December 2024 Meeting

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The December meeting of the CraobhEo 2024/25 year took place on Thursday the 12th December in the CraobhEo Centre in Aghamore.

Our demonstrator for the evening was Colm Brennan from the Sligo Chapter. 

Colm turned three projects throughout the evening.

Pendant

Colm’s first project for the night was a pendant.

Start by mounting a 50 mm square by 12 mm deep resin blank on a homemade chuck. Turn a convex face and sand. Remount the blank into a concave homemade chuck using double sided tape. Turn the other side and sand. Colm then followed this by turning a wooden pendant as well and turned both sides as above.

Next mount a buffing system with three wheels between centres. Apply carnauba wax to the first wheel and buff the pendants. Repeat for second and third wheels. Drill 1 mm hole for a 22″ 925 silver chain and attach chain.

Gonk

Next Colm turned a Gonk.

Mount 50 mm square by 60 mm long blank for base between centres, round down to a cylinder and turn a tenon to attach hat.  Sand, wax and buff. Next mount a 65 mm square by approx. 80 mm long blank for hat. Round to a cylinder and turn recess in bottom to fit into base. Remount the hat blank into this recess. Turn hat to your preferred shape. Sand, apply wax and buff.

Finally mount a blank and turn the nose with a tenon to attach the nose to the base. Carefully glue beard to base followed by nose and hat.

Teardrop Clock

Last of all Colm turned a tear drop clock. Turn a  60 mm by 100 mm cylinder and mount in chuck. Make a 38 mm recess in top for clock face and then turn outside to desired shape. Sand, wax and buff. Remount in expansion mode and finish bottom as above. Fit the clock face into the recess and sand a flat on the outside to allow clock to stand.

Well done Colm for very productive and practical demos that went down very well with everyone present. It will encourage us to get to the workshop and turn some ornaments for Christmas. Thank you for making the journey from Sligo to be with us.

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 Monthly Chapter Competition Winners

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Advanced

Winner –     Ian McDougall

Second –     Padraig Grealis

Third –        Denis O’Donnell

Intermediate

Winner –   Eltin Moran

Second –    Brendan Calvey

Third     –    Brendan Higgins