Keith has demonstrated at the club on several occasions and we look forward to each of his visits, this occasion was no different.
The objective of the evening’s demonstration was to show the audience a number of different colouring techniques to enhance a turned project and profile a texturing technique used by him on many occasions using an arbour cutting wheel.
Colour processes would be demonstrated via use of an air brush and several ways of using / applying Jo Sonja iridescent paints to produce various pattern structures and effects.
Keith brought with him a good array of his own finished work highlighting the various finishes that could be achieved by these methods.
He started off by mounting a part finished Olive Ash bowl onto the lathe, a few final cuts were made to the outside to true the piece up and complete the dimensional shape.
He then used the Arbourtech texturing wheel to score groves randomly around the outside and round the top Rim of the bowl, highlighting that he believed the best effects using this technique were random patterns as opposed to formal or repetitive patterns.
The outside was then sanded back to 320 grit in preparation for the first Black colour coat, the part turned inner bowl was then waxed to stop any pain residue on the inside; Keith stating that this was merely a protective coat and would later be turned away.
Black satin paint spray was then applied all over the outside of the piece ensuring that the paint entered all cut channels. Having demonstrated the process, he produced a like piece that he had made earlier which had fully dried and was ready to process further.
Having sanded back the black paint to the outer wood leaving the black groves clearly visible; this effect on its own could be a striking finish, the next objective was to apply a series of chestnut spirit colour stains.
Keith then invited the colour application to be completed by a member of the audience, Ian volunteered then over the next ten minutes under Keith’s guidance, Purple, Red and yellow stain was randomly sprayed across the whole of the outer surface.
Keith then went on to take a few cuts from the inside of the bowl to highlight the colour contrast against the grain in full, this really made the outer pattern stand out and cleaned up a small amount of overspray.
Via audience discussion it was agreed that this project had achieved its objective and no need to apply a finish to the piece, this created time to demonstrate his other finishing methods.
He moved onto the Jo Sonja Paint products which created a good audience participation discussion with a good flow of questions, answers and amusing stories floating across the room.
For the first application demonstration a part finished tea light, mounted on the lathe, was again pre sprayed in satin black paint, providing the ideal sub base for application of the Jo Sonja colours.
Having donned his trusty rubber glove Keith, by using his fingers rubbed a thin covering of the Gold iridescent paint over the whole outer surface, he then chose blue and green and in the same manner put on top of the gold layer randomly placed colour patches onto the surface.
In his own innovative way, he assured that the next bit of the demonstration he had practiced to a fine art and had taken many years to perfect, he was laughing whilst he said it. He then ripped off sheet of cling film and slapped it across the surface applied pressure onto the film and twisted his hand back and forth on completion removing the Clingfilm to reveal an amazingly good blended pattern, he went on to state that when fully dried he would apply of gloss lacquer which would make the colours pop even more.
This provided a great stopping point for tea and the opportunity for members to have a look at the first two items.
In the second part of his demo Keith continued with the Jo Sonja paint theme.
He began by mounting a pre formed 12” platter, centre hollowed with a 3-4” border all round and the piece sprayed black stating that for this piece again dabs of iridescent paint would be placed on the surface but the paint would be spread by blowing compressed air from the air gun, merging the colours together forming a “cloud like” pattern. Again he invited members of the audience to come and have ago at making the final product, when all the paint had been applied a layer of Clingfilm was dabbed over the surface giving the final cloud style impression.
Keith then moved on to demonstrate the application of paint by spinning colours onto the surface of two projects. Both methods would be applied to part finished black sprayed tea lights mounted onto the lathe.
For the first style he applied a rim of gold paint around the inner cut out part where the candle would sit, to stop paint flying over the audience and walls a plastic cake lid was placed over the tea light and chuck area then started the lathe up at quite a fast speed. He let this run for a few seconds then revealed the radiating striped pattern around the outer edge of piece, this gave a striking thin lined pattern that could be repeated in as many colours that you wished but Keith advised that two or three were usually sufficient.
Keith repeated the process on anther tea light but on this occasion, having applied a slightly thicker coat of paint, spun the lathe at a much slower rate, again after a few seconds stopped the lathe to reveal pattern with much more build up around the inner edge and thicker lines shooting off around the surface.
Having had a packed evening of information and fun we just ran out of time, the evenings events coming to a close with a warm thank to Keith for giving us a wonderful last few hours.