Midlands Chapter - April 2023

The Midlands Chapter meeting was held on the 17th April 2023 at the Carpentry Store in Naas.  We had a full room with a great turnout of both new and existing members in attendance. To start off the second quarter of the year the Chapter was delighted to present an evening with Christien Van Bussel who demonstrated box turning and texturing.  Christien has a studio in Aughrim, County Wicklow where she holds classes in woodturning and pottery to adults and children.

Christien turned an ash lidded box and gave ideas on design, decoration, colouring, carving, texturing, and painting. She likes to use oils and wax products such as Chestnut finishing oil, gilt cream and Liberon verdigris special effect wax. If using spirit dyes take care that it does not bleed through the walls of the piece.  When finishing with acrylic paints Christien recommends buying good quality paints for better results.

Throughout the demonstration she talked through the correct tools to use to avoid tearing the grain and get a cleaner finish. A tip of hers was to paint the top of the tool handles with different colours to make it easy to identify the correct tool.  She discussed the importance of safety, for example, as dust is your biggest enemy, she advised wearing a good quality dust mask or a powered respirator to protect your lungs.  This is especially important when sanding. Ideally these should be used in conjunction with a dust extractor.

There has a lovely flow to her delivery. The way she explained the process in detail as she goes along makes it simple to understand and follow.  We would like to thank Christien for an excellent demonstration and the enthusiasm we all left with following the meeting.  It will definitely encourage us to be more creative going forward. 

At our next Chapter meeting the competition is to make a lidded box and we look forward to seeing some beautiful designs.