On Saturday last, our April meeting, we held our seminar and had a good turnout of members as well as some very welcome guests from other chapters, our demonstrator for the day was Steve Heeley. Steve, a very skilled turner, started with a talk on health and safety a subject we must be conscious of at all times, with emphasis on the wearing of a good face mask as a lot of the wood we use has toxic elements. The first item Steve showed us was a candlestick made up of three pieces of ash, a timber he favours and he began with the base, a blank of about seven by one and a half inches (175mx35). First drilling an inch hole (25mm) in the centre to take the column he continued to turn, on the top face, a nice ogee, demonstrating as he did the push cut and the shear scrape to achieve a very good finish, speaking as he did so about good design and form. Next, he mounted the second piece of ash, a piece about thirty inches long by two and a half inches’ square (650mm x 52mm), this he turned with a combination of coves, beads and fillets, to give it a very classical look. Then to the top, this from the third piece of ash about four and a half inches in diameter by inch and a half thick (112x 35mm) drilled underneath to fit the column the top hollowed out to take a stainless steel and glass candle holder which he bought in Aldi. All the pieces finished with 400 grit sandpaper and polished, a very impressive piece.
The second project was a shallow bowl with a coloured rim again from an ash blank of about ten by two inches thick, (250x50mm) Steve hollowed out the centre to roughly four and a half inches in diameter leaving a wide rim area to be coloured. First sanding the surface down to four hundred grit Steve pointing out that this must be perfect as the tiniest scratch would show up when coloured. The rim was first coloured with a blue dye and when dry cut back hard using 400grit paper. He then used a blue and green dye this time cut back more gently, next he applied a blue and red dye in random patches around the rim, the colours blending to give a stunning effect. Finally, Steve used a black marker on the outer and inner edges of the rim to frame the coloured area and then applied a finish, a beautiful piece, to die for.
Steve’s last project was a little novelty item, in the form of an acorn decoration, demonstrating the use of a texturing tool to cut a pattern. Thank you very much Steve for a very interesting demo which I know was enjoyed by all present.
A big thank you to all who organised the seminar and all who attended, and to Tom Gibson our resident chef who as usual catered for all our needs.
There were two competitions this month and the results were as follows.
Open. 1st David Sweeney, 2nd Jack O’ Rourke 3rd Frank Trappe.
Monthly. 1st David Sweeney, 2nd Jack O’ Rourke 3rd Tom Murphy
Untill our next meeting work safe.
Jim Hynes. Pat Gannon.
1st David Sweeney
2nd Jack O’Rourke
3rd Frank Trappe