Pembrokeshire Woodturners meeting 19th Jan 2012
The club was pleased to welcome Mark Baker the editor of The Woodturner Magazine who had kindly offered to do a demo at tonight’s meeting as he was in the area attending the Art and Craft show at the Botanical Garden of Wales which is situated between Carmarthen and Cross Hands just off the A40 trunk road and by the way well worth a visit.
38 members and guests were present to witness a very informative and well delivered demonstration of Mark's skill at the lathe. He first showed us his technique for securing the wood between centres with his preferred method of using a proprietary face plate with what could be described as spikes to hold the piece at the headstock end and to give a positive drive. He described how an ordinary faceplate could be modified to do the same using some pointed bolts fixed with lock nuts. Mark is very keen to make sure his tools are sharp at all times to give the best possible cut and explained the push and pull cuts to the best advantage. He told us to make provision for holding the piece by other means as soon as possible just in case the method being used fails,
he suggested by forming a spigot to be held in a chuck. Once the outside of the bowl he was turning was shaped to his liking using a swept back gouge and a negative rake scraper to obtain the best tool finish possible he then set about hollowing by holding the bowl in a four jaw chuck. Using a couple of different gouges he explained how important it was to ride the bevel as the cut progressed. The bowl he was making was then turned around and held so the foot could be shaped into three legs, these being formed with the aid of an offset powered cutter. Obviously due to the time constaint sanding and finishing were not carried out.
Next Mark tackled a Japanese type bowl with a round bottom, once he had shaped the outside to the desired form he used a small beading tool to form rings from the bottom to about two thirds of the way to the rim, making sure we knew to work this tool flute down. The inside was then shaped and the bowl again reversed on the chuck to finish rounding the bottom. Mark showed how this bowl could be incorporated with other shapes to make attractive art works. Mark also showed us more of his artistic ideas and I'm sure we will see members having a go at something different in the future.
This demo by Mark has fed the imagination of many members present tonight, has promoted us to think outside the box and to focus on design and form of our turnings.
A big thank you to Mark for his time and the enthusiastic and informative demonstration.
Thanks also to Peter for arranging the demo, to Bert for bringing all that wood for the raffle and to Mary and Sonya as ever the for the best cakes, tea and coffee which are looked forward too by all.
Take look at the pictures. The table showing some of the club members work is well worth a close look and demonstrates how our turnings have improved in just over two years since it was formed.
John Blake, Chairman
