Author: Alec Mutch

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Report on our meeting on the 17th October 2019, making wooden platters.

Our recent meeting on the 17th October 2019 was all about making wooden platters, it was organized by Jim Kelman and he had 6 turners working the lathes, Bill Munro, Richard Comfort, Douglas stewart, David Hutcheson, Alan Smart and David Ross. Whilst all were making platters, there were differences in what they were doing. The turnout for the meeting was very good and the turners kept the audience interested. What follows is a record in pictures and text of how the evening went. The pictures for this post were taken by Mike Day, sorry for the delay in getting the post done this was due to technical problems with the pictures.

Here we have Bill Munro as he makes a start on his Oak platter.
The base of Bill's platter being sanded
The base complete.
Bill makes a start on the inside.
The turning on the inside nearly complete.
Bill is sanding the inside of his platter.
The inside sanded, Bill will apply a finish to his platter.
Here we have David Hutcheson working the outside of his Ash platter.
The shaping of David's platter well under way and the chuck recess already worked.
The outside of David's platter now sealed and polished.
The outside complete.
Here David has just started working the inside of his platter.
The turning complete, David has sanded the inside ready for the finish.
Here David is applying a coat of sanding sealer to the inside of his platter.
Here we have Douglas Stewart mounting his blank to the lathe.
Douglas has shaped the base and can be seen sanding for the finish.
With the outside complete Douglas has turned it around ready to work the inside.
Here Douglas can be seen working the inside.
Douglas applied some colour to the rim ready for the next stage.
Here Douglas has applied several different colours to the rim.
Here is Douglas's finished platter with a decorative rim.
Here we have Richard Comfort as he make ready to start his platter.
Here Richard is working the outside of his Elm platter.
The outside of Richard's platter almost complete.

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This gallery should have given you a flavour of how the evening went, if you want to see a larger picture and some text just click on any of the pictures.

Here is a view inside the club house as the meeting was in progress.
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This week’s meeting, 17th October 2019, Platters.

This week’s meeting on the 17th October 2019 is all about making wooden platters, the meeting has been organized by Jim Kelman and he has 5 turners working the lathes, one of which is a junior member who will be supervised by an experienced member. The turners are Douglas Stewart, Bill Munro, David Hutcheson, Richard Comfort and Richard’s son Liam Comfort who is our junior member and will be supervised.

I have given you a few pictures of Platters I have made in the past, we may see something along these lines being made, but whatever the turners produce will be of interest to the onlooking members.

At the start of the meeting there will be a short statement made by John Ruickbie on the matter of safety. We are looking for a good turnout as usual and hope you enjoy the evenings proceedings. Do remember we are now selling the Christmas raffles and we are also looking for donations for the raffle.

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Demonstration by Andy Walters 3rd October 2019.

Our meeting on the 3rd October 2019 was a demonstration by Andy Walters of Black Isle Woodturning, Andy is a professional woodturner running his business on the Black Isle. He was tasked to make a wooden Quaich, this is a drinking cup of Scottish origin used for taking whisky. The meeting was organized by Jim Kelman, The turn out was excellent.

Here we have Andy Walters, our demonstrator for the meeting. Andy did a brief summary on what he was going to do.
He was to make a Quaich, here he can be seen mounting the blank.
The first job was to true up all the working faces.
Here Andy is showing the members a template of the design of the Quaich.
Here Andy is marking out where he was going to start.
The base of the Quaich being worked first.
Here Andy is marking out where the chuck recess will go.
Cutting the chuck recess, Andy made this quite shallow and a fairly small diameter.
With the recess cut, Andy finished shaping the underside.
Here Andy can be seen sanding the underside.
He used a hand held sanding system that worked on friction, progressing through the grades of discs.
Here Andy is using a very fine sanding pad to finish off the sanding process.
Here Andy is applying a coat of sanding sealer.
After the sealer a coat of Melamine was applied, here he can be seen buffing that to a fine soft sheen.
The work piece turned around and mounted in the chuck ready to start the top and the inside.
Andy started by levelling off the face.
This cut would determine the size of the Quaich handles.
Here Andy can be seen removing material from the inside of the cup.
The inside size and shape almost complete.
Andy started to sand the inside, again using a variety of grit sizes of discs.
The top rim and the area where the handles will be being sanded by hand.
Andy sealed the work piece and applied a coat of Melamine before buffing to a soft sheen.
Here Andy can be seen marking out where the cup handles will be using a template.
Here just a hint of where the pencil marks are for the handles.

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If you want to see a larger picture and some text, just click on any picture, the featured picture at the top of the page is a view of the members as they took their seats for the demonstration. Pictures by Alec Mutch. Next meeting is on the 17th October and that will be making platters.

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This week’s meeting 3rd October, a demonstration by Andy Walters.

Our meeting this week on the 3rd October 2019 is a demonstration by Andy Walters of Black Isle Woodturning, this has been organized by Jim Kelman and he has arranged for Andy to make a Scottish Quaich, this is a very traditional cup made for drinking whisky. The meeting will start at the usual time of 6.45pm. We are looking for a good turnout.

This is a Quaich I made recently, it’s made from a piece of Elm, the cup part measured only 80mm x 30mm.

We are expecting Andy Walters will be making something similar, an interesting project for anyone who has not made a Quaich to see exactly how it’s done. Do remember the Christmas raffles are now on sale.

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Report from this weeks meeting 19th September 2019, pen making.

Our meeting this week on the 19th September 2019 was all about making wooden pens on the lathe. It was organized by Jim Kelman, Jim had 3 turners on the lathes, David Hobson, Bob Chisholm and Dave Line, there was also a little help given to David Hobson from David Hay and Mark Dale who used another lathe to do some assembly work on the pens. The turn out was good and the 3 turners held the attention of the members very well. The following picture gallery along with a little text should give you a flavour of how the evening went.

Here we have Bob Chisholm as he starts his pen making, Bob was using recycled oak.
One of his first pen barrels being hand sanded.
Bob is now working on a second pen barrel, this time he is using an acrylic blank.
Another of Bob's barrels, again an acrylic, this time it's golden yellow.
Here Bob can be seen using a jig for the assembly of his pens.
Here we have David Hobson sanding the barrels of his pen.
Here we can see David uses a mandrel that allows for both barrels to be mounted at the same time.
Here David is sanding a pair of Purple heart pen barrels.
Here is where David got some help, David Hay and Mark Dale assist with the assembly using only the lathe.
One of David Hobson's finished pens, this one is made from Iroko.
Here we have Dave line, as he starts his pen making, drilling the 7mm hole for the brass tube.
Dave mounted both parts on the mandrel and starts the turning process.
Here Dave Line is coating the barrels with sanding sealer.
Dave can be seen flattening the sealer with a wad of wire wool.
The 2nd barrel being sanded and sealed.
A coat of Melamine was applied and buffed to a soft sheen.
Here are 2 of Dave line's finished pens.

If you want to see a larger picture with a little text just click on any of the pictures. Pictures courtesy of Mike Day. Our next meeting on the 3rd October 2019 is a demonstration by Andy Walters of Black Isle Woodturning, he will be making a Scottish Quaich, we hope to see you all there.

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This week’s meeting 19th September 2019, making pens.

This week’s meeting has been organized by Jim Kelman, he has made this meeting all about making wooden pens. There will be 3 turners working the lathes doing their own style of pens, those are David Line, David Hobson and Bob Chisholm. We are looking for a good turn out as usual and hope you find something of interest from the 3 turners.

These were some examples of pens and other items that were made at a previous meeting.

Here is a reminder that the Christmas raffles are now on sale at every meeting prior to the Christmas meeting at a price of £1.50 each, there will be the usual plentiful supply of prizes.

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Report on our Showtime meeting 5th September 2019

Our Showtime meeting on the 5th September 2019 went very well, there were 10 members doing presentations and we had a good number of entries from our members, most of them had more than one item to show. The turnout was good for the members who were not doing presentations and everyone appeared to enjoy the presentations. A summary of the meeting follows in the form of a picture gallery with a little bit of text included.

First up we had John Ruickbie, he showed a small barrel made from some whiskey barrel staves.
John went on to describe exactly how he made the barrel.
Here John is showing the members part of one of the staves as he got them and described what he had to do.
This was part of the waste material that John was left with but it showed just how the barrel was constructed.
Here we have Bob Chisholm (in the pink jumper) showing one of his entries, a vase shaped candle holder.
Here we have Bob showing a small spalted bowl.
Another of Bob's entries, a splated beech bowl, I'm answering a question from the floor on this one.
Last of Bob's entries was a very nice natural edged bowl, again in spalted beech.
Here we have Douglas Stewart, Douglas made a whole wide range of wooden jewellery.
Douglas had some bangles, ear rings, pendants, rings and a ring tree.
Douglas was also into making wooden toys, here he is showing a small spinning top he had made.
Just some of Douglas's many item of turned jewellery.
Here we have Dave Line, Dave made a hollow form from a turning that he then cut and reassembled giving him the boat shape.
Dave had taken a few picture of his hollow form to show the members just how he did it.
Another of Dave's entries was a small laminated hinged box.
Here Dave and myself are showing the members the finished item and the pictures of how he did it.
Here we have Geoff Potter, Geoff made this very nice spalted beech bowl.
Another of Geoff's entries was another spalted beech bowl, here he is showing the underside and how it looked before he started.
The smaller of the 2 spalted beech bowls that Geoff made, Geoff told the members he needed a lot of sealer on the soft areas.
Another entry from Geoff was this small hollow vessel made from Cherry and Mahogany.
Geoff's finished Cherry hollow vessel.
Here we have David Hutcheson showing on of his entries, a shallow natural edged bowl in Elm.
Another Dave's entries a very nice Burr Elm bowl.
David was in the process of making a Quaich for a special occasion, here he is showing the part finished item.

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If you would like to see a larger example of any of the pictures and see a little text, just click on any of the pictures. We would like to thank all of you who put forward your entries and did the presentations, we look forward to seeing even more in the future, Pictures were courtesy of Mike Day.

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Showtime this week.

A reminder that this week’s meeting on the 5th September is a Showtime meeting. You are all encouraged to bring along anything you have made recently and to show and tell the members how and what you have made. The usual format will be applied where you will be asked to do a short presentation on anything you have made.

Here are some of the items that have appeared on previous showtime meetings.

We hope to have lots of items brought in to show, no matter what stage you are at with your turning we would all like to see some of your work so do participate.

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Report on our spindle turning competition held 22nd August 2019.

Our turning competition on 22nd August 2019 was all about spindle turning, this is the system where most of the turning is done between centres, i.e. between the headstock and tailstock. The competition was organized by Colin MacRae, the judges for the competition were Colin MacRae and Jim Kelman. The entries for the Novice category were good, as were the entries for the Experienced category, but the Intermediate category still comes up short on entries. In addition to the competition, Colin had arranged for 4 more of the lathes to be in use during the judging. These were Bill Munro, David Hobson, Dave Line and David Hutcheson, each of these turners would be doing something different. A summary of the competition and the free turning follows in the form of a selection of pictures and some text, pictures by Mike Day and Alec Mutch.

These were the entries for the Novice category.
These were the entries in the Intermediate category, you no doubt will spot that one of these is not spindle turned.
These were the entries in the Experienced category.
These were the winning entries in the Novice category, right, the goblet came 2nd by Alan Ross, left the table lamp came first by Richard Comfort.
This was the winning entry in the Intermediate category by Dave line. There was no 2nd as the entry was disqualified.
This was the winning entry in the Experienced category, a very nice candleabra by John Ruickbie.
This was 2nd place in the Experienced category, a table lamp by David Hay.
Bill Munro as he starts his free turning.
Bill was making a candle holder in Yew made for a pillar candle.
The work progressing well.
Here Bill can be seen nearing the end of the turning.
Now for a bit of sanding, sealing and polishing.
Here we have David Hobson, David was to make a Harry Potter style wand in Mahogany.
Here David can be seen taking the blank down to the round using a roughing gouge.
Now David starts to shape the wand working from the tailstock back towards the headstock.
Making progress taking fine cuts to avoid any rippling from the wood flexing.
Getting very thin now, even more care required to keep the wood from getting ripples.
Working towards the head, taking very fine cuts, the shape begins to appear.
A little bit of hand sanding with the lathe stopped dealt with any areas of concern.
Here David is sanding the tip with the lathe running being supported by his left hand.
David's finished Harry Potter wand.
Dave Line was to make a small bowl from a piece of Ash, here he can be seen taking the first cuts.
Here Dave is using a bowl gouge to bring the blank to his ideal size.
Now Dave can be seen shaping the base of his bowl.

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To see a larger picture along with a little text, click on any of the pictures.

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Ian Asher.

We have just learned that Ian Asher from Aldearn has died, Ian was a member of the Highland Woodturners for many years, joining the club shortly after it moved to Munlochy. Ian was a very regular attendee during the whole of his membership and often brought in items for the rest of the members to see, as I recall they were always a bit on the big side, he did like to work with large pieces of wood. Due to the lateness of knowing of his passing we have only found out that his funeral is on Thursday 22nd at 11 o’clock at the crematorium. Ian will be missed by all of our members and our thoughts and condolences go out to his family at this difficult time.