Posted on by Alec Mutch

Report on our meeting 14-04-2022 Natural edged turning managed by Geoff Potter.

Our meeting this week on Thursday 14th April was all about Natural Edged Turnings, this meeting was managed by Geoff Potter and was the first meeting to feature all 5 lathes in operation since the club re-opened in the Autumn of 2021. The turners for this meeting were, Geoff Potter, Bill Munro, Bob Chisholm, Alan Ross and Dave Line, all were making bowls, some from half a log others from a whole log and Geoff had the strangest looking piece of wood imaginable, but never the less do look at his outcome, it’s the old story of not judging a book by it’s cover, and in this case don’t judge the piece before seeing the outcome.

We have been monitoring the attendance levels since re-opening, and it’s fair to say the numbers attending have been somewhat subdued, however this weeks meeting saw the highest attendance since we re-opened, this is most encouraging and with the last of the legal requirements being lifted on Monday 18th April 2022 we hope to see the numbers increase even further. That’s not to say we should not be careful in our approach to this virus as it’s still there.

Let me introduce you all to the turners for this meeting.

Now for the turners efforts, I have selected a few pictures from each of the turners taken at random throughout the evening, 1st up is Geoff Potter who managed the meeting.

1, Here is Geoff Potter as he make his first cuts on his blank. 2, Geoff is working the base of his bowl, creating a recess for his chuck when the work piece is turned around. 3, Now Geoff is working the inside of the bowl using a bowl gouge. 4, Here we see Geoff holding his finished bowl. The wood is Elm.
5, Here we have Dave Line about to start on his bowl, Dave used a whole Elm Log. 6, Here Dave has finished the outside and is going through the polishing stage. 7, Now Dave can be seen working the inside of his bowl using a bowl gouge. 8, Here is Dave holding his finished bowl.
9, Here is Alan Ross making a start on his half log of Beech. 10, Here Alan can be seen working the outside of his bowl. 11, Now Alan is working the inside of his bowl using a bowl gouge. 12, Here we see Alan holding his finished bowl. This was Alan’s first time doing a demonstration for the club, and very much appreciated by all.
13, Here is Bill Munro setting up his blank getting ready to start turning. 14, Here Bill can be seen working the outside of his bowl, Bill was working with a half log of Spalted Beech. 15, Now Bill can be seen working the inside of his bowl using a bowl gouge. 16, Here is Bill’s finished bowl, the Spalting was minimal on the inside, more so on the outside.
17, Here we have Bob Chisholm making a start on his bowl, Bob had a half log of Yew wood. 18, Here Bob is feeling for the finish on the outside of his bowl, he has learned that his hands tell him more about his finish than his eyes would ever do. 19, Here Bob is working the inside of his bowl using a bowl gouge. 20, This is Bob’s finished bowl.

I have to say at this point that the club members appreciated the efforts of all the turners and the club is more than grateful for their participation and especially to Geoff who organised the meeting.

In addition to the turning the table for the “look what I’ve made” was very well received with several members putting forward some examples of Natural Edged Turnings. See picture 21.

We did have another member of the club committee present, John Ruickbie who got involved with some sharpening of Richard Comfort’s tools. See picture 22.

Here are John and Richard at the sharpening station with John overseeing what Richard had to do.

Most of you will know that we have gained the use of the old woodstore from the Hall Committee, It has been transformed over the past few weeks into a machining room with our bandsaw, pillar drill and a couple of sanding machines now in there, the shelving for the wood store has also been re-arranged and the whole place has been painted. A new power supply had to be installed along with some better lighting, this was undertaken by John Ruickbie, the other work was carried out by several club members and is still to be completed, we could do with the help of a joiner to finish off the work benches.

The new machine room and wood store for the club.

That completes our meeting on Natural Edged Turnings, we hope you enjoyed watching our demonstrators and that you too could be doing a demonstration one day.

Our next meeting is on Thursday 28th April 2022 and it’s a showtime meeting being organised by Peter Lawrence. Bring what you have made to this meeting and let the rest of the members see what you have been doing, you may bring more than one item, in fact the more the merrier. Let me (Alec Mutch) know if you have brought something and you will be given a number for showing, keep hold of your items until your number is called out.