March 2025 Meeting

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

This was a workshop facilitated by Willie Creighton and Martin Wilson. 

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Willie Creighton first gave a tutorial on the various spindle cut and followed this with a sharpening on the grinder. Martin Wilson covered sharpening with the the Sorby Pro Edge.

Tools Tutorial

First up Willie gave his tutorial on spindle turning and the various cuts involved.

He mounted a 70 mm square by 300 mm long piece of red deal between centres. Next he showed how to make a vee cut with a skew and then used a roughing gouge to turn to a cylinder using  a peeling cut and then a shear cut. He turned a tenon with a parting tool and the spindle gouge. Then he used a 13 mm spindle gouge to turn a bead working from top down, letting the bevel rub. Next he turned a cove with the same tool working from top to bottom and also did a fillet cut.  Finally he did an ogee which is a difficult cut and then a taper. All the spindle cuts here.

Next he did some faceplate turning to show how to turn a base for a candlestick. He mounted a 125 mm by 35 mm blank on a worn screw and trued up the face and rim with a bowl gouge and turned a recess for the chuck with  the skew. He turned a bead on the bottom for decoration. Then he remounted the blank, trued up face and turned a recess for the candlestick to fit into using the gouge and skew. He trued up the rim using a scraping cut with bowl gouge before turning an ogee shape on the edge. Lots of tips on how to hold tools and get the bevel rubbing while maintaining safety at all times.

Willie finished up by demonstrating how to use the Simon Hope straight hollower. He mounted a hollow form blank and drilled a pilot hole. Keeping the hollower on centre line with the toolrest above centre he showed how to go about hollowing out working from inside to outside.

Grinding Demo  (Willie).

Sharpening tools is a huge issue within the woodturning community. This is especially true for beginners who are always faced with this daunting task. Members brought in their gouges, tools and Willie sharpened them one by one and demonstrated how to go about it on the grinder.

Sorby Pro Edge (Martin).

Martin Wilson then gave a demonstration on how to use the Sorby Pro Edge. With a background in joinery, he is very familiar with this topic and he went into the different types of sharpening systems around today.

First up Martin showed how to change the belt on the Pro Edge and discussed some of the attachments available. He attached the platform and explained how to change the tilt to achieve different angles for the various tools. Also the guides to hold tools in situ as you sharpen. He mounted the fingernail jig and showed how to sharpen a spindle gouge (or bowl gouge).

A very informative workshop with huge interest from the members.

Well done Willie and Martin and a subject that we will come back to soon again.