Our virtual meeting on the subject of weed pots was held on Thursday 11th June 2020. It was being organised by myself, the usual criteria was in place, the members were to make the weed pots and send their pictures to me for publication on our web site. It was looking fairly clear to me that by Tuesday evening I had very few pictures from only 4 members, this was to say the least very disappointing, so as I was the organiser I decided to do a tutorial on the making of a weed pot, if only to make it worth while to do a post.
I have also change some of the ways I used to present the entries, I do hope you approve of my new method, it will be presented in 2 parts, the 1st part will be the members entries and the 2nd part will be the tutorial.
Part one, the members entries. Click any picture for a larger view.
Here’s a short video of Mike Day’s Weed Pot
Part two, a tutorial by Alec Mutch, on making a weed pot, see the gallery below, there are 24 pictures in 12 entries, just follow the pictures 1 to 24 and you should produce a weed pot at the end if it, click the pictures.
I hope you have gained something from this post from both the members and myself, I hope we can get a better response from our members in the future, our next virtual meeting was to be a competition organised by Errol Levings, this will now be a virtual meeting. Errol wanted the competition to be on 3 subjects, the Novice group were to make a Natural Edged Bowl from 1/2 a log, the Intermediate group were to make a Natural Edged Bowl from a full log The Experienced group were to make an Inside OutTurning. Now I would like you all to follow what Errol has asked for and make something in line with his requests, there will be no judging, but then there doesn’t need to be, just do it for your own satisfaction and remember to send the pictures to me.
Our meeting this Thursday should have been all about making weed pots, it will now be handled on line by means of a virtual meeting, it was to be organised by myself, what we would like you to do is to make a weed pot or more than one and send the pictures to me along with some text for publication on our web site. These are not difficult things to make and they use up odd bits of wood that would otherwise not be used.
We had a real disappointing entry for the Inside Out Turnings, I hope we can do a whole lot better with this subject.
If you need some guidance on what a weed pot is and how to make it, click the link provided below for a full description on how to make one.
Our virtual meeting on “Inside Out Turning” was on Thursday 28th May 2020 It was to be organised by myself, I was going to demonstrate the methods used to produce an Inside Out Turning, however as this was not possible due to the lockdown we made it a virtual meeting instead. I was to be the only turner for this demonstration, we were not going to use all the lathes as is the normal practice. On that basis I decided I would handle this more like a tutorial rather than the normal proceedure where we just show some pictures with a little text, I will take you through the making of an Inside Out Turning.
The membership were invited to do an inside out turning to be shown on this post, however I have only received one other entry for the Inside Out Turning, I was hoping for a few more but I do realise that this type of turning may have been a step to far for the some of our members.
I did receive a couple of pictures of other turnings from another member, and they will be shown here, I did invite everyone to enter any piece of turning if they felt the Inside Out Turning was not for them.
First up is the only Inside Out Turning I received from Nick Simpson, this is what he had to say about his picture.
Morning Alec
If you are short of photos this is one I did a while ago.
It is 9” tall and made from sycamore. The inside is spray painted gold
and the outside stained with spirit stain and satin lacquer.
Regards
Nick Simpson.
Next are a couple of pictures from Dave Line, not Inside Out Turnings, just items he has made recently, this is what Dave had to say about them,
Hi Alec.
I tried inside out turning after John Ruickbie demonstrated a couple of
years ago but the result was a complete disaster so when I saw the programme
for this year I was looking forward to this week when Alec would be
demonstrating inside out turning so I could have another go.
So no inside out turning but 2 items I have made in the last couple of
weeks.
The first is a lamp, 280mm high and 120mm Dia. The body is Ash and the
feature rings are Sycamore and Sapele , it is finished with wood wax and
friction polish.
The second is a clock of 150mm Dia it is very simple but my first use of
millput which I think sets it off quite well, the wood is Copper Beech and
finished with melamine lacquer.
Now for my own tutorial on Inside Out Turnings.
For those wishing to follow the tutorial start at the fourth picture and go through them in sequence they are all on a step by step basis for you to follow, and good luck with this, if you don’t try you will never know how interesting it can make woodturning, for a larger picture and the text just click any picture, a full sized picture should appear.
Our next Virtual meeting is on the 11th June 2020, that too is being organised by myself, it’s on a much simpler turning this time, it’s all about making weed pots, now that something that everyone can do and can enter for publication, so get to making weed pots and lots of them and send your pictures to me but don’t forget to tell us all about them.
Our next meeting should have been on the 28th May 2020 but due to the lockdown this meeting will be handled virtually. It was to be organised by myself demonstrating how to make an inside-out or involuted turning. This type of turning usually consisted of 3 or 4 pieces of wood held by temporarily gluing the pieces together (paper joint method) to create a cylinder where the turning that would ultimately be on the inside is turned first on the outside with the ends untouched at this stage, the whole assembly would then be taken apart and reversed so that all the turnings are now on the inside, the pieces would then be glued permanently, allowed to dry and then turned. I have given you a few pictures of one I did myself and one that John Ruickbie did at a demo in 2018, you can follow what we did if you wish or come up with your own idea for any form of inside-out turning, but do have a go at this and send your pictures to me.
This is one I made some years ago, it’s made from Sycamore and has a miniature bottle of whisky inside.
Do have a go at this and send me the pictures, some of them could be as it’s being made along with the finished article and some information to go with it. If you don’t feel comfortable to make one of these turnings, send me pictures of anything else you make instead, we still want to see your pictures, so keep them coming.
Our Platters virtual meeting took place this week on Thursday 14th May 2020, it was being organised by Peter Lawrence but had to be made into a virtual meeting due to the lockdown. We did get some response from the members, not as much as I would have liked, 9 of our 65 members submitted pictures of their work and for that we are very grateful, however that meant that 56 did not, and that also included 7 of the 12 committee members. It does appear that since we started the virtual meetings that there are a handful of members who are more than willing to take part with the rest taking little interest, this is most disappointing because we are trying to keep the interest in the club alive and that will only happen if you all participate. I do hope that at the next virtual meeting in 2 weeks time there will be a better response, we were also asking for you to put any pictures in of anything you were doing outwith the virtual meetings in for publication on our web site and facebook page, this too seems to have come to a complete halt.
There are a total of 30 pictures submitted by our members along with some text, I will put this into 2 sections, the text being the first section and the pictures in a second as a picture gallery. Here are the text entries.
Pictures 1 to 3 are from Alan Ross.
Platter made from mahogany (not certain)
22.5cm x 3cm
sanded to 400grit, sanding sealer, cut’n’polish then wax 22.
Regards,
Alan Ross
Pictures 4 & 5 are from Bob Chisholm.
A Sycamore
Platter measuring 300 mm x 35 mm, it was sanded to 400 grit then sealed with
sanding sealer, re-sanded with 400grit and a coat of Melamine applied, it was
then buffed to a soft sheen,
Regards,
Bob Chisholm.
Pictures 6 to 10 are from Cliff Sim.
Good evening, Geoff. I attach photos
of my recent work. Unfortunately my oak platter had a few breakouts hence the
reason it became more of a bob-bon dish instead. I took heart from Alec’s
recent showing to finish off my table lamp using two lignum vitae bowls, one
cut in half, and the other mounted on top . I drilled a separate piece of odd
wood I had tuned as I originally planned to use a metal pipe to connect the
lamp holder but couldn’t get a fitting of the requisite size. The other
half of the bowl I turned to make a small trinket dish as shown, just like
Alec’s, though not nearly so skillfully nor tastefully made. I turned small
pieces of contrasting wood to glue in the bases to flatten them and hide the
turning recesses. I applied sanding sealer, melamine lacquer then chestnut wax
polish to all the items.
Best, Cliff Sim.
Pictures 11 to 13 are from Dave Line.
Hi Alec,
Here are
3 platters I have made.
The 1st
is 170mm dia, it is made from Ash with Mahogany insert, the only problem I
encountered was getting the mahogany inserts to bend without
cracking, also cutting the blank, this has to be done (very accurately) when
the blank is still square so that it can be clamped when the glue is drying It
is finished off with food safe finish.
The 2nd
is 200mm dia made from Ash. The blank is first turned then sprayed with
Ebonising Lacquer (cheap mat black spray paint from Aldi) then the blank is
rotated at 2000rpm on the lathe when dry and “Butt It” paint flicked
onto the blank whilst rotating. The platter is then turned where required to
remove unwanted paint and finished off.
The third
is only 150mm dia and my first attempt at using Pabeo Prisme paint and as
can be seen I need lot’s more practice.
Keep safe Dave Line.
Pictures 14 to 18 are from Errol Levings.
Hi Alec
Two very
plain platters from the same piece of Tibetan spruce- still fairly wet with
lots of resin. Very soft, some ripple and short grain so kept thickness up.
Needed very sharp tools to cut clean. Had hoped the spruce would have been
easier to use – some lovely ripple near the bole. These two platters are 120mm
by 15mm. Will finish with OSMO foodsafe oil – have only had one coat so
far.
Errol Levings
Pictures 19 & 20 are from Geoff Potter.
Alec find
attached my platter.
OAK
PLATTER
The
platter was made from an unpromising thin piece of oak. The wood was thoroughly
dry and had a waxed circumference. There was an obvious knot and a section that
looked like it might fly off! I used very short screws to attach it to my face
plate and used my revolving centre as support until I became convinced it
wouldn’t all Frisbee off my lathe. I turned the base including the mortise to
suit my chuck. I decided that because of the thin section I would keep the
mortise after I had finished so took the opportunity to decorate it with a few
grooves. These grooves would probably impress my friends but wouldn’t impress
many Woodturners.
It took
at least 6 applications of superglue and wood dust at various times to
stabilise the knots and cracks.
The top
with its very shallow dish looked too plain so I used two small grooves to
highlight the rim/dish boundary.
I like
the result, the oak has an impressive set of grain and medullary rays. Its
finished with sanding seal, sanded to 400 grit, melamine and a wax. The platter
is 220 x 15mm. Quite a thin turning for me.
Regards,
Geoff Potter.
Pictures 21 to 23 are from Gordon Leitch.
Evening
Alex I enclose photos of 2 platters
One is
made of oak
38.5
across
122cm
circumference
The other
is made of elm
36cm
across
115
circumference
Regards
Gordon Leitch.
Picture 24 is from Nick Simpson.
Hi Alec
I haven’t had time to turn a platter this week with gardening and HWC
business
I thought members might like this. It is called ‘Reflections of…….’
It is a composition of two adjacent slices through the grafted crown of
a flowering cherry.
The frame is just that. It gives the sense of a mirror and, in fact, the
judge in the Borders Woodworkers Open competition asked the Borders club
chairman why someone would bring a mirror to a competition for woodturnings.
The platters are 7” diameter and textured followed by pyrography.
Kind regards
Nick Simpson.
Pictures 25 to 30 are from Alec Mutch.
I have made
3 new platters this week, also shown a couple of smaller platters I had made in
the past, all of them have something different to offer.
1, This is
an Elm platter it measured 305 mm in diameter by about 40 mm deep, I brought
the bowl through the rim by creating 2 small beads on top of the rim.
2, This is
an Olive Ash platter it measured 330 mm in diameter by about 40 mm deep, I
decorated the rim using a laser.
3, Another Elm platter, it measured 305 mm in
diameter by about 50 mm deep, I cut some Celtic design inserts for the rim and
set them in by drilling a series of shallow recesses to accommodate the
inserts, I then used some Milliput to fill the recesses before completing the
turning, the Milliput was allowed to harden over night.
4, A smaller
Ash platter, with a decorated rim. I used some Pebeo paints for this, the base coat was Black Vitrail and the Blue was
Pebeo Moon, both were allowed to dry for several days before finishing the
turning.
5, Another Ash shallow platter, measuring 250 mm
by 30 mm again with a decorated rim, this time the paint is Pebeo Prisme in 3
different colours, these paints are oil based and can be applied at the same
time then allowed to dry over several days, in the process they react to each
other and produce the formations you see on the rim.
6, I have
included a picture of my Laser in operation, it’s a LOBO 6040 CNC machine, it
can do engraving or cutting with the use of a suitable computer programme.
Regards,
Alec Mutch.
This is a late entry from John Ruickbie, it’s very relevant to what’s going on at present so I have given it front of house prominence.
This is what John had to say about his entry,
This is a tribute to
the work being done combating the virus it is more a plaque than a platter. The
centre is the virus which I have given a black centre. Each group is a
spear of sycamore piercing the virus. The overall diameter is 290mm and the
stand is elm.
Regards.
John Ruickbie.
Thank you john for this excellent piece of work, it’s most befitting the situation we are in at present.
To get a full sized picture of any in the gallery just click the picture, we hope you find the pictures interesting and encouraging, and perhaps on the next virtual meeting you too could have your work posted here. We look forward to seeing what you can do.
This Thursday 14th May 2020 would have been our meeting where platters were on the programme, it was to be organised by Peter Lawrence, however this meeting will now be done virtually over the internet and not at the clubhouse, to take part you need to make a platter or two, then photograph it or them and send the pictures to me along with some information, such as , type of wood used, size of item made and anything that may be of interest to the rest of the members. The platter can be made from any wood in any size and even laminated or decorated if you prefer. Below are some examples of platters that I have made over the years.
This platter was made from a piece of Wych Elm and measured 325 mm in diameter by 50 mm deep, Wych Elm is quite easy to recognize as it has these pale green streaks throughout the wood.This large platter was made from Spalted Lime and measured 400 mm in diameter by 60 mm deep. The spalting turned this rather plain looking wood into something much more interesting, almost landscape like in appearance.This platter although quite a bit smaller than the others was made from a piece of Native Cherry, the grain structure was so nice that I kept the design to an absolute minimum, it measured 250 mm in diameter by only 30 mm deep.
You are more than welcome to use any of my designs as an example for your platter but what we really want to see is for you to come up with your own design.
All pictures and text to arrive by Thursday 14th May 2020 and should be sent to me by email at,
I have one more piece of information to pass on to you all, after the Prime Minister’s address on TV tonight nothing much in Scotland has changed, we are still under lockdown, our first minister has only relaxed the amount of exercise you can do, we are still all expected to stay home. As the lockdown situation changes we will be advising you of what we are doing to comply with the government regulations in regards re-opening the club. To that end we have already formed a sub committee, a task force to look into how we can open safely again, I am chairing the task force with Geoff Potter recording all meetings as secretary, John Ruickbie dealing with all safety matters as our safety rep, Nick Simpson dealing with all matters medical and Peter Lawrence representing the membership. As soon as we know anything you will be informed.
Do remember the clubhouse remains closed and do try to stay safe.
The showtime meeting scheduled for the 30th April 2020 has now become a virtual meeting, (it will not take place at the clubhouse) we will be treating this meeting on line. We need you all to send in your pictures and some text on the items you would have brought to the showtime meeting, you can send in more than one picture, in fact more the merrier. We had a reasonably good response to the last virtual meeting on Natural edged turnings, we had 44 pictures for that meeting, I want to see at least this amount, preferably more for this virtual meeting, remember it can be of anything you have made turned or otherwise, we are looking for a very good response so please send me your pictures along with a bit of information on each item.
Here are some of the items you brought in for the showtime meeting on 15-02-2018.These are some of the items you brought in for the showtime meeting on 21-06-2018Here are some of the item you brought in for our last showtime meeting on 05-09-2019
Get busy in your workshops and produce as many items that you can. we want to see lots of entries.
As you are all aware our normal meeting would have been tonight 16th April 2020, as this did not happen we asked you to make this a virtual meeting, treating the meeting as if it had happened. The subject of the meeting was working with natural edges or inclusions and we asked you to make something along those lines and have it finished for the 16th April, we then asked you to send some pictures of what you had made for inclusion on our web site. I am very pleased to report that 10 members have done exactly what we wanted you to do and sent a total of 44 pictures along with some text, the best way to show all these is with a picture gallery, the text I will deal with separately, I will give the name of the member followed by a number system to identify whose pictures belong to whom, these will all be listed here and the pictures will follow.
Pictures 1 to 6 are from Alan Ross. Thanks for giving us something to target our efforts on. Find attached photos of live edge bowl I have had a go at making. dia- 150mm x 80mm high. Made from a birch log with three branches on it. Finished with sanding sealer and sanded to 400 grit. Three coats of melamine lacquer, buffed with ‘cut and paste’ then polished with Wood wax 22 Alan Ross (Nairn) .
Pictures 7 to 11 are from Dave Hutcheson.
Hope you are all well and staying safe. Here’s a hollow form I made today.This unusual blank came straight out of the firewood pile so required a wee bit of thinking as how to approach it. It’s a natural edged hollow form in burr elm and it’s finished with Liberon finishing oil. It measures 130mm wide by 95mm high. The branch inclusion only became apparent once turning was underway but I think it adds to the overall effect.
Cheers Dave Hutcheson
Pictures 12 to 14 are from Dave Line.
Please find attached Pictures of a couple of natural edge bowls as requested by Geoff.The 1st I made today is cross grain, it’s 150mm Dia by 90mm high. I don’t know what kind of wood it is. I picked it up a couple of years ago when I came across someone chopping a tree down in his garden.The second 2 are pictures of end grain turning I made a while back, again I don’t know what wood it is, I got it from you about a year ago. It is about 200mm high by about 140mm Dia.
Regards Dave Line.
Pictures 15 to 19 are from David Hobson.
The Bowl is made from Cherry
Finished with sanding sealer ,Yorkshire Grit and Liberon liquid wax
Size 230. X200 x 80.
David Hobson
Pictures 20 to 24 are from Errol Levings.
Hope the attached will be of interest. As you can see, a very spalted piece of silver birch crotch of too small an angle between branches, so bark is included very deeply into the vase. Quite punky and difficult to avoid the soft bits breaking out – lots of sanding sealer and CA glue to harden them. Did not dare to make either a spigot or tenon, so sized bottom to fit direct into 965 mm chuck. Angle of bottom could have been slightly better to avoid marking by the chuck, despite several layers of masking tape to cushion the re-chuck. Also there had been some movement of the wood so no longer fully concentric.
Thank goodness we all live in our wide open environment and have our workshops as part of our “home.” Kind regards Errol Levings.
Pictures 25 & 26 are from Geoff Potter.
Here’s my submission of a natural edge bowl. The small bowl is made from wood which I won in the Club’s fortnightly raffle and it is Laburnum I believe. The bowl was finished with a 400 grit abrasive, sanding seal and a melomine finish – inside and out. The bowl measures 15 by 7 cm. Laburnum wood is highly coloured, retains its bark well and seems to produce a very glossy smooth finish.
Geoff Potter
Pictures 27 to 30 are from Hamish Stuart.
Hope you are all well and staying safe. Had a wee play this afternoon don’t know if it’s any good to you but thought I would send it anyway. Finished with melamine
Hamish Stuart.
Pictures 31 to 34 are from John Ruickbie.
I decided to make a natural edge clock for this occasion and wanted to change from the usual form. I used the first slice from a log the outer one with the bark on it. The circumference is important if it is too small the clock face resess will be too deep as in the first one I tried which was made of elm. The second attempt was made with sycamore and has a much shallower face. I also used a lighter base which improved the overall effect. I have included both pictures.
John Ruickbie.
Pictures 35 & 36 are from Nick Simpson.
Here are 2 natural edge pieces now that my workshop is up and running.The first is one of my own sycamore trees from Northumberland. It is a section of sound wood from a rotted-back section of branch at the trunk. It measures 8” by 4”. The damaged edges have been textured by burr and then scorched and wire-brushed. Finish was by sanding sealer (after scorching!) and Renaissance wax.
The vase is from a Yew branch in which the natural edge section was
simply the irregularity characteristic of yew but the bark couldn’t be
retained.. It is hollowed to 8mm but heavier at the base and stands 6” tall.
Finished with 10-400 mirca, sanding sealer and Renaissance wax, which I like
because it resists fingermarks.
Best wishes
Nick Simpson.
Pictures 37 to 44 are from me, Alec Mutch.
They show a natural edged bowl I made some time ago from a piece of Laburnum, it measured about 200 mm in length and just over 100 mm in height. The finish was my normal finish of Sanding sealer followed by a coat of Melamine and then buffed to a soft sheen. I like to use some weird shapes of blanks, as you will see it was made from a branch intersection.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who took the time to make your items and more so to then send them to me for this post, we will be repeating this process for every meeting we have to miss due to this Virus, the next meeting would be on the 30th April 2020 and that will also be a Virtual meeting, the programme for that meeting is a Showtime meeting, it would normally be handled by myself. You can start to think of what you might make for this meeting, just imagine you will be there and send me the pictures of what you would have taken along for the members to see, remember there is no actual criteria for this meeting, just make whatever you like and send me the pictures and the text of course, pictures for this to be in by the 29th April. This should not stop you sending me any other pictures to upload between now and then, so keep sending me your pictures.
Remember the club house is still closed, you will be notified when we will re-start our meetings again, but in the meantime I hope you all stay safe from this deadly virus.
All HWC members should have received an email from Geoff informing you how a virtual meeting would work. We were due to have a meeting on the 16th April 2020, (this will not be happening) instead we would like you all to use our programme for that date to make something in accordance with that programme, the subject matter for the programme was Natural Edged Turnings, it was being organized by Geoff Potter and he did have 5 turners arranged to man all the lathes. However we would like you all to make something with Natural edges in line with the programme, I have included a few pictures of the type of thing you might consider making, once you have made your item take a picture of it (can be more than one picture) and send it or them to me, include some text giving me the size, the species of wood or woods and any other interesting information you think relevant. I will then do a post on all the pictures sent to me, as the meeting was due to be held on the 16th April, I would like to have all your pictures and text sent to me by the 15th April and I will upload them on the 16th April just as if we were at a meeting.
We intend to use the club programme in this way until we get back to having our normal meetings, if you want to see the full programme for 2020, click on “meetings” on our web site.
Here are some examples of the type of thing you might consider making.
These are all turnings I have done in the past. 2 were done in end grain, 2 made from full logs, and one made from a half log.Natural edged turnings can also be made on items between centres, here are 3 examples.A selection of small bowls made with natural edges intact.
I hope some of these pictures will give you ideas of what can be done using Natural Edges. We are not limiting the entries to just our members, we would like to see any entries from turners outwith our club and those who follow our web site and facebook page.
If you need any information on how to make a natural edged bowl click on this link.
We are looking for lots of entries. In the mean time you need to keep sending me your pictures of anything you have been making, don’t just wait for the Virtual meeting keep sending your pictures now.
Our meeting on the 5th March 2020 was all about making wooden goblets. The meeting was organized by David Hutcheson and David had arranged for 4 more turners to man all the lathes, they would all be making goblets but not all the same design nor would their method of approach to making a goblet be the same. The turnout of members for this meeting was excellent and the 5 turners kept those observing occupied and fully involved with what they were all doing. The evening went very well and we hope those observing found it interesting and informative. The following gallery of pictures along with a little text should give you a flavour of just how the evening went, the pictures for this meeting were taken by Uisdean MacBeth.
We hope you enjoyed looking through all the pictures and taken on board some of the work practices that the turners employed.
Our next meeting is on the 19th March and it’s competition time once again, it’s being organized by David Hutcheson and it’s all about making wooden boxes, there will be 3 categories as usual, details to follow.
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