West Midlands Woodturners

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1 Chairman s Comments West Midlands Woodturners Secretary: Brian Goodall Telephone: briangoodall@gmail.com Another year has gone past at WMWT and with the exception of the hiccup of having to cancel Decembers Social event I think we can be well pleased with the way things have gone. We should be particularly pleased that we welcomed some new members and see them attending on a regular basis. January sees us start the year with our AGM, where we will discuss plans to take the Club forward and deal with the running arrangements. I am sure there is some untapped energy amongst you which could take us forward, please see if you can contribute. I am off for a month in the sun, so I wish you All a Blessed Christmas, Health & Contentment in the New Year. Brian. DECEMBER 2012 A Happy Christmas and a Prosperous New Year PROGRAMME 2012 December 9th. CAN- CELLED January 20th Hands On Day & AGM February 17th Demonstration Nick Agar Notice to All Members Prior Notice of an AGM Agenda Item It is my intention to propose and encourage a wider involvement by the membership in the running of the club. I will ask for members to offer to shadow a Committee position with a view to taking on that role should circumstances demand it or as I prefer to suggest, that all appointments should be time limited. Please give this proposal some consideration and think how you may offer to help. Next Page

2 Page 2 Chairman s Challenge Results for Sunday November 18th Sponsored by Earlswood Interiors & Crafts An Autumn Theme of Fruit use you own theme of content & presentation.. Basic Group 1st. Place Phil Stephens 2nd. Premier Group 1st. Place Dave Nash 2nd. Place Graham Lovett No picture available Next Page

3 Page 3 Chairman s Challenge for January 20th. A Lidded Pill Box (for those Winter Medications!) Photographs from the November Display Table Next Page

4 A Review of Mark Hancock s Demonstration by Phil Stevenson It is exactly 10 years since Mark last did a demonstration for West Midlands Woodturners (I checked!) and he has returned not a minute too soon. We had a reasonable turnout on a beautiful autumn day, Mark got off to a prompt start and we were all pleased that turning actually started within 15 minutes of his introduction. Mark's main project of the day was to be a legged / footed vessel in order to show a range of techniques, including turning and finishing using a fairly large piece of wet beech. Mounted between centres, we're off with a fine display of flying shavings! Mark punctuated much of his demonstration with comments covering ring centres (use one! - tried using a plumbing olive over your normal tail centre?) to full face visors (use one of them too!). The piece was rounded and rough-shaped, and after turning a hefty spigot, it was remounted in the faithful Axminster chuck with hefty O'Donnell jaws for final shaping. We saw Mark use a couple of gouges with varying degrees of sweep in the grinding of the wings. To refine the outer shape Mark employed a clever trick we have seen him use before - a hand-help cabinet scraper. I own up to having tried this myself and it really works! The scraper is cheap and is very easy - and very safe - to use; grind it using a simple flat grind and make sure it trails on the turning work. It can also be used inside hollowed pieces.

5 Page 5 On to hollowing out - Mark is the proud owner of a fairly rare, hand-made tapered spoon bit (hope I've described that properly); it looked very effective and didn't bind due to the taper as he took out the centre prior to hollowing out with his favoured Rolly Munro cutter. We had the chance to discuss various other tools as well, and Mark showed his depth of knowledge about just about every other tool we mentioned. After tea, Mark reverse-chucked the piece and used the same techniques to hollow out the base. Interesting use was made of a tiling profile tool to ensure the internal profile of the main cup was followed on the outside shape. Mark preferred to eyeball the leg shapes to stop the piece looking too precise. The piece had received absolutely no sanding up to this point and we now saw why! Mark fired up his blow torch which uses MAPP gas (a new one on me en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mapp_gas ). MAPP gas burns far hotter than propane or butane so the ebonising effect on the wood is nearly instant and very effective. The burnt surface was then burnished on a brush held in the lathe to give a really nice effect - and still no sanding!

6 A number of Mark's gallery pieces have interesting partial incised slits on them and he then showed us how this is done. The chuck jaws were refitted out of order (careful if you're going to try this!) which means that when the tool (a skew chisel in this case) is held against the piece, the cut only appears on part of the surface - very effective. And now the inside, which Mark wanted to gild, so on to a (very) quick intro to the art of gilding. Bearing in mind the complexity of the art of gilding, this really only scratched the surface but it may be enough to give us a little inspiration to give it a go (another very useful website is a fantastic shop to visit if you're in the Big City; I've been and it is an Aladdin's cave). The afternoon's, briefer, project was a goblet featuring Mark's trademark distorted stem, Similar techniques were used again to shape and hollow the goblet and a captive ring was made

7 Page 7 utilising mark's own ring tools. The really interesting bit was watching Mark flatten the stem using his cabinet scraper, then abrasive paper (always taking the grain into account) to prepare for the distortion. Mark uses a musical instrument maker's heated former to shape the stem - a delicate procedure using moisture and gentle hand-bending. This was one of the most interesting parts of the day for me, and whether or not we have a heat former, this a is a technique still to be explored. Sadly, Mark explored the flexibility of this stem a little too enthusiastically and broke it! I'm sure he did this on purpose just to make us all feel better about our own disasters! I thoroughly enjoyed the day with Mark - the finished pieces were interesting but more interesting were the tools and techniques Mark used to arrive at them. Check out Mark's own website for a wider view of his gallery pieces as well as a lot of useful and unusual links

8 Page 8 General Information Next Meeting January 20th AGM and Hands On Day. This is a Full Day. This will commence at a.m. and finish at 4.00 pm. There is a 5.00 fee for the day. Helpers to set out tables and chairs from a.m. please. Do not forget your sandwiches and a mug for your tea/coffee. Don t forget your pieces for the display stand!! Newsletter So finally the end has been reached. My best wishes to the next editor. Items for the Newsletter I would like to thank all of the contributors to the Newsletter over the last four years. Please give your support to the next editor whoever that may be! Axminster Tool Centre We have set up an account with Axminster Tool Centre whereby club members can get a 15 percent discount on anything purchased from the woodturning section of the catalogue. This can only be achieved by placing your order with Brian Gibbs or Les Saunby who are the administrators of the account. You can only place an order through the Club, you cannot take advantage of this offer by approaching Axminster directly. For more information or to place an order please ring:- Les Saunby on Next Page