Our meeting this week on Thursday 30th March 2023 was organized by Errol Levings, his subject for this meeting was mainly End Grain Turning, he had arranged for all 5 of our lathes to be working, 3 turners were doing End Grain Turning, 1 turner was making a table leg using an offset method and 1 turner was making use of an Ash Canker to make a bowl.
End Grain Turning requires a different approach and this was what Errol wanted to be demonstrated, although Errol himself was not turning during this meeting he had arranged everything and was supervising what the turners were doing, keeping a close eye on the 3 turners doing the End Grain Turning.
This method is used for things like goblets, deep open vases, even an egg cup needs to be made using this method, the use of a light source is often used especially for goblets, some of those turning were using the light source but as most of the moisture in the wood had been removed “I.E. the wood was relatively dry” made the use of the light source less effective, there were a few failures due to this problem.
I have a confession to make, during the meeting I was taking the pictures, unfortunately I had not noticed the sim card in the camera had not been downloaded, after about 12 pictures I got this message on the screen, SIM CARD FULL, that ended the picture taking for this meeting, however here are the few pictures I was able to take.
Here we have John Ruickbie on Lathe 2, making a Goblet, John’s first attempt went wrong due to him using dry wood and not being able to see the light source, his 2nd attempt went ok, but this time he used some wood that was quite high with moisture.
On lathe 3, we have Daniel Stewart also making a Goblet, again the light source was hardly visible and we had to dim the area lights in order to let the turners see the light shine through the wood as the thickness of the walls got thinner, Daniel did succeed in making his Goblet.
On Lathe 4 we have Dave Line also working on End Grain Turning, making a hollow vessel, he too encountered problems with his first attempt, he then went on to make a small Natural Edged Bowl, this too ended up with a problem, both of these problems were explained to those watching and demonstrate that everything does not always go to plan, but the important thing to remember is to learn by your mistakes.
On lathe 1 was Julian Cox, he was making a table leg using an offset method to turn a club foot on the leg, this meant he had to use different centre points in order to get the design he was looking for, he did complete the table leg, here on the 2nd picture he can be seen sanding using Abranet sanding cloth.
On lathe 5 was Richard Comfort, Richard stepped in to replace Nick Simpson who had to withdraw. Richard had taken in a piece of ASH Canker to let the members see and to find out what it was . After some discussion Richard agreed to make a small bowl with the Canker and to leave as much of the natural features on the outside as possible, he did complete the bowl, in the 2nd picture Richard can be seen polishing the bowl.
The turnout for this meeting was very good, it appeared that everyone was very interested in what the turners were doing and were entering into discussions with the turners on some aspects of what they were doing.
The next meeting is on the 13th April and it’s the first of our shield competitions, it’s being handled by Nick Simpson and David Hobson, the details of the competition have already been issued and we are looking for a big entry from all 3 of our turner categories, so come on everyone do put in an entry. In addition to the competition there will be a demonstration on First Aid by Joe Webster, this will take place during the judging of the competitions.