Our second meeting of the year was well attended by members and welcome visitors from other chapters.
As advertised and at no expense we were honored to have a demonstration by two of our chapters more experienced turners (drumroll) Cecil Barron and Chris Hayes. Cecil led off the day by turning a multi tea light holder turned from a pre-bored blank of afromosia about 250mm in diameter and 70mm thick. When I say prebored I mean he had prepared one face by drilling a pattern of holes, five around a centre hole with a 40mm fostner bit 28m deep, these to hold the tealights. (see photo)
Cecil’s next move was to mount the blank on the lathe using the centre tealight hole to insure a true centred piece, clever I thought. He then proceeded to work the blank to the shape he required adding in nice touches with a variety of textured tools and ended with a beautiful centre piece to grace any dining table.
Cecil then turned three other pieces, a pair of garden dibbers which by adding some cord doubled as a line to keep your veggies nice and straight, then a useful jar cap and finished his demo with a spurtle stick. Now what is a spurtle stick you might well ask, its a wee stick for sturrin your porridge, add that to your book of useful information.
After being revived with tea and biscuits Chris was on for the second half of the demo. Chris made a three cornered tea light holder start with an exact cube and then slice off two opposite corners. Using marking on the pictures
Mount between centers using a steb center after marking the centers. carefully make spigot. Using a heavy gouge is best when starting as you will be only hitting parts. With the speed of 800/900. Go gently as you start and shape outside. Marking the tool rest can alert you to the invisible flying corners.
When outside is complete reverse and mount in chuck. Bring us tailstock to support piece when removing as much wood for the bowl part.
Remember to turn off the lathe when moving the tool rest as you can’t see those invisible corners.
Create the tea light holder measuring your insert. Before reversing sand the inside. To sand the inside and still have your fingers use a piece of dowel with Velcro and small sanding disks.
Reverse the piece and use jam chuck fitting the tea light holder and remove the spigot using gentle cuts.
Thank you very much Cecil and Chris.
fter