Alan took members through the process of thread chasing.  He gave a demonstration of how to chase by hand, an overview of hobbyist thread chasing kits and rounded out the evening with a fascinating talk about his home made kit and how it works.  Such was the interest in this piece, he has kindly agreed to bring it along to October's Hands On evening, so people can have another chance to see it in action.

This month 

saw an excellent demonstration from long time friend of the club, Steve Heeley.  Steve produced a textured piece (see image) and talked at length about shape & form and how, with practice, one can find the correct balance of proportions without getting caught up, constantly referring to calipers to find the golden ratio.  Steve went on to add colour to the piece in order to make the texture stand out.

For April's club meeting, we were pleased to welcome back Rick Dobney, who gave a demonstration of the process of turning a 3x6" blank into an impressive hollow form, without the need for any specialist hollowing tools.  The process involved creating the shape, parting through the middle of the blank, adding a mortice and tenon to each half and then (in effect) treating each half as a bowl blank, before using the mortice and tenon to re-join the pieces back together.  Rick then followed this up by showing the process of creating a natural edge bowl from a log.

Richard demonstrated how to make a lided box with a finial and drop finial inside the lid (see images below). The box and finial were turned from sepele whilst the lid was turned from beech. During the demonstration he showed us how to better use our tools whilst turning the pot and gave an excellent explanation of the paradox of cutting down hill

A new lathe and stand has been purchased for the club from Axminster tools - an Axminster 305  (see image) - to replace the current club lathe. The lathe will be presented to the club at the earliest opportunity and will be available at the first hands on session of this year.

Steve Heeley returned in December to show how to create a lidded, stemmed form with a square edge.  Steve hollowed out the centre with a spindle gouge, explaining the techniquie as he did so.  When a dark colour is applied to a shape, there is nowhere to hide if the silhouette is not perfect, but Steve is a master at creating pleasing shapes and, once again, did not disappoint.

Wednesday 10th August saw a demonstration from our very own Alan Edwards.  Alan has been a member of the club for about 4 years, but is also an active member of Worcestershire Wood turners and has brought with him a lot of experience - including from his time as a toolmaker.  Alan completed 2 projects, during the demonstration:  The first was a toothpick holder, made from laminated woods (see image).  The second was a small pendant, made using paper joints.  For both projects, Alan took us through the steps, explaining the process as he went.  Finally, Alan explained the chucking method he had used to create the small project with which he (rather fittingly) won this month's Chairman's Challenge.

At June's meeting we had the pleasure of welcoming David Atkinson to the club for the first time. 

Dave took us through the process of making a box with a threaded lid.  The process involved turning a piece of pear to the appropriate size and then using a piece of boxwood to create inserts for the lid and body of the box. 

Dave listed a number of woods that would be suitable for threading (Boxwood, African Blackwood, Leadwood & Newtonia) and explained the process.  He recommended a 20tpi (threads per inch) thread chaser for beginners because, somewhat counter intuitively, a courser thread can be more tricky to cut:  Dave explained that when he wishes to cut a 10tpi thread, he finds it necessary to drop the speed to down to below 300rpm - which is slower than many hobbyist's lathes will go. 

Although this was a relatively "simple" box, Dave also took the time to explain the processes he would use to embellish his boxes (via contrasting woods inserted in the lid, etc) and gave some great insights into the process.

We looks forward to seeing Dave again.

This month, our demonstrator was Ray Jones, showing off 65 years of woodturning experience to make a fantastic pedestal clock from ash in a little under two and a half hours.

In this one project, Ray was able to show off faceplate turning, spindle turning and turning a sphere (freehand!).

As always, Ray had some great tales to tell, but along with his amusing stories were some great tips for people trying to produce repeatable patterns (as shown by the 3 columns in the clock). 

Ray started the demonstration with one column already turned, one part turned and one untouched blank.  He showed off his "battlements" technique and explained how this is his way of ensuring repeatability, whether he's making 2, 3 or 50 items that need to match.