WoodgroupSA Network Meeting, Wednesday December 14th, 2016.
Christmas-tide celebrations of cake, shortbread and pretzels and chat about the flood harvesting
of cranberries vs hand-picking of blueberries, accompanied by drinks from the bar for some,
started the evening off, before swinging into woodcraft – it was good to see Charles Greig back
on his feet after a recent indisposition.
Roger Parker was first up with a pink-brown bowl complete
with a couple of grub holes, one about 20 mm in diameter.
This had been turned out of “gum”, with white bark, from a
limb about 600 mm in diameter. The bowl was about 260 mm
in diameter, with an approximately 130 mm diameter base,
from which his holding spigot had been parted. As usual, all
was nicely finished.
This was followed by some discussion on using a Woodcut
deep hollowing tool with its fancy cutting bit on the end – a
tool recently awarded to Roger as a Christmas party prize.
Roger Humphris was next with a hollowed out burl lump of “treewood”. In the hollow, he had perched a carved Barbary ring-necked
dove, painted white with black markings. Some adverse comments
were aired about the accuracy of representation of the dove, but critical aficionados of Barbary ring-necked doves were absent among
those present. It turns out that
the real bird is a declared pest
in Australia, and sightings must
be reported to quarantine!
Roger also passed around a
Christmas “snowman”, complete with scarf, about 100 mm
high, turned out of branchwood. This was followed by an
Easter bunny about the same height – he was getting in
early for the 2017 Easter season.
Graham Were extended the discussion on tool lighting begun last month by John Edyvean,
where a LED light was held by a rubber band to a tool blade. Graham’s version was a $3 x 3LED torch to which he had attached 2 rare-earth magnets from Alex’s computer hard drive collection, using epoxy resin. The magnets held the torch very firmly on the tool shaft, aimed the
torch straight down over the tool tip, and could be slid to any position. There was nothing to foul
with the tool rest. The torch used 4 button batteries to drive the LEDs. Some discussion ensued
on using optical fibres for the same purpose, or embedding
a light in the tool handle – all untried by those assembled!
Also, Graham described the grind on his scraper to which
he had attached the LED torch. He had ground a top bevel
on his conventionally ground bottom bevel, to eliminate
any need to raise the handle of his scraper when working on
a bowl. He said this worked really well.
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Charles Greig had clearly recovered from illness by spending time
in his shed. His first offering was a most attractive lidded pot
about 75 mm high and 60 mm diameter, turned out of she-oak
(Allocasuarina sp.). He had defined a circular area on the lid, and a
band around the walls, and these he had dimpled with a Dremel bit,
then sprayed the areas with black automotive lacquer.
His second item was a “coolie-hat” lidded urn, about 75 mm high,
also out of she-oak, and finely finished.
His third piece was a great recovery from disaster: a 230 mm diameter, 110 mm deep native cherry (Exocarpos cupressiformis)
bowl had blown apart into 3 pieces as it was being turned. With
lots of gaffer tape, West System epoxy, and patience, he had glued
the pieces back together. He had filled gaps on the interior surface with putty made from
malachite and copper powder in epoxy, but mostly left grooves unfilled on the exterior to
suggest its history. The bowl was returned, to show clearly that recovery effort is preferable
to the fire-box!
His last piece was a natural edged, almost flat platter, made from native cherry, about 150
mm in length, with a curious “hand-print” pattern on its surface. A fine, delicate and decorative item.
John Bennett was next up with two items – a 180 mm diameter bowl turned out of cracked spotted gum (Corymbia
maculata). To minimise the chance of the bowl coming
apart while turning, thin CA glue was run into the cracks,
and black epoxy was added to the larger cracks once the
walls were thinned down. The very contorted grain in the
piece of wood was what attracted him to try turning it –the
result was moderately successful after finishing it with EEE
and glow.
The second piece was a dapping block (used for beating
thinnish malleable metal sheet like copper or silver into
small bowl forms). The dapping block was made from a 100
mm cube of a very tight-grained red gum (Eucalyptus
camaldulensis). Into each face were turned hollows, with
diameters ranging from 40 mm to 65 mm and different
depths. The block was finished with Organoil, nothing
more, given the treatment it will get from a shaping hammer. (It will be interesting to see how the wood stands the treatment – he recalls using red
gum blocks at school several decades ago for the same purpose, but based on current data,
spotted gum is all round tougher (higher crushing, compressive and tensile strength, hard2
ness, and denser) than red gum).
Mel Pearce contributed the last item for show-and-tell, an
attractive rectangular lidded box, made from West Australian karri (Eucalyptus.diversicolor). Mel had bought this
as a memento and fundraiser for ongoing maintenance of
the One-and-All sail training vessel (launched in 1987).
The walls and base of the box were butt jointed, but the lid
had been cut from the box with an interesting wave profile
on the top and sides.
As usual, discussion then ranged enthusiastically over many topics, until about 9 pm.
JB(text) & RP(images).
NEXT MEETING
NB: There WILL be a meeting in January, but on the second WEDNESDAY of the
month, 11th January, 2017 to accommodate and optimise staffing at the Community
Centre at the San Georgio Community Centre. Enter off Henry St, Payneham, 7 for
7:30 pm start, until about 9 pm. As usual, the bar will be open for coffee, tea, hot
chocolate, fine wine, spirits, soft drinks, even a biscuit or three, etc. Come and show
what you have done over December and into the early New Year.
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