Gorey & District - March 2022

Gorey and District had its first face to face meeting in 2022 on March 14th. It was good to see some old friends and some new members to the club. The meeting started with the usual welcome and housekeeping but we also took the time to remember the members of and members family we have lost in not just the last two years but the years before with a minutes silence.  R.I.P. friends and family.

Our A.G.M. was a short and sweet meeting and with no matters arising everything was agreed to continue with the same committee.

With covid restrictions been lifted, the committee have implemented some simple changes to aid in the safety of members. The suggestion of everyone wearing masks was made and everyone was happy to continue this practice for the foreseeable future. Gloves, mask and sanitiser are also readily available to members. Teas and coffees are distributed by one member of the committee which minimises cross contamination with other members.

As all members were happy to follow the committee’s suggestions to help protect one another, the committee would like to thank everyone for their support and cooperation in the meeting.

As I sharpened my tools and gather my thoughts for my fist demonstration at my local club in almost two years I cant help wonder how this demonstration will actually work out. For the last two years I have been recording and delivering live demonstrations to a bunch of cameras and computers. As like many I have missed the social interaction but I firmly believe the virtual world of woodturning has been a huge bonus to many people. The world of woodturning has become a small place, as we can interact with people delivering IRD’s, (Interactive Remote Demonstration’s), from anywhere in the world.

But tonight its live! Face to face, or mask to mask.

As I am the organiser of booking demonstrators, I thought that going forward we would like to hear what demonstrators have being doing in the last two years. So, I started out explaining about my now almost daily virtual world of woodturning and what I have been doing.

When I thought about the project for the demonstration, I realised many members had not been turning much while others were turning far more from discussions I have had with people.

I decided to try mix it up with basics and some advanced techniques such as shear scraping with a bowl gouge.

As always, the first part of my demonstration was on safety, face shields and other safety precautions I suggested we should implement in our workshops.

I used a  piece of unseasoned Beech, approximately 12 inches x 4 inches, (300mm x 100mm), wrapped in shrink wrap to keep the moisture in. We discussed why I wrapped the wood and methods for inducing spalting.

The blank was secured to the lathe using a face plate and also had tailstock support for the majority of the turning process. Other methods of securing the piece in the lathe such as between centres were looked at but with safety in mind the most secure method was used to hold the blank on the lathe.

As we all know woodturning is a messy hobby and shavings tend to go everywhere, see picture attached, I use roller blinds in my workshop to contain the shavings and keep other areas clean. So, I took advantage of this in Robert O Connors workshop and used the blind which is ceiling mounted behind me and no shavings passed this point when roughing out the outside of the piece.

I am predominantly right handed, I do employ left hand techniques a lot to make access  easier to a piece, and also in the case of roughing out, I direct the shavings away from me into negative space.

For the initial shaping I used my 5/8 long grind bowl gouge which made shaping very fast and easy on the unseasoned blank.

With the beads and texture added to the rim, some good talking points were raised and good discussions were had around such techniques.

Using a variety of tools to explain how they worked, the outside was completed, and the tenon created for to secure the piece in the chuck. The importance of the centre point been marked for removal of the foot at a later stage was also pointed out.

I displayed my method of aligning the piece to ensure correct alignment in the chuck.

Once the piece was secured in the chuck, I proceeded to hollow the piece showing various tools and techniques I use in my woodturning.

On completion of hollowing the interior, I secured the piece onto the vacuum chuck and removed the foot to give the piece a curved based rather than a flat area as traditionally used.

Sanding was discussed but not carried out in the demonstration as part of the discussion was achieving the best finish from the tool.

Thanks to everyone for their participation with questions and comments.

Stay safe everyone.

Pat Carroll

Website: www.patcarrollwoodturning.com

Email: patcarrollwoodturning@gmail.com