Tom made a welcome return visit to the Guild to demonstrate the art (or is it craft?) of 'Involuted Turning'. This involves blocking four pieces of wood together and turning the outside and then re-blocking and glueing them inside out and turning them again - leading to a hollow form which appears to be turned on the inside as well (which of course, it is). In the second part of the demonstration, Tom showed how, using the same basic technique, this time without the glueing, one can simultaneously make two pairs of candlesticks that again individually look like they cannot
have been made on a wood lathe.
Nick gave us a fascinating and informative day long demonstration with the emphasis on form, colour, texture and piercing and finishing techniques - a welcome addition to the more familiar turning technique demonstrations.
Nick has many 'signature' pieces and was good enough to share the secrets of his 'Constellation' platter with us - seen here on the lathe just prior to final finishing
Nick seen here presenting the Constellation platter he made to our Chairman, John Cox
A small display of some of Nick's other 'signature' pieces that he brought along to show us
Daniel gave a fascinating talk about the methods used and reasoning behind his making of almost 200 reproduction clarinets and flutes in the 1980's and 90's. These were all commissions for some of the most famous and respected musicians playing and recording 'ancient' music.
Daniel showing some of the music recordings which featured his instruments
Phil gave an informative and amusing demonstration of how to make a miniature version of his 'trademark' wooden hat.
The miniature hat starts to take shape
As the wet wood gets thinner the light glowing through shows how even the thickness is
After finishing the turning down to a thickness approaching 1.5mm, Phil laced the hat up with appropriately positioned elastic bands and showed how the brim can be bent up into position by placing it over the hot lamp. The whole process of the rim curling up took just a few minutes and literally happened before our very eyes!
Stuart King gave us a fascinating evening with a difference - video clips of woodturning from a street turner in Marrakech through German 'hoop' animal turners to a superb insight into Bill Jones turning and incredibly cluttered workshop. He punctuated all this with some demonstration turning as well.
A 'screenshot' of one of Stuart's videos - a demonstration by a street turner in Marrakech using a hand operated bow-lathe to turn a chess piece using the skew chisel with his foot for all the operations - even the captive ring!!
Stuart replicating the aforementioned chess piece using the skew. That's where the similarity ended as he (sensibly) gave in to traditional western lathe methods by using his hands and a conventional powered lathe!
Tom's return this year was, as ever, entertaining and informing. The first half was devoted to a basic lesson in bowl design and turning for beginners but there was something for us all to learn. Then, after tea, the difficulty level was turned up and we were treated to the inner secrets of Tom's 'trademark' thin-walled perfect sphere turning.
Tom again offers up up one that he made earlier - this time a truly 'awful' bowl to illustrate how not to do it! Anyone who thought it was nice kept their thoughts to themselves.
Making shavings and heading towards a much better example of a 'nice' bowl.
