February 2025 Meeting

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The February meeting of the CraobhEo 2024/25 year took place on Thursday the 13th February in the CraobhEo Centre in Aghamore.

Our demonstrator for the evening was Donal Ryan from the Limerick Chapter. 

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Donal’s project was a hollow form from a spalted beech blank, 50 mm square by 250 mm long.

Hollow Form

Mount between centres and turn to a round. Turn a spigot and mount in the chuck.  Put a mark halfway up the blank and remove stock working to the top end to get your upper outside shape. Next start hollowing by drilling out the centre with a 35 mm Forstner bit. Drill further in with a 25 mm bit. Donal had a number of hollowing tools and explained how to use each one. First up he used a small bowl gouge to open the blank. Next he used a straight Simon Hope hollower to work further in using a pull cut. However, life can be made a lot easier if you hollow out two half hollow forms and then join them together afterwards taking care to conceal the joint.

At this point, return to shaping the outside and turn the bottom end of the hollow form. The outside is a beaded finish. Mark the starting point for the first bead and use beading tool to make the individual beads. Donal explained how to use this tool, going gently and rotating from side to side. He also showed how to sharpen the beading tool. You can also use a spindle gouge. Mark out 10 mm for width of beads and work from top of the bead down on each side in turn. The gouge gives to better finish than the beading tool. Use a wire brush attached to a drill to give an abrasive finish to the beads.

Finial

Mount spalted beech blank, 70 mm square and 160 mm long, turn to a round. Turn spigot and mount in the chuck with tailstock for support. Mark out finial on blank and turn to your preferred design. Work from the tip down and make finishing cuts as you proceed. Donal used the spindle gouge and the skew for shaping. It is useful if you have an existing finial or a drawing to guide you. Finally fit the lid to the base and part it off.

The finish is sanding sealer, followed by a couple of coats of ebonising lacquer, sanding sealer again and finally satin acrylic lacquer.

This was an excellent demo which involved many different techniques and a lot of turning. It was a credit to Donal.  Thank you also Donal for making the long journey from Tipperary to be with us and hope to see you in Mayo again soon.

 Monthly Chapter Competition Winners

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Advanced

Winner –     Ian McDougall

Second –     Paddy Treacy

Third –        Denis O’Donnell

Intermediate

Winner –   Brendan Calvey

Second –    Brendan Higgins

Third –        Jarlath Cunnane