The club met at the Saint Ignace High School shop and there were many Bring Backs and Show and Tell items.
Bring Back Items
Bring Backs included several pieces of wood that were auctioned off during the meeting.
The Complete Table Display
At the last meeting the club made boring bars and the Bring Back items showed off many items using the boring bars. At this meeting there was a large selection of finished turnings.
Some Great Member Turnings
More Great Turnings
Two of the items held candles and on the right are two were small burls.
A Mix of Turnings from Sam.
Sam removed the plastic outside from an insulated cup and turned a wood replacement. More great work by Sam.
Jim's Great Work
Jim showed off some more of his great work. Several with fine carvings on top.
Maple and Birch Turnings by Archie.
A neighbour gave Archie some Walnut branches and he made several boxes with finials. Far right is a box made from spalted Birch.
A tapered bowl showing off the heart wood.
After the meeting Mike Obuchowski from Traverse City did a demo using the Lyle Jameison Boring Bar. Mike works for Lyle Jameison demonstrating his tools.
Mike Obuchowski during meeting.
During the meeting Mike gave a quick overview of his demo and answered questions.
This is the Jameison Boring Bar.
The Jameison boring bar is lighter than the bars the club made and has a replaceable boring bar.
Lyle Jameison's website is: https://lylejamieson.com/
Boring Bar on Lathe.
The boring bar support comes with a attachable base with adjustable heights and a wide support stabizer.
First he made the wood round.
Turns the end flat.
Warns not to push thru the nub.
Pushing thru the nub could cause the took to catch the upward motion of the back side of the wood and thru the tool back.
Here he is applying paraffin wax to the moving parts.
Applying paraffin to the support bar, the boring bar and the support will make it easier to move the bar when cutting.
Using a gouge as a scrapper.
Using a gouge without a handle he using it as a scrapper to smooth out the outer surface.
Using a hand held drill to open the center.
Setup to start hollowing.
Note the laser mounted over head used to mark the thickness of the material.
Hogging out the center.
As the material is cut out he watches the laser dot indicating his thickness. The laser is adjusted each time either the cutter is adjusted or when he is cutting on a different edge.
Parting off the bottom.
Taking questions at the end.
Our thanks for Mike Obuchowski for coming over from Traverse City and demonstrating the use of a boring bar and taking our many questions.
As part of the meeting people donate items (Bring Backs) to be auctioned off during the meeting. Also brought in are items for a Show & Tell portion of the meeting where construction, design and problems concerning an item are discussed. This is a great learning experience as knowledge is passed down from those that have solved problems to those that are encountering them.
Here is a picture of the bring back items.
Bring Back Items
Raw wood, unfinished turning, carved feather.
Show & Tell Items.
More Sow & Tell Items.
More Show & Tell Items.
Carved feather closeup from Bring Back Table.
Jim Rutledge talked about sharpening a bowl gouge using an Elseworth sweep back style. Here is a video of his talk.
Our thanks to Jim for bringing in his grinder and demonstrating how to sharpen a bowl gouge and an skew chisel.
This was the first meeting of the Hiawatha Wood Turners Club in 2024 and there were many in attendance. Many brought samples of items they created since the last meeting in the fall of 2023 along with many bring backs to be auctioned off. Here are some pictures of the items on the tables in the class room.
Bring Backs for Auction.
Fantastic bead work by Jim Rutledge.
Some of Sam's fantastic work The flowers are turned and carved.
Cutting boards, thin turned lamp shade and vessels.
The duck was very good and stayed quit the whole meeting.
Some bowl gouges Steve Promo brought in to sell.
Two Bowl and a box by Archie Patterson.
Fantastic turned and carved vessels.
Two neat bowls. One sold at action. Bowl on right has a pointed bottom so it roll
At the meeting Steve Promo talked about the grind angle of a round nose scrapper. Here is a short video of his discussion.
Sam Staffan presented two very nice projects and had pictures to explain the process he used to make them. Here is his video.
Steve Promo talked abut making wood lamp shades and later did a demo on a lathe. The following is the classroom meeting discussion.
Steve turns a lampshade from a log of green wood. He marks one end with a 4" can lid and cuts a cone with a chain saw. He then mounts the section between centers and rough turns a cone. Since the wood he is using has a dark center section of wood the cone shape will allow for the darker wood to be seen at the base of the lamp shade.
The wood is green and Steve gets lots of nice shavings. As he turns he stops and sprays the wood with water to keep it wet. Comment during the meeting was to make sure you wipe down your lathe afterwards to prevent rust.
As he works to the shape he wants he leaves a section for a chuck to grab onto.
With the small end mounted to a chuck and the big end stabilized with the tail stock live center he trues up the big end.
Here Steve has hollowed back one inch using a bright light a a guide for the thickness. The is cut to a thickness of 0.010 inch.
This is a close up of the thin area. Note the darker section farther in. That will be cut next. Steve says you can never go back over a prior section as the wood is so thin it bends.
This is the second inch cut back. As he gets closer to the center the wood he is using has a brown center which adds a nice contrast. However, Steve points out that the light coming thru the brown wood should never be as bright as the lighter wood for the same thickness.
Here is a finished shade with a light inside that shows the grain and darker center section of the wood the cone shape exposes.
Steve takes a branch of a tree and uses a reciprocating saw to cut it in half down the center. Then he cuts a grove with a router for the wires. At the top he glues in lamp mounts. On the bottom you can see he used a log tenon cutter for the base so he can attach it to a hole in a base plate.
The next step is to glue the two halfs back together. After the glue sets the wood is sanded and finished.
Steve mass produces bases by laminating sections of wood together and then turning them to the shape. The bases have to have enough weight to hold the lamp up.
Here is the finished base with the lamp installed. The wires come down each branch and in the base Steve puts a junction box for the wires to connect to a cord that runs to a plug.
This Steve's finished lamp. Each shade has a pull chain switch and Steve likse to add a connection section so people can put things on it. While turning Steve sprays the shades to keep them from drying out. The finished shades have two coats of boiled linseed oil. This helps the light come thru and will keep the sades flexible.
Here is a table lamp using the turned shade. It has a yellow birch shade and a local cedar middle with a mahogany base. Very beautiful, Steve.
Very impressive Steve. A really great product made with great skill. Thanks for sharing.
There was no demonstration for this meeting. Instead after Bring Backs there was an extended Show & Tell where member brought in pictures and discussed their projects. Here are some of the Bring Backs that were auctioned off.
There were two slabs of Ash, bulk wood and a bowl brought in for auction.
In addition Steve Promo finished the honey pot Dave Rife made at the October 2023 meeting and build a stand for it. This too was auctioned off. Here are some of the Show & Tell items.
This bowl was made using colored pencils and a solid wood base. Jim Rutledge and others talks about making a colored pencil bowl in this video.
Here are three bowls that were cut in half with a section removed and the remaining two halves glued together to make sort of an oval bowl.
The dark bowl in the upper left is a solid wood bowl and not part of the cut bowls.
On the left is a bowl with a copper lid added. The lid has a copper feather attached. On the right is a bird house that has a protrusion on the bottom so it is setting on a wooden bowl.
This is the front of the bird house.
This is a close up of the bowl with a copper lid with feather. Below is a discussion of the bird house and copper lidded bowl.
Also on display were these coaster of burl and resin with cork on one side.
Below are some additional discussion that took place at the meeting.
Steve Promo received a commission to turn replacement posts from local cedar for the railing of a hotel on Mackinac Island. Here is his discussion.
This is Steve's setup to duplicate the posts. The old post is used as a master in the background. Demarcation lines are drawn on his tool rest.
Here is a happy Steve with one of his finished posts. Only nine more to go.
Here are the finished posts ready to be primed and delivered.
During the club meeting Steve talked about ridding the bevel while turning and here is a short video clip of Steve riding the bevel using a skew to turn a round section of the post.
Well done Steve. Thanks for sending in the pictures and thanks to your camera person.
Below Sam Staffan discusses the making of Tree Ornaments, turning bowls with cracks and turning a bowl from a tree that stood outside a lighthouse. Here are his discussions.
