lathe mounting techniques, tool and cutting techniques plus ways to finish the project depending on the use to which it was to be put.

On completion we all took a 15-minute well-earned refreshment break then at 11.30 am Paul began project 2, Box making with texturing and colouring instruction. Paul began by demonstrating a number of market available texturing tools, how to use them and the varying types of effect that each are capable of achieving, he also demonstrated various ways of colour embellishing the patterns to bring out the best effect. Paul then went on to produce a small decorative oriental lidded box.

At 1 pm we had a 40-minute break for lunch, socialising, a raffle draw and more purchasing of tools and wood.

The remainder of the afternoon was taken up with the “Off Centre” platter with a decorative and air-brushed coloured rim.  This was a detailed advanced project well received by all present, with many questions being asked as the project unfolded. Paul explained and showed in detail the techniques, both turning and decorative, to complete the project from start to finish. The challenge now is for us all to go away and give it a go…

The event concluded at around 4.30 pm with everyone going home having enjoyed their day, learned a little or a lot as the case may be and hopefully inspired to have a go at new projects.

A big thank you must go to all the club members who brought in their own pieces of work to make up a fantastic display for all to see, providing project inspiration for us all.

On Thursday last week we had Robert Till as our demonstrator. He has done a demo before, at our old venue, where he showed us how to make a turned bird’s house. This time he demonstrated his rocking bowls. They are mostly made from ash or oak, as the open grain in these timbers allows for the kind of surface decoration he is aiming for.

It all starts out with a blank about 8″ in diameter and 3″ thick. A drill provides a hole for the screw chuck and, once mounted, the out side is squared off, both on the flat underside and the rim. A centre mark is made on the rim to ensure the final bowl has equal curves on top and bottom (although I suspect this could easily be altered for variations of the form), and then the underside is turned into a gentle curve towards that mark. This curve must always allow for a small, but precise tenon.

Robert demonstrated using pull cuts for the shaping, and then putting the handle right down and closing the flute on his bowl gouge to perform a very gentle shear scrape. In this manner he gets a surface that needs very little sanding.

The bowl is then reversed into the chuck, and a similar curve is applied to the top. For the sanding he uses Rhinogrip, and he always makes sure to only ever use any particular spot on the sanding paper once, folding away used pieces as he goes along. His surfaces are sanded to 600 or 1000 grit. He then showed two different methods of finishing the top.

For the first method, he applied a thin film of Chestnut ebonizing lacquer to provide a simple black surface. On top of this is then applied some gilt cream, also from Chestnut, which is rubbed well into the surface and in particular into the grooves left by the annual growth rings. Once the entire surface has been covered, a paper cloth and some finishing oil are used to remove any excess, leaving behind only the cream in the recesses, and thereby dramatically enhancing the figure of the wood. This is left to dry, and the final finish are up to a dozen layers of finishing oil, applied one coat per day (or slower). Once the wood has been saturated with oil, it starts to build up a nice coat on top, which does not need buffing.

The second method of decoration was done with the coloured spirit stains from Chestnut. He first rubbed the entire surface with a purple colour, and then carefully sanded that back until most of the high points were left in natural again, and only the grain recesses showed colour. He then used paper cloth to apply dabs of colour in a pattern to enhance any natural features of the wood, and finally blended them all together with finishing oil.

A very instructive demo aimed at mid-level turners, and well delivered. Our display table was well stocked, and we had 26 members and one visitor in attendance.

This month Blackcountry Woodturners were graced with the presence of professional woodturner John Aitkin, otherwise known as “The bowler-hatted turner”, renowned for wearing a bowler hat when woodturning at craft shows, his theory is that “people cannot remember names but they never forget a hat!”

John’s evening consisted of detailed examination, super explanation, fine tool control and tuition surrounding project enhancement, by the inclusion of thread chasing, and forming various “finishing finials” made in, wood, Pewter, Deer Antler and Imitation Ivory to enrich the final project.

John explained that these techniques and materials could be considered for any type of project, but to give early thought to the design and how the inclusions would be used to enhance the piece and not just doing for doing’s sake…..good advice..

John based his whole demonstration around the making of one of his signature projects a decorative three-piece needle box, utilising all the stated techniques.

John went to great lengths to demonstrate and educate us about the art of thread chasing and showed his skill of thread chasing in both wood and pewter.

For the final part of his demonstration, John spoke about “Sharp Cutting edges” and showed to the audience his method of taking a sharp edge to a razor-sharp edge by using a simple grind wheel modified to run backward by reversing the guard plates, then replacing the stone grind wheels with sisal and brushed cotton wheels turning the equipment into a highly efficient edge polishing machine.

John’s character, humor, and sheer enjoyment of demonstrating his skills was evident to all in attendance making it a truly enjoyable experience for all. We hope we can persuade him to return next year to educate us more in the arts of woodturning.

Members also contributed to the evening by bringing in and presenting a good selection of crafts

Our February meeting was a demonstration by Paul Hannaby, who was recently appointed chairman of the AWGB. He has demonstrated at the club before, a goblet with a barley twist stem, if memory serves. This time around his focus was on bowl turning.

We held the demo meeting in the room adjoining our normal meeting room, for a number of reasons. For one, it offers a big overhead screen which we could connect to our camera, and thus provide a much improved view for the audience. And I am pleased to report that we had a very full turnout of members. Another reason is that the layout of our normal meeting room is much better suited for hands-on days than demonstrations, since it has a massive staircase right in the middle of the room.

For his first bowl, Paul chose a piece of mahogany of about 8″ diameter. This was mounted onto a screw chuck. This mounting method, which works fine for bowls up to about 10″ diameter, has the advantage of giving unfettered access to the bottom of the bowl, so that a nice foot can be formed with push cuts, which leave a much better surface than pull cuts. Paul talked extensively about his choice of bowl gouges, which are in essence all standard grind, i.e. very little wing. For the finishing cuts he used a particularly heavy bowl gouge, showing us that the weight reduced any bouncing dramatically and the long inside curve creates such a nice slicing action that the finish turned bowl hardly needed any sanding at all. He also demonstrated how to use a stick of hot-melt glue to check the surface for any bumps.

His second bowl was to be a natural edge piece. The approach is pretty much the same: start on the screw chuck, finish turn the outside (and sand and decorate if desired/required), then turn around and form the inside of the bowl. Obviously the challenge with a natural edge bowl is always to get the first one or two inches of the cut done without losing the bark or any other accidents. A steady hand and a good eye for the ghosted edge of the workpiece is required for this.

A very pleasant surprise of the evening was the table showing the work members had brought in. A wide variety of items and, it must be said, all of good standard. Clearly our members are feeling fired up to get into their workshops and make things. Excellent all around. Here are some images.

The club meeting on the 18th of January was our first proper demo at the new venue at Broadway in Dudley. It features a short turning demonstration by Melvyn Adams and a much more lengthy demonstration of pyrography by his wife.

In fact, several friends of hers had brought in their pyrography machines, and the whole thing developed almost into a hands-on evening. Advice was freely given and the usage of various different tips, templates, patterns, and what not was shown (and tried by club members).

We even had a fan operating to extract any fumes into the outside air.

Wouldn’t want to trigger the fire alarm on a club night, would we now?

As you can see from these two pictures, there was strong interest, and several club members made little keyring tabs or similar items.

In the evening we had the highest attendance figure ever for a club meeting, with 36 people in the room, of which 31 were club members. We signed up a few new members and some others showed interest.

This is an ongoing positive trend: our membership has increased by about 50% over the last 2 years, which makes it easier for the committee (and therefore the entire club) to manage finances, and provide new and improved tools and demos. This positive trend was also shown in the number of items on the display table.

Bob gave a really interesting and entertaining  series of short demonstrations.

The first demo was of a pewter turned pen, sorry no photo, which Bob turned using his own hand made pewter blanks mounted on a pen mandrel. Bob made the blanks by drilling a 12mm hole in a piece of dry wood 50mm deep and filling with molten pewter. He then drilled the blank and inserted a brass sleeve. Bob took time to explain the whole process to club members and answered numerous questions from those present. He also explained the need for a thorough sanding regime from 240 to 12000 grit and even using a metal polish to give the mirror finish he achieved. A really excellent demo.

Bob also demonstrated a slightly different way to finish off a 5” oak hand mirror.

During the evening he showed club members what can be done with what would be sometimes be classed as pieces of scrap wood. Bob made a standard bottle stopper then he turned a novelty off centre “ducks bottom” bottle stopper.

In a previous demo Bob was unable to finish a pendant due to a missing jig so he decided to finally complete that project in purple heart wood, and there was even time for an oak light pull.

Throughout the evening Bob gave members tips and advice on the use of tools and materials and the best sources for pen blanks etc.

Bob keep us all entertained with his story of building a coracle a few years back and the oak seat he had used for it, had been recycled, and part of that seat was now the 5” hand mirror he had turned earlier.

Bob delivered a packed programme and I can’t remember a demo with so many finished projects and so much sound advice.

And, of course, we also had a members work display table. Here are a few pictures from that:

The September meeting was a demo by Steve Heeley from Cannock.

He turned a small box with a winged lid and a finial. He showed us how to create a “lattice/lace” effect on the wings of the lid
using a Dremel type drill, and answered club member questions and gave tips and ideas on several
subjects including types of finish.

He had a recent health scare and strongly advised all present to have a really good dust extraction system and to always wear a mask. An entertaining and very informative evening was had by all.

It was a real shame we only had 15 members turn up for the demonstration.

Member’s work on display.