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Parallel clamp plan

Here’s a plan of John’s parallel clamp from his build last night. I’ve increased the contrast a bit from the pencil drawing to make it clearer.

Parallel Clamp Plan

If you’d like to order one, this is the link to Axminster Tools. They also sell then through Amazon, but want £2.95 for delivery – order through Axminster and it’s free for over £30.

Axminster wood tap set

There are a number of pre-made clamps available on Amazon (Axminster don’t appear to sell them), although these have metal threads:

Amazon hand clamp search listings

If you do make one of these, please take a photo and we can upload it to the site.

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This week’s meeting Thursday 20th February, safe use of a bandsaw.

Our meeting this week, Thursday 20th February 2020 is going to be how to use a bandsaw safely, John Ruickbie will be demonstrating how to set a bandsaw up, how to put it to best use, the use of some safety aids and how to recognize when a blade needs changing. John will also be making a tool on the lathe that’s also used with the bandsaw.

This is one of my own bandsaws, it’s used with a wide blade of 30mm and 4TPI , I find this saw most useful for cutting large depths or for straight cutting. It has a cutting depth of 305mm.
This is my 2nd bandsaw, it has a cutting depth of 180mm maximum, the blade size is 10mm wide with 4TPI and used almost exclusively for cutting discs.

The club bandsaw will be used for John’s demonstration and we hope you find the information helpful and informative.

The dates and programme for the whole year to December 2020 are now on the club web site, just go to the site and click on “meetings” there is no requirement to log on first, this information is available to anyone.

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Report from our AGM on the 6th February 2020.

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.

Here are some of our members as they take their seats prior to the meeting starting.

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.

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AGM Minutes available

The minutes from this years AGM on February 6th are now available in the members area after logging in.

Just a reminder – the members login details will be changed shortly, a notice will go up in the club with details and the date of the change.

If you experience problems logging in, remember to check your username & password is still correct. Due to ongoing attempted hacking issues on the site, the lockout for incorrect attempts will still remain at 24 hours before your connection will be allowed to try again.

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This week’s meeting on the 6th February 2020, our AGM,.

Our meeting this week on the 6th February 2020 is our AGM (Annual General Meeting) it will start at the usual start time of 6.45pm. The agenda will include a report from the Chairman, and reports from the Treasurer and Secretary. The re-election of committee members and the election onto the committee of 2 new members. We will also be taking any questions from the floor and asking for A.O.C.B. to be discussed. There will be no turning taking place at this meeting but we would like to see a very good turnout, remember this your club and if you have anything you wish to contribute, this is the time to do it. We anticipate that this meeting will not require the usual time allocated, therefor it could be quite short.

Been there, done that, got the tea shirt.

This is a final notice to those who still need to renew their subscription, this meeting will be the last opportunity for the payment to be made, see Geoff Potter to pay, anyone not paid after this meeting will be replaced with people from the waiting list on Friday 7th February.

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Report on our meeting 23rd January 2020, making wooden toys and puzzles.

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.

Here we have Douglas Stewart as he makes a start on his project
Douglas was to make a wooden Elephant.
Douglas was working with a piece of soft wood for his project.
Making headway with his project.
Here Douglas shows those watching the head part just completed.
Douglas trial fits the head to the body of his Elephant.
A final sand to the body part.
Here Douglas is making the feet for the Elephant.
Here we have Bill Munro, making a variation of spinning tops.
Here Bill is sanding his work piece.
Work progressing well on his project.
Here Bill is sealing his project.
These are some of the toys and puzzles John Ruickbie had made.
Here we have John Ruickbie as he makes a start on his project.
John was to make a variation on a solitaire game.
Here John is rounding over his work piece.
Here John is using a gouge to do some of the initial shaping.
Here John is doing the finishing cuts to his project.
Here John is checking the diameter with a set of calipers.
Here John is making ready to part off his project.
Here we have Nick Simpson as he makes a start on his project.
Nick was to make a dice shaker from African Blackwood.
Here we can see Nick hollowing his shaker cup.
The hollowing almost complete, Nick was to thread the inside.

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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.

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Our next meeting, 23rd January 2020, making wooden toys and puzzles on the lathe.

Our next meeting is on the 23rd January 2020, it’s being organised by Douglas Stewart and it will be on the theme of making wooden toys and puzzles using a lathe. Douglas had arranged for 5 turners to be working the lathes but 1 of those can’t now make it so we will have 4 turners, those are Douglas Stewart, Bill Munro, John Ruickbie and Nick Simpson. Douglas is looking for a replacement and may well have someone else by the time we get to Thursday.

What each turner will be doing is still to be determined but I’m sure there will be lots of interest in everything they are to do.

If you are interested in making toys mainly on the lathe then this is a book I would recommend.
Here is a web site that also displays a lot of interesting toys, like these very decorative skipping ropes.

We hope to see you all there on Thursday evening and hope you enjoy the toy making experience.

For those who still have their subscription for 2020 to pay, Geoff Potter will be there to collect your payment.

To all the committee members, a reminder that there will be a committee meeting starting at 5.30pm on the 23rd January 2020 prior to the main meeting,

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Report on our meeting on 09-01-2020, making wooden jewellery.

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.

Here we have Douglas Stewart as he makes a start on his scarf clip project.
Douglas had prepared his blank prior to coming to the meeting.
Douglas is now skimming the face of his project, a thin disc used as the base of his scarf clip.
The 2nd part of Douglas's scarf clip required a pin to be made from wood.
Here Douglas is finishing off the pin.
The finished disc of wood now sanded sealed and polished.
The finished product being put to it's intended use.
Douglas went on to start another clip, here he can be seen working the back.
Now Douglas is working the face of his 2nd thin disc.
Here we have Geoff Potter as he works his jewellery stand column.
Geoff used a fairly rough piece of wood that he would also turn off centre in some areas.
The shaping of the main stem in progress.
Geoff continued to refine the shape using the off centre turning methods.
Here Geoff can be seen sanding the stem.
A final sand before sealing and polishing.
In the foreground Geoff's finished stem showing some of the off centre work.
Here I am (Alec Mutch) setting up to start making ear rings.
The blank I used was made up from 6 different woods.
Here I'm making a start on the first cuts, only one tool was required for all the turning, a small spindle gouge.
Once shaped the worked piece is now sanded.
The ear ring was then sealed and polished and now needs to be cut off.
Here I'm using the spindle gouge to shear cut the base, it should not require sanding.
Here I'm parting off the ear ring with the spindle gouge, supporting it with my left hand.
A second one was made, this takes a little longer to do as it needs to match the first, here I'm applying a wax finish.

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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.