14 December 2024 Club Meeting

 The meeting was held at Sam Staffan's shop and was well attended.  This meeting was not on our calendar of scheduled meetings but there was interest and many people came and brought items they had made.  There were many side discussions on how to do things and a lunch was provided.   Many thanks to Sam for hosting the meeting.

There were no bring backs or formal demonstrations.  Here are some of the very interesting Show and Tell items.

Jim Rutledge brought in some boxes he made with the Hiawatha Sportman's Club   Logo on top.  He also added one of the logo plate to his walking stick.  Nicely done.  

Here is a closer view of the neat boxes Jim made.

Archie Patterson made two bowls from aromatic cedar and two vases from purple heart.  The top cedar bowl is unfinished and retains it aromatic properties while the bottom one was finish with poly which enhanced the color but sealed in the aromatic properties.  Alternative would be to finish the outside and leave the inside unfinished.  The two purple heart vessels are buff finished as the wood is very hard. 

Steve Promo brought in two rough turned bowls.  Rule he used is for every inch of diameter leave 10% in wall thickness so the bowl can dry and you will then be able to re-turn the bowl to finished state in about two or three years.   Bottom is a finish bowl.

Here Steve is explaining how to turn a platter from a slab section of a log.  During the lumber milling process the outer sections of the log are cut off and discarded.  Steve saves this sections and turns very nice platters from them.  At the end of the meeting Steve gave away several of the slabs of wood for members to take home and turn platters. 

Here are some really nice boxes and a bowl.

Here is a box with accent added and a hollow form made from four sections of wood turned twice.  First, the sections are grouped as four strips togetherand one side is turned and then the sections are rotated 180 degrees and the other side is turned.  The sections are then reassembled and finished.

Here are some platters and a burl bowl.  The platters are made from the slab cuts from a log.  See above.

This is a bowl made from a Burl.   As often happens not only is the wood patter beautiful but there are voids where the tree grew around a fault.  Still makes a wonderful bowl. 

Close up of the burl bowl showing the faults.

 

 

There was an impromptu demonstrations of a portable winch that is great help in moving large logs from the woods and onto trailers.  The winch is called a Baby Winch.

Sam demonstrated how you can move a large log from the woods to and onto your trailer using this baby winch and a cordless drill.  Make sure you have several batteries.  This version has a woven cord and the button shown allows you to release the cable and then rewind the cable using a drill motor connected to the drive shaft on the other side.  The description on Amazon.com reads: 

Portable Drill Winch of 1000 LB, Red Handheld Drill Winch with 40 Foot Synthetic Rope, Rotate The Hook 360 Degrees, for Lifting & Dragging(Red).

Sam explained that instead of hurting your back trying to roll, drag or flip a heavy log you can connect the winch to a tree and then to your log and using a cordless drill motor drag the log 40' at a time and then into your trailer, which Sam has done.  Much better then the manual come-along many people have.  

It was a great meeting and everyone learned something by sharing their knowledge.   Thanks again Sam and to everyone that came.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our friends. 

Steve Promo's Cherry Salad Bowls

 Steve receive a contract to make salad bowls.  He made 14 Cherry Salad Bowls and they look great.

Submitted 22 November 2024.

 

9 November 2024 Club Meeting

This was the last meeting of 2024 and we had a great turn out of members who brought lots of samples of their turnings and some nice bring backs for our raffle.  

Ash outer cut slab.  Steve said you can make some really nice edged bowls from it.

These are some great bring backs that were raffled off during the meeting.  Left is a section of Ash, behind that is a crouch of a tree, to its right is a burl.  Four turnings and a decorative center piece were also brought backs.  

Sam Staffan made the chess set for his son.  All hand made with pieces turned on the lathe and carved.
Other items are decorative segmented pieces.  

More of Sam's great work.

Here is a close up of Sam's segmented turnings.  

More of Sam's ornamental segmented turnings.

Sam brought in some pieces that illustrate how he made the ornamental segment turnings.  
Left is four sections taped together and turned for the inside.   The four sections are turned so the turned outer edges are facing inward and turned for the outside like the second from left.  Next over to the right are the loose sections that would make up the pieces with the inside turned along with some finished pieces.  

The two bows on the left are from Kate and the top three are from Jim Rutledge.

Jim is a master carver and here is a humming bird perched on a stick on the lid of a nicely turned box.   

Here is another wonderful creation from Jim.   A turned bowl made to look like a woven basket with carved feathers in the bottom.  The feathers look so real.  Nice work Jim.

Next to one of Kate's outstanding bowls and another box from Jim with a wonderful bird on the lid.  

Here are two of Kate's fantastic spalted bowls in a natural edge design.  

A beautiful bowl on the left next to a fantastic box.  

Here is a look down the rest of the table loaded with fantastic objects from our members.  

Steve Promo brought in this segmented bowl.  

Here is another of Steve's segmented bowls.  

This a solid wood vase with fantastic wood color. An insert is placed in the vase for a flower.  A real beauty.  

Here are some of Archie Patterson's turnings.  Left is a small mallet.  The bowel on the top was clamped into chuck and the bottom was finished.  However, the furnace came on and the bowl could not expand so it cracked.   Bottom are two domed boxes.  

This is Archie's Orange Agate bowl with a outwardly turned lip and a Ebony wood base.   The finish is buffed CA glue.

In the last issue of Woodturners Magazine there was an article about turning domed boxes with tops reminiscent of the domed buildings of the Middle East and Russia.   After reading the article Archie made these with gold colored hollowed tops and and a dark wood accent piece on the side.  

Here is a nifty pitcher with lid and leather strap handle.  

The photograph does not do justice to these two very large and very beautiful Cherry bowls.  

Placed at the end of the table were these, not to be overlooked, treasures.  Back is a paper towel holder, right is a bowl and left are three biscuit cutters.  

After show and tell Steve Promo talked about making a laser holder for our boring bars.  This was part four of a series where members made the boring bars, a boring bar support and steady rests.  To determine the wall thickness of the turnings a laser can be used to point, say 1/4" from the cutter.  When the laser dot reaches the work's edge you have reached your desired thickness.  In the following movie Jim will explain about using the laser and the making of the laser holder, then he will turn the vertical stand for the laser holder.  Following the movie there are some pictures to further show what was done.  Enjoy.

Do to technical difficulties there is no sound during the turning.  Comments were added to help clarify what was happening in the movie.   

This is the finished laser holder mounted on a boring bar.  The laser is an inexpensive unit from a local hard ware store often used to play with cats.  Jim uses a clothes pin to hold the laser button down to keep the laser on.

This is the top mount bracket with a wing nut to tighten the grip on the laser holding bar.  There is also a wing nut on the back side so you can adjust the height.

If you cut the hole just right the laser will be a press fit.  If loose a little hot glue will hold it steady.

To make the top bracket Jim took a block of wood and marked where he wanted the holes for the shafts and for the holding bolts and drilled the holes.   Jim also marked the square for the laser shaft.  The slits are cut on a band saw and a band saw was used to square the hole for the laser shaft.

Here you can see how Jim marked the hole to be made square.  

A round hole made square.  

Other ways to make a laser hold.

This one was made of metal using a garden hook with a mounted a gun sight laser on the end.  

This was also made of wood using 3/4" hardwood dowels glued into holes drilled into the mounting blocks.  The laser is fasten to a block held in place by a thumb screw and can be adjusted fore and aft as well as up and down and left and right.  

An alternative is to buy a commercial laser holder on a commercial boring bar such as the one demonstrated by a Lyle Jamerson representative at one of our club meetings.  

12 October 2024 Club Meeting

The members and guest meet at the St Ignace High School Wood shop with Show & Tell items and Bring Back items for auction and for a discussion/presentation by Steve Promo on how to make a Steady Rest. Here are some of the Show & Tell items.

Archie made the three on the left.  Sheila made the Maple bowl on right.

All three of Archie's bowl, yellow hart left and two purple hart centered were finished by polishing.   Sheila's Curly Maple bowl was turned after one day of instructions and also polished.  

Two bowls brought bought in.  Left is segmented wood turned.  Right item has high light rings on the outer edge.  

A dark wood bowl with an unique lid.  

Jim Rutledge made the bowl on the upper left with a copper bottom which is sewn on.  Top right has leaves carved into it and the dark area is hand burned to add color and texture.   The small center item has artificial sinew sewn on the top to make the bowl distinctive along with side directions.  The large platter was turned and had large sections of pulpy wood and then taken and hardened with resin under vacuum.  Steve Promo's bowl lower left is thing and he gave it a dark upper edge for a stunning contrast.

There were several items brought in for the auction.  

In addition to the auction items Steve Promo brought in two boxes of wood blanks to be given away.  Thanks Steve.

Two boxes of wood like this for free.  Nice.

After the drawing and Show & Tell discussions Steve gave a talk on how to make a steady rest.

One of Steve's steady rest shown at the September meeting.

First is the video of Steve's presentation which will be followed by pictures showing the steps taken.  

Here are the pictures showing the step Steve explained.

After the presentation Steve talked about our 9 November 2024 meeting where he will demo making a laser mount for the boring bar.  Here is a short discussion on the subject.