Sligo Wood Turning Chapter

Meeting: May 2010

Our May chapter meeting brought us to Austin Mulhern’s venue in Ballinafad Co. Sligo.

             Danny Mc Geever was our demonstrator for the evening. Danny’s first exercise on the night was to produce a bird. This was a nice exercise with the use of the skew. He began to make the body of the bird by firstly roughing down the piece between centres and then holding the piece on a spigot. Danny turned an urn shaped body and went on to tell us of different shapes that the body could be turned into. For the recess for the bird’s head he had a pre-cut template (disc) and turned a concave spear into the neck of the piece then parted off the piece. The next step in this exercise was to turn the bird’s head. The piece was held in the chuck and roughed it down to almost the same diameter as re-cut diameter of the template. With the use of the skew Danny turned a near complete spear to complete the head leaving a small spigot which he then formed the bird’s beak.

               Danny’s second exercise on the night was a small box with a lid that could double up as a spinning top. He roughed down a piece of Yew and started to hollow out the end to form the inside of the box. At this stage Danny talked us through angles of the skew and scrapers, sharping, use of both the skew and scrapers. After the inside of the box was complete he turned an elegant shape to the outside sidewalls of the box and parted off and reverse chucked the box and finished the bottom. Next was the lid which Danny turned the tip of the spinning top and went on to turn the lid and finial/handle of the box.

               The piece for the May competition was an apple or a piece of fruit. Again we had a beautiful array of pieces with some exceptional imaginable ideas and some fantastic workmanship. Philip Mahon was the winner on the night with a lidded apple that every the best would find it hard to find a flaw never mind to find the meeting point between the apple and the lid. The turn out of quality pieces shows the talent that is within the Sligo Chapter. Well done to all that entered pieces. And thank you to Austin for hosting the meeting, Danny for an excellent demo and to Owen Madden for his very encouraging and fitting words on the level of quality of the competition pieces. Owen was the competition reviewer for the night.

Meeting: April 2010

The April Chapter meeting was hosted in my own Workshop, we had a good turn out on the night and all just fitted into my small workshop.

 Tommy Mc Fadden got the meeting off to a start by announcing that we where re-launching the Sligo Chapters website and handed over the proceedings to myself. I gave a general run through of the site and contents. I hope the Sligo Chapter members and the entire I.W.G. members find the website to their liking. 

I also demonstrated on the night and kept my demo simple by turning an apple from a piece of spalted beech. I started off by turning a spigot on one end then holding the spigot firmly in the chuck and turning and finishing the top of the apple I drilled a hole into the top in order to hold the apple in a home made fruit chuck. I removed the partially turned apple and then held it in the fruit chuck with aid of an 80 mm screw and turned and finished the end of the apple. I drilled the end and inserted a clove. On the top I fitted into the screw hole a fake leaf. The second part of the exercise was to turn a worm and make it look like as if it had eaten its way through the apple. This was done by turning a 60 mm diameter ring then cutting up the ring into pieces. Then drilling and inserting a panel pin into the ends (to strengthen the joint) and gluing two pieces back together to form an “S” shape. I sanded a head on one and a tail on the other then put some markings onto the worm. I drilled two holes into the apple and glued in the head and tail in.

Our competition piece for April was mushrooms. We had some beautiful and interesting pieces entered. The pieces showed off the imaginations of the turners with some fantastic ideas, wood choice’s and uses for the mushrooms. The May competition piece is an apple, apples or piece of fruit. 

We had some very welcome guests on the night Jeff Kay (JK Design) who helped us with the web site and members of the Craobh Eo chapter. Willie Creighton let us know of their up coming events and what their Chapter where working on.

Meeting: March 2010

The March Chapter meeting took us to the workshop of Philip Mahon. Philip’s workshop like all the workshop’s that we hold our meetings in is a credit to him. It is an extremely well laid out and well equipped workshop and along side his workshop is his wood store that any wood turner would be so proud to have.

Philip himself was the demonstrator for the night. Philip’s first exercise on the night was a demo on how to produce a bowl made from Sycamore. Philip followed all the standard procedures and it was amazing how quick he had the bowl finished. His second exercise was some spindle work. Philip is exceptional good with the skew and he started off with by roughing the piece using the skew then laid out and showed all how he can roll beads and using the same skew. Philip’s demo showed the versatility of the tool. He went on to show how to use the skew to turn an egg and all the while talking us though the importance of positioning and angle approach with the skew.

The competition piece for the night was a “no bigger than” ten inch by two inch platter. We had an excellent turn out of pieces all made and finished to the highest of standards. It was decided at the A.G.M. that we would bring back and try the method of competition pieces been analysised. Danny Mc Geever was the analyzes on the night and he went through all the pieces and talked us through all the different positives and negatives of the pieces and I think that all members will agree that this was a very well worth exercise and hopefully it will all our turning will improve from it.

Thanks Philip for your hospitability and your excellent skew demo.

Meeting: Jan & Feb 2010

The January Chapter meeting didn’t go ahead because of the bad weather and the visit to Colm Brennan’s Workshop was deferred to February.

Demonstration on the night was great

Colm Breenan welcomed us into his very spacious and well equipped workshop in February. Philip Mahon was our demonstrator for the night. The first project that Philip undertook on the night was a letter opener or as someone referred to as a” bill opener” made from cherry this was an exercise in spindle work and in skew tool control which we all know that Philip is exceptionally talented with the skew.

The second exercise that Philip demo’d was a dove-tailed bowl all made out of two flat boards dove tailed then glued together then positioned ring where ripped on the band saw then re glued and reassembled and then finally turned. Philip made it all sound and look so easy. This was an extremely interesting exercise as the finished bowl would have caused allot of head scratching if Philip didn’t explain and demonstrate for us the techniques envolved. This exercise was a fantastic method of reducing waste and of material management as well as producing a beautiful  extremely well made piece. Thank you Philip for a very enjoyable and interesting demonstration.

On the night we also had our AGM. All officers where re-elected and we had good discussion on a large manner of items. I would like to thank Colm again for his hospitality as always.

Meeting: December 2009

The December meeting brought us to the compact and fully functional workshop of John Rynne. There was again a great turn out of members that battled the elements. On the night Tommy Mc Fadden was the demonstrator who as always brings a humorous side to our selection of demonstrators.

Tommy had a very tough and hard piece of Elm to work with. Tommy didn’t tell anyone what his creation was going to be until the end. The vessel was produced in the same manner as a normal bowl by turning down the outside and creating a spigot on the foot then hollowing out and finishing the inside. He removed the bowl from the lathe and drilled two holes into the rim of the bowl and inserted two wooden stud shaped objects and asked for some fishing line? He tightened and started to tune in his musical instrument. Tommy didn’t give us a song but he did give us an interesting demo. As you can see from the picture John’s Oneway lathe just didn’t suit Tommy style of turning. Thanks Tommie for a good and enjoyable demo.

The competition piece on the night was a Christmas tree decoration or a piece with a Christmas theme. Again we had a good amount of pieces for the competition. Philip Mahoon was the winner on the night with his three angle’s piece made from yew, maple and a walnut base. Colm Breenan came second with a Christmas decoration made from maple with a captive snowman. Third place went to John Burn. Again well done to everyone for the great effort that produces such lovely pieces and these pieces keep the shaving and the imagination flowing. The competition piece for the January meeting is a bowl no greater than eight inches in Diameter and no greater than four inches in height.

Meeting: November 2009

Our November meeting took us to the Workshop of Danny Mc Geever. Danny’s workshop is very well equipped and nicely laid out and of course his fantastic 300 long bed Vicmarc.

Danny was the demonstrated on the night and it was great to see back. His project on the night was a footed bowl made from a piece of Cheery. Danny began by creating an expansion spigot on the piece for his chuck to hold the piece and he turned the outer contour of the bowl and keeping in mind the layout for the feet. He quickly cored out the center and then demonstrated scraper techniques and the use of a negative rake scraper. Danny talked use through the lay out of the feet on the pros and cons of different amount of feet on the bowl. He then jam chucked with tailstock support the piece to finish the base of the bowl. He then used a very clever idea with the use of a profile finder to get the profile of the outer curve of the bowl to match the base of the bowl so when the carving of the feet was complete that the two surfaces would match. After the turning was complete Danny laid out the feet and talked use through the different methods of angle finding. He went on then to carve the feet his first method was the tradition method of chisel and mallet and the second method of roughing the feet was with the use of an arbotec. Danny then used microplanes to fine tune the carving so the curved outer contour of the bowl flowed into the curve of the foot.

After the demo we had the judging of the completion pieces. There was a good selection of pieces on display. The piece for the night was a goblet. There was a beautiful variety of wood and turning techniques. There were some eye catching goblets from a fantastic burr Elm with ebonized stem, extremely thin walled goblet made from Laburnum, to a box wood with hand carved twisted feature. Well done to every one for entering in the pieces. It’s great to see the effort from all. Thanks a million Danny for an excellent demonstration and your hospitality.

Meeting: October 2009

The October meeting was held in John O’Sullivan’s workshop. John was a very well equipped and specious Workshop and you can always be guarantied a nice warm log fire. There was a large turn out of turners with some new faces and hopefully new members.

Dougie Colvin was our demonstrator for the night. He turned a goblet out of sycamore. The exercise wasn’t to have a well finished piece but to the magical method’s of getting an arrow to pass through the goblet and to put a stop all the head scratching. Dougie showed how he would turn the arrow and described in great detail the preparation work on the arrow by placing the arrow head in boiling water then squeezing it in a vice and leaving it there for some time. This was to get it to the stage ready for insertion into the goblet. Two holes where drilled into the goblet and the arrow was passed through. Then came the interesting part, the arrow head was then placed in some boiling water and left there and after a short period the arrow head regained it original shape. Thanks Dougie for a very light hearted and extremely interesting demonstration.

The competition piece for the night was a piece with Halloween thyme. There was a beautiful array of turning from beginners and not so beginners, from a witch to mice in a witch’s cauldron. Colm Brennan talked us through the night’s competition winners and also the overall score board with the handicap. We had a good discussion on the competition pieces for the upcoming months and try and facilitate both beginners and experienced turners and not be restricted by lathe size. It was decided that a goblet was the competition piece for November meeting and to be held in Danny Mc Geever’s Workshop. Thanks John for your hospitality.

Meeting: September 2009

After a two month break for the summer so we all could catch up with cutting the hedges, cutting the lawns and cutting the turf we had our September meeting Peter Dunne’s dream workshop. The meeting kicked off with two sales rep’s from the Woodoc Company. The produces and produce ranges sounded extremely promising. Time will tell if it will give my Danish oil a run for its money. We also had two welcome guests from the North West Chapter, Paddy Murray and Stanley Rate.

Peter on the night demonstrated turning a baby’s rattler made from sycamore. The Rattler was a spindle exercise with some bead work and captive rings. This was Peter’s first night to demonstrate but you would not think it, as he talked us through all stages of his demo. Peter had some useful tricks one of which was turning captive rings with the use of a modified carving tool. We all hope that Peter will demonstrate of us again shortly. Well done Peter and thanks for hospitality.

The competition piece was left open for our summer return. We had a beautiful verity of work from hollow forms, goblets, oil lamp, platter’s and bowls but to name a few. Well done to everyone for their effort. The next month’s competition piece was a piece with a Halloween theme. A dession was made this year to try and spice up the competition by adding a handicap. So the best turner not nessercirly wins the overall competition.