Author: Alec Mutch

Saturday 27th July 2019 is our annual all day woodturning event. There will be 3 turners working the lathes, the event has been organized by John Cheadle. There will be some refreshments available and he has also arranged for a woodturning supplies business to be there selling items relevant to the woodturners.

• Date Saturday 27th July 2019.
• Venue HWC premises in Munlochy.
• Timetable.
• 0950 Hours Introduction by John Cheadle.
• 1000 Hours Demonstration by Alec Mutch.
• 1145 Hours Short break for refreshments.
• 1200 Hours Demonstration by Gary Lowe.
• 1345 Hours 2nd Refreshments break.
• 1400 Hours Demonstration by Mark Sutton.
• 1600 Hours closing remarks by John Cheadle.
• Entry
• Members – Free.
• Guests – £5.00.
• Catering
• Free tea and coffee.
• Bring your own pack lunch.
• Raffle as usual.
• Sale of wood and equipment .

The demonstrations will be a natural edge bowl made by Alec Mutch, a textured dish made by Gary Lowe and a Diptych or Triptych made by Mark Sutton, for those unfamiliar with what a Diptych or Triptych is, they are a set of 2 or 3 associated artistic works.

We are looking forward to seeing you all here , a good turnout is expected.

Our club meeting on the 11th July 2019 was organized by John Cheadle, he arranged for the club to have George Burgess come and do a talk on how and where to source wood for turning. George had been a chairman of this club in it’s early days but said he had not been to the club for the past 5 years, although a lot of those present then were no longer members, the present members were more than happy to see him return to the club if only to do the talk. George started his talk by saying that the easiest way to get blanks was to buy them from a specialist wood supplier catering for the woodturner, the down side of this was that the blanks can be quite pricey. He then offered alternatives on how and where to get suitable wood. He suggested going to your local joiners shop and offering to buy offcuts, whilst these would be dry and useful the choice might be quite limited, another approach could be your local sawmill, here the problem might be how dry they were, your own firewood pile might reveal something, get in touch with any local tree surgeons, again there could be a problem with how dry the wood is. Old fallen trees, go and ask if you can remove some of it. Finally, green timber, easier to work and usually free but time would be required to dry it or working it wet.

The next part of George’s talk was all about cutting and drying the timber. he discussed the various methods of cutting like through and through and quarter sawn plus natural edged. He showed some pictures of an Alaska Mill that he had used for milling boards, this is a chain saw mill and went on to discuss the use of the mill including all the safety aspects. He then showed a log of wood that had a few shakes on either end and went on to discuss what was happening with this log.

His next subject was drying the timber, how to store it, where to position it when drying, how long it would take and to allow a good air flow round the wood. He also discussed the possibility of spalting your own wood and how that comes about. He mentioned the importance of looking for the pith (the centre of the growing rings, and not the centre of the log) that this should be cut through in all occasions. His final talk was all about the difference encountered in different woods like fruit woods being difficult to dry without any degrade and how to choose the best bits from a plank or log, he had several diagrams that he used to show exactly where a bowl would have come from a tree. George ended by asking for any questions from the members, several questions were asked and answered.

The talk ended with the Vice Chairman John Cheadle thanking George for his excellent talk. It was appreciated by all of our members with some individual discussions taking place with George for some considerable time after the talk was over.

Our club meeting on the 27th June was all about working with wet or green wood. It was organized by John Cheadle, he did have 3 other turners booked to assist, however due to circumstances out with his control 2 of those had to call off. He did have assistance from Bill Munro and the evening went very well. John started by giving the members a talk on what wet wood was all about, ranging from how it grows, how to cut and dry it, how to store it during the drying process and how to use it . Once his talk was over John started to turn a wet log and encouraged others to have a go, Bill Munro did the same, both were more than happy to see several members having a go under their supervision. The following set of pictures along with some text will show how the evening went. The turn out was moderate but the meeting went well and was well received.

Due to the constraints of time neither bowl was finished at the meeting, this was not all that important, what was important was getting to know how to use wet wood. The feed back after the meeting was excellent, quite a few of the members were very interested in wet wood working in the future. The pictures for this presentation were taken by Alec Mutch.

Our club meeting on the 13th June 2019 was all about sharpening hand tools. There were 4 club members using a variety of sharpening devices , those were David Hay, David Hutcheson, Errol Levings and Alec Mutch. Each were demonstrating how to use their particular sharpening tool with tools brought in by many of the club members. Some had brought a whole selection of tools to sharpen or re-grind, this was exactly what we wanted to happen, they would be shown how to sharpen a particular tool then be asked to repeat the sharpening process themselves. There was a lathe set up with a block of wood for anyone to try after sharpening a tool, it was very well used. The turn out of club members was very good and they had for the most part taken part in the demonstrations.

If you want to see a larger picture and some text just click on the image. The pictures for this post were all taken by Mike Day.

The competition on the 30th May 2019 was all about making Hollow Forms. The entries for each category was a little disappointing, especially in the “Intermediate” category, the judges for the competition were David Hobson and Mark Sutton. Here is a summary of the competition entries and winners. In addition to the competition David had organized 5 turners to man the lathes whilst the judging was going on, these were, Colin MacKenzie making miniature bird houses, Mark Dale making a natural edged bowl, Dave Line working on a large laminated vessel, Bob Chisholm making pens and Geoff Potter working on a spalted beech bowl. For pictures and text on all of this see below.

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If you want to see a larger picture and some text of any of the above click on the picture. The range of items that can be made as “Hollow Forms” is far reaching, here are just a few but we hope they will give you inspiration to make one of your own.

This weeks meeting on Thursday 30th May 2019 is the competition on hollow forms, the meeting is being organized by David Hobson, he along with Mark Sutton will be the judges for the competition, we are looking for a large entry from all 3 categories and do remember there is a £25 first price for each of the 3 categories. In addition to the competition David has organized at least 3 turners to man the lathes whilst the competition judging is going on. Here is a reminder of the type of thing hollow forms covers.

Here is a reminder of the criteria.

Good luck and lets see plenty of entries.