NEWSLETTER - OCTOBER 2024

Written by Don Smith

SATURDAY CLUB 12TH OCTOBER 2024

Having stood down as the coordinator for running the Saturday club our chairman Richard opened the proceedings by welcoming a couple of guests before announcing as to what would be happening today.
Firstly, Alan would be showing how to turn next month’s competition piece whilst I would be taking the beginners under my wing leaving one lathe free as John wouldn.t be attending. This left a free lathe which a member wanted advice on turning Christmas Crackers so with the help of Steve Hugo.
The morning went very quickly and it wasn’t long before we all started to clear up and head for home ending another successful morning.

CLUB NIGHT 15th OCTOBER 2024

DEMONSTRATION BY PAUL NESBITT

Richard opened the meeting by welcoming guests, new members and few notices before presenting Brian Eagle and Nick Rose with their competition certificates delayed from September’s meeting. Photos 1 & 2

Photo 1
Photo 2

Richard Introduced Paul as tonight’s demonstrator and a friend of the club to a round of applause.
Paul first thanked everyone for inviting him back again and stated that he would do his best to finish the demo due to his health deteriorating with arthritis in his hands. He also mentioned that this would be his last live demonstration.
The first project will be an eight-sided bowl picking up a blank of American Black Walnut, which had already been cut to an Octagon shape. Photo 3. Using a screw chuck the blank was attached on to the lathe.. The next part was to draw two lines on the eight sides central but ½ inch apart, these lines will come into play as the project progresses. Photo 4.
Paul spoke about how to measure the size of your chuck jaws to give you the ultimate size for holding your work piece using either Expansion or Compression application.

Photo 3
Photo 4

First thing to do was to true up the face before using his calipers set at the right diameter the piece was marked up for the Expansion mode. Photo 5 shows the chucking recess.

Photo 5
Photo 6

Photo 6 shows Paul measuring down 1 ½ inches to make a circle which he will turn to as shown in photo 7.

Photo 7

Paul stated that when you turn the base of the bowl the 1 ½-inch line is the diameter of your base. When you start to turn using the base the base you turn away the waste wood until you hit the first line on the edge. Once satisfied you sand and polish.
Removing it from the screw chuck Paul was ready to reverse it. A very good tip when reversing on to your chuck was to only press with a finger on the centre point of the piece to help in insuring that it ran parallel. Photo 8 shows Paul doing this. Whilst Photo 9 shows the piece partially turned. Paul closed the first half by stating that he had given the main principles on turning an eight-sided bowl. He would take the piece home and turn bowl much deeper and wider. It was left at this point so that he would be able to carry on in the second half demonstrating how to turn a three sided platter.

Photo 8
Photo 9
SECOND HALF
THREE-SIDED PLATTER

To start the second half Paul took a piece of Maple 8 inches by 1 ¼ placed it on the lathe using a live ring centre and pressure against the chuck jaws trued up the edge to a perfect round.
The next stage was to mark out for turning the three sides. Firstly setting his calipers to half the diameter of his chuck size (use your own jaw size dimension) draw a circle. From the centre point draw a line to one edge of the blank then using a 360-degree protractor mark off zero on the line and then at 120 and 240 degrees draw two more lines. Where the line crosses the circle, Centre-pop the three position these are important to be as accurate as possible. Photos 10 and 11 show the marking out (these are snap shots from his video).

Photo 10
Photo 11

It was now time to start turning so using a live ring centre placed the point in first marked hole bring it up against the jaws and .by tightened the tailstock to add pressure to hold it in place to start turning. This put the piece off centre and with the lathe; speed turned right down started the lathe and increased the speed to around 575rpm.It is important to remember that you are running off centre under pressure care must be taken when turning the first of the three sides.
Once you have reached the line, you do the same for the other two sides. Photo 12 shows the piece in the offset position whilst photo 13 shows it back in the central position for the next stage.

Photo 12
Photo 13

Photo 13 also shows the sacrificial Tenon to enable the piece to be reversed, as the side shown will be the top of the bowl. Therefore, after reversing the bank Paul proceeded to put his Tenon on the base before commencing to turn the outside.

Photo 14

Photo 14 shows the piece reversed with the small Tenon and the base turned to the edge of the blank.
The Tenon on the bottom of the bowl is about 2/3 mm deep, removing the blank from the chuck it was reversed and the bowl was then ready to turn.
To start turning you nibble away from the edge until you have an equal edge all round to achieve this you just go deeper with your cuts until the bowl is ready for sanding photo 15 shows the progressing of nibbling away until you have a finished item. Photo 16.

Photo 15
Photo 16

These last two photos are of the only two pieces entered into the competition while the final photo on the right is all the items going to the SAW’s Open Day on 27th October.

Remember Paul gave permission for me to download his video on to a memory stick for a small fee to club funds.
Just supply a memory stick and I will download the file for you.

Written by Don Smith with photos taken from the club computer, taking screenshots from Paul’s video and by myself.