Jun 2015 Meeting

The June meeting of the 2014/2015 year was held on Thurs. 11th June in the Craobh Eo Centre in Aghamore.

Martin Wilson was our demonstrator for the last meeting of the year and it turned out to be a lovely evening. He arrived with a 12″ by 2″ square beech blank with every intention of using as much of the blank as possible.

First project was a mirror frame. Martin used a drawing to explain his plan of action. The edge was rounded and the face trued up to start. Approx 50m in from the edge on the face a rebate was cut to house the mirror. A front parting cut was then made to the right of the rebate to the depth of the frame. Tape was applied to hold the frame in position while the another parting cut from the side was made to release the 50mm wide frame from the blank.

The frame was then reversed onto the blank again using tape to hold it. Having trued up the face, the corners were rounded and the surface turned to a concave shape. The surface was textured with one pass of the spiralling tool. Spirit stain was applied to this surface with a cloth and left to dry out. Guilded cream was then rubbed into the textured area on top of the stain (Chesnut copper guilt cream). This cream sits in the crevice and can take up to 24 hrs to harden properly. The surrounding area was then tidied up and the non textured area sanded. This is a nice project and within the reach of all.

Martin decided to make a platter from the rest of the blank. The bottom was shaped and a spigot turned to reverse the platter later. The outside was blended in to a nice shape before being reverse mounted in the chuck. Next he trued up the rim and then turned the middle to a concave shape. The rim was sanded with an oscillating sander and finally the middle sanded on the lathe. It turned out lovely and showed that although wood can be expensive, with a bit of thought and preplanning we can make better use of it.

Altoghether a very informative demo with lots of ideas and touching on colouring and texturing which can really enhance our projects. Thank you Martin.