This was the first meeting of 2023 and there were lots of Show and Tell items as well as bring backs. Club members were busy over the winter as you will see.
You can see the table was loaded with things the club members made during the winter.
Here are some close up pictures of the Show and Tell items.
These are three of Archie Patterson's walnut bowls. These were explained in prior posts.
Steve Promo visited his old wood turning mentor and was able to purchase some finished and unfinished items from James R Johnson. All these bowls have thin walls and are light even for their size.
This is a closer look at James Johnson's work. All have thin walls and light weight. Even the two that were hollowed out thru a small hole in the top. The western hat was turned with thin walls and then put in a container with rubber bands around the hat to force the shape. The one on the upper left has 1/8" walls where James Johnston used a router to make the shapes 1/16" deep. He then used cactus skeletons cut to fit the opening and laid over a darker color. At the end of the meeting Steve Promo showed a YouTube video of James Johnson's work. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V-LhvMzsmo
This is Skip Schmidt's work. The birds are mounted on pieces of wood with other related items added.
This is K. Servio's work. The upper left bowl has a copper turtle lid. The upper right has a dip in the top that Steve Promo talked about later. The bottom center bowl is bass wood and is super light.
Jim Rutledge brought in some of his work. Two have his basket look and the platter has a different surface work with an image in the center. On the left are some of his carved feathers. Amazing work Jim.
Here are some other items of interest brought in for the members to view.
Steve Promo always has some interesting news and observations. One is there is a club that wants to bring members from all the other Michigan clubs together. More details will be posed on our website when they become available.
Steve drew this diagram on the board to explain some of the difficulties encountered in turning a hollow form with a dip in the top such as K Servo's bowl shown higher up. With the diagram he explained how you had to not only have a bend in you boring bar but you have to constantly adjust the angle of the cutting tool to make sure it had the proper alignment for the interior surface. This requires numerous careful removal, adjustments and reinsertion of the boring bar thru the hole.
At the end of the meeting there was a raffle of bring-back items donated by attendees. Each ticked cost $1 and you can buy as many tickets as you like. In the box was an insert for a stainless steel vase or soup mug. The two hammers are cast soft metal that allow the user to hit a metal object without damaging the item. The lower left was a section of Hawaiian Coca-bola wood. Two of the items were finished by members.
It was a very enjoyable meeting with lots of discussions and sharing of ideas. Visitors welcome. Club members remember dues of $25 are due at next months meeting. Se you there.
After making two large bowls from the walnut slab I had a small section left over and made this 4" walnut box with a maple lid. The box has some natural inclusions and they made me think of eyes so I added a nose to add character to the box. The nose is also made from maple.
The wood had some natural inclusions like bark that looked like eyes to me so I added a nose to give the box some character. I took a section of wood and turned a disk, cut a 1/4" wide section and parted off a ring. From the ring I cut a section and made the nose. Used a shape tool to get the shape of the bowl and then made sure the curve on the nose fit the outside of the bowl using a small drum sander.
This is the back side of the box. Finish is one coat of shellac and three coats of wipe on poly.
This is the box with the lid off and turned upside down showing the inside of the lid and you can see into the bowl. Bottom of the bowl has a two rings with a knurled surface between them. To turn the bottom of the bowl I expanded chuck jaws inside but put a large rubber band around the jaws to prevent damage to the wood.
At one of the club meetings I received a slab of walnut. First, I made an eight-inch bowl and added a maple bottom that I made into legs. That was published on 7 April on this site. That left me with a larger section of the slab. Below is a twelve-inch walnut bowl made from that section of the slab. On one edge there was a section of branch wood and I filled it with two-part epoxy so the lip would be smooth after using CA glue to stabilize it.
Archie Patterson
This is the top view of the 12-inch walnut bowl.
This is the bottom view of the 12-inch walnut bowl.
This the oblique view showing the area that had some fill added. Height is about 3 inches.
This section of the walnut slab has some great grain and color. In the center of the wood is the edge of a small hole. It does not look like a worm hole but where a twig once grew. My wife does not like me to fill these in as she feels it ads character. There are two more small holes visible on the bottom as well. Because my back does not let me work for more than a couple of hours at a time, I notice the shape changed some after each break.
After a winter of colds and not feeling like I wanted to do anything I wanted a project to get back into turning. My wife said a lot of my bowls were too small to be useful. I had a slab of Walnut I got from one of the club's Bring Back sessions so I cut off a section to make an eight-inch bowl. First, I ran the cut off slab thru a planner to get a smooth flat place to glue a mounting block to and then found the center for an eight-inch bowl and glued on the mounting block. Once I turned the base, I turned the work around and turned the inside using a chuck. I used three different Forstner bits to start the hollowing process. Below is the finished product.
Walnut bowl. Note the grain pattern on the inside of the bowl.
Added maple section over the top of the walnut mounting block.
I mounted the mouth of the bowl in rubber jaws and turned the bottom of the mounting base to about 2.5 inches. I then made a maple section to fit over the mounting base. It looked like a cup and fit that over the mounting base. Once glued in place I turned the maple to reveal the mounting block in the center. I positioned the chuck so I could turn the work 90 degrees and lock it in place, and used a sanding drum on a drill extension so I could cut each of the curved sections in the maple base. This gives the effect of it having four legs. After a coat of shellack, I added three coats of wipe-on-polly. The inside was done while the work was still in the chuck. For the outside, I mounted the work against a friction plate using a section of wood cut to fit in the base to push the work into the plate and center it. This allowed me to apply the finish away from the lathe and once dried remount the work and run steelwool over it between coats.
The Hiawatha Woodturner's Club meet at the Saint Ignace High School wood shop on 12 November 2022 with Show & Tell, Bring Backs and a Demonstration by Steve Promo.
The following were Show & Tell items.
A bow that looks like a basket with a brass top with a fly on it.
Left a box of box elder with maple lid. Right a box of zebra wood with a maple lid.
Top: A box turned on a cedar post with lid on. Below with lid off.
A large waste basket.
To cut disks from leather or cardboard you take a hole cutter and grind the teeth off and sharpen the edges. Remove the center drill and you can cut disks.
Bring Back items are shown below.
A lot of raffle tickets were sold to increase chances of getting the bowl in the center. In back is a slab of hard wood, four sections of 4x4 ash, behind the bowl is a half cut tree fork with feathering grain. Front is section of a tree with a small section of burl, then a small bowl.
Tom Stawiarski had the winning ticket that allowed him to claim the bowl as his prize. Good choice Tom.
Shop Demonstration.
Steve promo was contracted to turn 150 spindles for a hotel on Mackinac Island. In the video he talks about his approach to turning the spindles and then demonstrates how to turn a wood splitter handle.
The meeting was held at the St Ignace High School Wood Shop.
At the start of the meeting the member describe the items they have brought in for the Show and Tell describing how they made it and any problems they encounterd.
In this example the low right four items were brought in by Archie Patterson. All are made from Box Elder. The large item in the lower left blew up on Archie when he put rubber jaws on the outside of the thin lip and started to turn the bottom and there was a catch. The stress broke the bowl and it flew apart. The red item was Sam Steffen's vase that was to look like a pumkin and is made of resin and wood. The small item center right is also from Sam and has a interior ring of contrasting wood for the lid to sit on.
This item was made by Steve Promo from a block of wood brought in by Sam. the walnut ring was added to a grove cut into the wood.
The item on the left is from Jim Rutlidge and is the completed bowl he started at last months demo and looks like a basket. The three items ont he right are from Steve Promo and illustrates that grouping items in sets of three to five will earn a larger price.
Jim Rutlidge brought these items in. On the left is a vase that looks like a basket weave, next in is a Spalted Ash bowl. The boxed items Jim used in used talk. (see video belwo)
Steve Promo brought this in to illustrate how he used color to add character to his items.
This also a Bring Back time during the meeting where the club auctions off items brought in by member. All proceeds go to the club treasury.
There was a large section of Walnut and a large section of hard maple that was auctioned off along with two of the Show and Tell finished items.
During the meeting Jim Rutledge talked about how he did reversed center turning. Below it a video of his comments. View video here:
Steve Prom did a classroom talk about cutting and turning multiple items from a slab of wood and then demonstrated the process from cutting to turning in the wood shop. View video here:
It was a great meeting with many helpful insights from the members. A good point to remember is Spalted Wood contains a fungus that creates the pretty lines in the wood. Wear a mask and dispose of the mask filter and all shavings and unusable scrap wood to get the fungus out of your shop. Be Safe.
Just a reminder that we will meet this coming Saturday at the School woodshop. Don’t forget your SHOW AND TELL pieces and BRING BACKS if you won a bring back in September, or just want to donate something to benefit our treasury. At this time I am planning to have a meeting on November 12th at the school as well. I will not be able to lead a meeting after November until at least April of 2023. Just a suggestion, but I hope some of you will get together by arrangement during the winter months as there is a lot to be gained by visiting one another shops.
Last BRING BACK I won a piece of HONEY LOCUST donated by Sam Staffan. I thought about what to make out of the firewood chunk which was about 10” in diameter, green, and very heavy. I thought about a natural edge bowl as Sam said the bark really stays on nicely. I decided to get a LOT of small turnings out of the log and was so pleased with how it rough turned that I drove to Mackinac City to Sams shop and he gave me two more firewood chunks.
The multiple small hollow forms I turned from Sam’s wood were inspired by a very wide and very thick piece of MESQUITE slab wood that I got at a sawmill in Texas many years ago. I could have made one large platter or shallow bowl from it but decided to go for a dozen smaller pieces instead. I was just getting into selling hollow forms then so I wanted to choose a shape that was easily hollowed out with a straight round nose scraper. (Left photo shows their orientation within the slab and right photo the finished set of three which we kept)
I did not have a large bandsaw in Texas so I cut the blanks into vertical square cylinders with a chainsaw. Next I batch turned them into true cylinders with bark on top between centers. Next I bored them out with forester bits on a drilll press and glued the bottoms onto faceplated scrap blocks. I then trued up and refined the exteriors, hollow turned the interiors, sanded and seal coated them with shellac on the lathe. After rough turning I kept them in a cardboard box to slow evaporation and prevent cracking as I hollowed them individually. I recall getting a dozen pieces out of that slab. When I tried to sell them individually I was disappointed. I later learned that THINGS IN THREES sell really well. Now I only sell them in sets of three. A dremel with small sanding drum was used to make the wavy rim surface.
I will demonstrate how I cut these blanks, rough turn them, and hollow them out at our meeting this Saturday. My BRING BACK will be a set of three in HONEY LOCUST, so raid the cookie jar $ for the raffle! 😁
It would be great if one of our members could volunteer for the demo at our November 12th Meeting. I would very much appreciate this!
