Artistic Woodturners
April 2007 Newsletter

  The committee met at Al’s home for the steering committee meeting to decide which direction the club will go.

  Our club meeting will be held at the Woodman of the World Lodge at 9050 Ashland Ave. time 9am the 21st of April.

  Ralph Thomas will conduct the demonstration for this month. He will be turning a double-ended hollow form. I have seen several of his turnings and they are spectacular. The club is in for a treat, come ready to learn something new.

  The committee discussed having individual hands on training for members who would like some personal help from one of the experienced turners of the club. If you would like to participate e-mail James McClure and let him know you are interested.  Don’t be shy give it a try. The club was organized to promote woodturning. The committee wants to help everyone in the club become a better turner so don’t be afraid to contact James. These individual club members want to have a one on one workshop to help you.

  The club is looking for some new members to become club officers. If you are interested let us know. Elections will soon be coming up and we need some new blood to help continue. I know there are some of you who would be good officers, so let us know.

There will be some exhibitions at The Mobile Museum of Art and some of them will be of interest to our members. Transforming Vision: The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter from 1970 through 2005. Connections: International Turning Exchange, 1995-2005.
There will be gallery talks given by William Hunter and Mark Davis on April 19th at 7pm. Call (251) 208-5200 for more information.

  Also on Saturday, April 21st at noon a brown bag lecture by Kevin Wallace a curator and writer. His recent book about the, life and work of Binh Pho.

  We are asking our membership to participate in the turning exchange. The next exchange will be in June. We have not had the participation that we would like to have and may have to suspend the exchange. Plan on making something for the exchange you have plenty of time to complete it.

  See you at the meeting on the 21st

 

  Bill Grumbine's demo was delayed by bad weather, but the club carried on. Our President did a very good demonstration on turning a natural edged bowl.

Nice to see so many happy people showing up for a regular meeting.


A very nice crowd, sorry about the bad weather in Philadelphia, but life goes on. We did have a regular meeting and a good crowd showed up for the demonstration by our President James McClure. James did an outstanding job turning a natural edge bowl out of a piece of cherry. We followed the club format and had an auction, show and tell, and the demo by James.


We had a new Auctioneer, Norm Feinberg conducted a different type of bidding. Let the committee know if you liked the format.


Some of us had a mental laps and didn't bring S&T items. George did and he shows off a nice spaulted platter made from Pecan I believe.


More turnings by George he incorporated several techniques he has learned over the past year, wood burning and air brushing very nice job George.


Darnell's contributions, wooden eggs and bowl, egg cups with tray these were a gift for his wife's relatives in Russia. Notice how he turned the cups with half sapwood and half heartwood. Good job keep the ideas coming.


Mike Peters shows off his LED table top for displaying glass objects, thin bowls, and no bottoms, at least that's what he said. They can be made in other colors. He is still working on the legs.


Chuck Ward showed off his creation, two or three years in the making. The wood he chose was spaulted maple. This must have been quite a personal relationship with this piece of wood to have taken that long.


James shows off the piece of cherry that he will be turning into a natural edged bowl. Getting ready for his demo.


James centers the blank on the lathe. He is striving to have the opposite edges of the bark line up to make the bowl symmetric. Other turners in the audience pointed out that it wasn't necessary to line up the sides, but was up to the individual doing the turning. OK    


Shape the outside to your liking.


 Turn a tenon so that you can turn the blank around and chuck it up to hollow out the inside. This looks like a sheer cut.


After turning the blank around you can continue to fine tune your turning by using the sheer scrape, notice the fine shavings. This piece of wood is in the green stage and sheers very well.


Start cutting out the center of the bowl.


Notice the position of the tool cutting the inside of the bowl. The flash caught the tool behind the blurred high side of the bowl. Some of you may remember that you can see a faint image behind the spinning edge and may have stuck a finger or gouge in this area to be sadly surprised.


Getting the edge of the bowl to the thickness on the sides that you want. James is using a tool that uses a fine burr to smooth the sides of the bowl both inside 


and out.


Turn the tenon off to suit yourself. You can shape the foot or you can make a round bottom bowl. This is the nice part of turning being different or unique. Sorry I didn't get a picture of the finished product. Bill Grumbine is coming up.



Bill Grumbine's demonstration March 31 2007, after being delayed by bad weather in Philadelphia's Airport. Bill made the wait worth while. His demo was outstanding the following photos are some examples of his techniques.


Bill explains the safety feature of his smock fitting so tight not a gap for a wood chip. He was over heard mumbling something to the fact that this smock would save his life if his wife ever found an other wood chip in her undies fresh out of their clothes dryer.


A natural edged bowl blank for his first turning of the morning.


The gentle giant Bill Grumbine discussing some of the details of turning a natural edged bowl. 

Make sure you remove the bark in the center of the blank to properly seat the live center. Bill used a faceplate and the spur drive till the blank became balanced.




Have I got your attention fellows.


Dressed for the part, 3M dust shield available at www.airwareamerica.com , smock from a turner supply house, PM steel gouge from Crown Tools, Jet lathe Blackwater Tools.


Bill explains the grind on his tool. Basically he agreed that it was simular to David's grind with his own modifications. (Its what you get used to and suits your style)


Shape the outside first. As you can see Bill is turning between centers to start.


Time to turn the tenon.


Sheer scraping for a smooth surface.


Turning the inside to the right thickness is just around the turn.


Getting there is part of the fun. 


More to come.


Taking of the tenon. Bill removed the nub with a carving tool. The nub cut off and still the bowl kept turning. You didn't have to be ready to catch the bowl, good show.

Very Nice.


The next example of turning was a natural bowl, which Bill went on to demo a coring tool and made it look very easy.


Line up the tool on center with the tool raised up against the rest. Notice he has turned a tenon on the bowl that is being cut out. When finished he will have two bowls from one blank and less chips. Like the saying goes I know there is a bowl in there some place.

                                                                                                            
Bill points out where the tool is placed.
Let the chips fly.




With one hand. The secret I believe is to core when the wood is wet.


Very well done. Thanks for making it look easy. Next up a winged bowl.


Bill started off with a piece of walnut provided by Ralph Thomas. Center the wood on all the axis vertical and horizontal. 


Shape the bottom first.


Turn a tenon and sheer scrape the bottom before turning around.


Turn the wings and then shape the inside and finish.


Thank you Bill for a great informative demo and interesting. He had several new helpful hints to improve your turning and boosting your confidence level. Sunday he did his hands on demo with seven of our members participating.  Photos to follow.


                               Bill's hands on demo.


Seven lathes set up for the demo, three club lathes, and the others brought their own lathe.


Jennifer learns under the watchful eye of the master.


Shaping the inside of her project.


Gary receiving personal instructions on the gouge.


Looks like cherry to me, thanks James for supplying the wood.


Fred practicing safety using a mask and smock.

For those of you that have not seen Bill's method for removing the tenon from a bowl. Shown here Fred Bond cuts off his tenon using a carving tool which worked as advertised, just ask Fred.

Bill Donahue trying his skills turning a natural edged bowl. Looking good Bill.


Russ hard at work shaping the bottom of his creation.


Kurt looks like he is intense, turning his bowl. Looks like the workshop was a big success. Plenty of activity.


Bill shows all hands how he removes the small tip that is sometimes formed at the bottom of a bowl. That's all folks as Bugs used to say. See you next month.

THANK YOU BILL GRUMBINE!!!!