February 2020 Meeting
The February meeting of the CraobhEo 2019/20 year took place on the 13th February in the CraobhEo Centre in Aghamore.
Danny McGeever from the Sligo Chapter were our demonstrator for the night.
There was a Valentines theme to Danny’s demo but first he set about explaining the ratios of the golden rectangle including the pentagon within a circle. He showed us his handmade golden mean dividers and explained the PHI ratio (1: 1.61818) on which it is based. Basically it is an attempt by man to explain how things all around us are as they are.
Danny brought a lot a turned items with him and went through some ideas for projects.
On to the turning. He rounded a little hazel blank to turn a chrysanthemum flower and mounted it in the chuck. Using the skew he created a burr for the flower head and added a little bit of colour before parting off. The skew he uses has a little nick at the heel to facilitate this. Then a twig for the stem and you have a lovely flower.
Next a tulip. Prepare a hazel blank as before and drill out a recess for head of tulip to say 40 mm. Shape outside of head, then hollow out inside. Mark out and cut the petals. Then shape the bottom and part off. Drill for stem and insert. Tulip done. These are simple and lovely ideas.
Finally a budvase from a leylandii blank. Prepare, mount in chuck and turn the outside in a cone shape. Danny uses his golden mean dividers to ensure shape is correct. Drill the insert for the flower and turn the outside to a hyperbolic curve. You can use a ruler to check design. Shape the top of the budvase and part off. This busvase has a nice shape.
Last of all he showed us his offset template for turning spheres and gave a little talk on turning a dodecahedron.
Well done to Danny for a very interesting evening and sharing some of his knowledge and experience with us. He is a great friend of our chapter and in this case had to step in at short notice. We appreciate it.
Competition
Competition piece for March is a ceiling rose
Monthly Chapter Competition Winners
Winner – Gerry Warde
Second – Padraig Grealis