Category: Photos from meetings

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.

Alec Mutch.

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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.

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.

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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.

Our club meeting on the 20th February 2020 was all about the use of a bandsaw, it was organized and carried out by John Ruickbie. John firstly discussed the setting up of the bandsaw, this covered things like the setting of the guide bearings for the blade, the height of the blade guard and the tension in the blade, all these things were discussed with the power source being isolated, I.E. the machine was not plugged in. John stressed the importance of having the machine isolated whilst any of the setting up or maintenance was being carried out. He also went on to discuss that the correct type of blade should be used for the purpose intended, and drew attention to the blade chart posted near the bandsaw that gave the correct blade type and size for both straight and curved cuts, this chart is now also on our web site. John went on to demonstrate using the bandsaw, making use of some home made aids like push sticks, he also showed another useful aid for use with the bandsaw, a parallel clamp that he had made, this clamp is particularly useful when cutting very small pieces of wood that are used in polychromatic assemblies. John then said he would make one of these clamps but due to the restrictions of time he had done some of the work at home, leaving the remainder to be done at the club, the clamp had some specialised tools required to make the clamp and he was to demonstrate their use, this involved a threading system. John went on to make the final pieces required to make the clamp, assembling the finished clamp and showing it to the very attentive crowd.

The turnout of members for this meeting was the highest I had ever seen at any meeting in all my time attending the club meetings, so much so that we ran out of chairs, reducing quite a few members to standing room only, for this the club apologizes. The following gallery of pictures with a little text should give you a flavour of just how the meeting went, pictures by Alec Mutch.

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If you would like to make one of these clamps, there is a post on our web site with a sketch of the clamp giving all it’s dimensions, the use of a threading tap and box is required, it might be possible to borrow these from John or myself if you want to make one.

The chart with all the blade sizes and their use is also on our web site should you wish to print off a copy.

Our next meeting is on the 5th March, it’s being organized by David Hutcheson and it’s all about making goblets.

We hope you all enjoyed John’s presentation and found it both interesting and informative, and we thank you all for your attendance.

Our AGM (Annual General Meeting) took place on Thursday 6th February 2020, there was a good turnout for the meeting, the purpose of an AGM is to communicate what has happened over the past year and to discuss with the members anything they wish to raise. Reports were given by the Chairman, the Secretary and the Treasurer. This meeting also deals with who is on the committee, ratifying those committee members wishing to stay on the committee along with proposing any new members onto the committee, for a complete list of all the office bearers log on to our web site for all the positions and who filled them. Suffice to say 10 of the existing committee members remained on the committee for another year, we did have 2 resignations and they have been replaced with 2 new members onto the committee. The minutes of the meeting are now available in the members section of our web site, log on using the username and password.

Our next club meeting is on the 20th February 2020 and it will be managed by John Ruickbie, John is going to give a tutorial on the use of a bandsaw and also make a tool on the lathe for use with a bandsaw. We will also have a committee meeting that evening, the first of the new year and will include the new members on the committee, start time for the committee meeting, 5.30pm, start time for the main meeting 6.45pm, hope to see you all there.

Our meeting on the 23rd January 2020 was all about making wooden toys and puzzles, the meeting was organised by Douglas Stewart, Douglas had arranged for 4 turners to work the lathes, Bill Munro, John Ruickbie, Nick Simpson and himself. Each person would be doing something different, and the members attendance was very good. The following gallery of pictures along with a little text should give you a flavour of how the evening went. The pictures were all taken courtesy of Mike Day.

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We hope you found the toy and puzzle making projects interesting and enjoyable.

Our next meeting is the annual AGM meeting, it will be on the 6th February starting at the usual time of 6.45pm.

This next meeting will be the last opportunity for any member to pay their fees for the 2020 meetings, miss that date and your place could be taken by someone on the waiting list.

Our first meeting of the year took place on Thursday evening on the 09th January 2020, it was organised by Douglas Stewart and the theme was making wooden jewellery, Douglas had originally arranged for 5 turners to be working the lathes, however there were only 3 turners as the other 2 had to call off for various reasons, suffice to say there was insufficient time to organise replacements. The 3 turners were Douglas Stewart, Geoff Potter and myself, Douglas was to make a scarf clip, Geoff was to make a jewellery stand and I was making wooden ear rings.

There was an excellent turnout for the first meeting of the new year and Geoff was also collecting subscriptions for the year along with making his jewellery stand.

The following gallery of pictures accompanied with a little text should give you a flavour for how the meeting went, the pictures were courtesy of Mike Day.

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This was only a very small journey into jewellery making, there are a number of books dedicated to making wooden jewellery that you might find fascinating , we hope this little experience has widened your view on woodturning, all of the metal parts required for jewellery making can be purchased from various sources on the internet.

Our next meeting is on the 23rd January and it’s also being organised by Douglas Stewart, the theme being making wooden toys and puzzles. There will also be a committee meeting that evening.

Our last meeting for the year was on the 11th December 2019, it was also the Christmas competition where our members were asked to make something without having a theme,in other words it was an open competition. This applied to all 3 categories of turners in our club and the entry level was very good from all 3 categories. The standard of workmanship in all 3 categories was also very good, making the judging very difficult. The judging was carried out by all the members in the club and a winner did emerge in all 3 categories. This meeting was also our meeting where the Christmas raffle draw was done, this was handled by Colin MacRae and Jim Kelman, there was a huge amount of prizes , some bought by the club and some donated from the members. The turnout for this meeting was as expected very high. To get a flavour of how the meeting went, see the gallery of pictures below, click on the pictures for a larger view and a little text. Pictures by Alec Mutch.

This post ends the entries for 2019, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the committee members for the way the club has been handled this year, there are lots of tasks that have gone on unseen by the vast majority of the members that I as chairman appreciate has happened and will continue to happen, the club has been going now for some 15 years and appears to be going from strength to strength, the membership base is solid and we have had a waiting list for most of the club’s existence , this bodes well for the club’s continuance . Finally I would like to thank all the members for their attendance and we hope to see you all in the new year, our first meeting is on the 9th January 2020.

I would like take this opportunity on behalf of the committee to wish all our members online or present a very merry Christmas and a happy new year.

Our meeting on the 28th November 2019 was all about making table lamp bases, the meeting was organised by Cliff Sim, Cliff had arranged for 4 turners to be working the lathes, Bill Munro, Bob Chisholm, Richard Comfort and David Ross. All were making different variations of lamp bases, 2 were working on a single piece of wood for the base whilst the other 2 were making their lamps from more than one piece. The turn out of members was good. To get a flavour of how the meeting went click on the pictures in the gallery for a larger picture and some text. The pictures for this post were taken by Mike Day.

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We hope you enjoyed our lamp making meeting, the next meeting is on Wednesday the 11th December not the Thursday to avoid clashing with the general election, usual start time. This will be our last meeting for 2019, it’s also the final competition for the year, an open competition where you can make what you like, no pre conditions so lets have lots of entries, remember you can put more than one item in to the competition. This meeting will also herald the grand Christmas raffle draw where there have been traditionally lots and lots of prizes, good luck to everyone in the draw.

Our meeting this week on the 14th November was mainly about making turned clocks, the meeting was arranged by Cliff Sim and he had 5 turners working the lathes. For the clock making he had John Ruickbie, Dave Line and himself, two other turners were making different things, Nick Simpson was making a small lidded box and Errol Levings was demonstrating the methods used to make oval turnings, with no overall finished product in mind. The turnout was good and according to the reports I received the meeting went very well.The pictures in the gallery below were all taken by Mike Day, these should give you a flavour of how the meeting went.

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If you wish to see a larger picture of any in the gallery, just click the picture, this will give you a more detailed picture along with a little text. Our next meeting on the 28th November is again being organised by Cliff Sim, he has arranged for 5 turners to make lamp bases.

Remember that the Christmas raffles are on sale and we are still accepting donations of prizes and also items for the Fortrose craft fair organised by David Hobson.

Our meeting on the 31st October was arranged by Cliff Sim and our theme was working with natural edged. Cliff had arranged for 4 turners to work the lathes, those were, Bob Chisholm, Mike Day, Richard Comfort and myself (Alec Mutch). We were all doing something different but with the same theme that each item was to have some element of natural edges on it. The turnout for the meeting was very good. The pictures from this meeting were taken by David Hobson, and should give you a flavour of how the meeting went.

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If you want to see some larger pictures of this gallery just click on any picture, they are accompanied with a little text. The next meeting is on the 14th November, again being organised by Cliff Sim and this time it will be about making clocks. Don’t forget to get your Christmas raffle tickets and any donations of prizes would be most welcome.