9 September 2023 Hiawatha Turners Club Meeting and Demo

As with every meeting there are bring backs and Show-and-Tell items.

On the far end of the table are the bring back items that are auctioned off at the end of the classroom portion of the meeting.  Here, Tom Stawiarski has his tickets for the auction. 

Besides the large section of wood to be auctioned off there are two of Jim Rutledge's carved wood feathers and an egg he made.   More on that later.  Sam Steffen donated a golden egg.

 There was a good turn out for the September Club meeting.  

The attendees are listening to opening remarks from club president Steve Promo.

One of the things that Steve talked about was a woven basket he purchase because he like the shape and wanted to see if he could make one out of wood.  Jim Rutledge often makes bowls that look like woven baskets, so this woven basket will give Steve a new concept in bowl design. 

This is the woven basket that Steve found that he like the shape and color.

At the last meeting the challenge was for everyone to make an egg and these are some of the results. 

Here are some more of the eggs members turned.  

 Jim Rutledge explained that the egg on the right was turned, parted in half and then hallowed to a wall thickness of 1/16 of an inch.  A special drill was used to put the holes in the walls.  

  Here are Sam Steffen's items and discussion of the items.

Jim Rutledge made an egg and added a carved chick breaking out.

Jim is an expert carver and here is his discussion of his projects.

Here are some of the other discussion which were very informative.

Finally, we adjourned to the shop to see how Jim Rutledge makes the copper tops for his boxes.

12 August 2023 Club Mtg and Demo

 The club met at the St Ignace High School.  The room was being replaced and during the demo there was a great deal of noise during the recording.  The club meeting in the class room was sheltered from the noise by the drop ceiling.

Steve Promo chaired the meeting.  There were a few show and tell items that will be covered in the video.  Four items were in the bring-backs that were raffled off.   There was one new member to the club.

 

 

Since, the demonstration was not on the club lathe the pictures were show with a small Canon camera without a tripod so the video is a little shaky.  

First, video is of Steve Promo demonstrating what he has been teaching high school students.  Each student is give some wood and is shown how to turn a 4-legged stool leg and then they spend the week turning three more legs.  Next he shows them how to turn the base from a 4-inch thick section of wood and then they turn their own.  The stool is theirs to keep.  

After Steve Promo finished turning the base to his 4-legged stool Gary Weiermiller showed how to use a sharp tool for smooth finish cut and then how to power sand the object starting at a finer grit sand paper.  

Unfortunately the room of the building was being removed and there was at times a lot of noise.  Still the two demonstrations were very good. 

10 June 2023 Hiawatha Woodturners Club Meeting

 The club met at Steve Promo's house and shop.

The meeting started with a discussion of the items and books on the table.  

There were several chunks of wood brought back to the club and were lraffelled off to attendees.  Each raffel ticket cost 1$.  

There were a large number of items brought in for show and tell.  Turning and finishing lessons learned were discussed. 

Some of the items shown in the group show and tell items picture deserves a little extra attention.  The colors of the wood in this bowl were out standing.

Sam brought this box in (CA glue finish) and discussed the fitting of the lid.  He made the opening in he base and turned the lid to fit the measured opening diminsions, however, when finished it was a loose fit.  (I generaly turn the opening and then work the lid size down thru a series of test fits to get the proper fit.  - ajp2)

After the discussions Steve Promo demonstarted his duplication machine that he found  on Craigslist.com in Port Huron, Michigan.  The unit came with the duplicator mounted on a frame that had large roller wheels.   Here is his talk.

The machine uses a variable speed motor turning both the master and the work material and a router to cut the wood. 

13 May 2023 Club Meeting in Saint Iglance, Michigan

 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.

4" Walnut Box

 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. 

12 Inch Walnut Bowl.

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.

 

 

Walnut Bowl with Maple Base

 Spring Project

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.