The evening’s demonstrator was Martin Sabin-Smith from “Hampshire Sheen & The Woodturning Shop.”
Who will demonstrate a bowl with a textured and colored band to include Hot wax technique and a demonstration of Hampshire Sheen products.
Martin welcome everybody and started the demo, with prerecorded videos on how Zoom meetings run and how to use it, which was followed by additional information about health and safety and the requirements of PPE to be used within the workshop for the various aspects of woodturning.
Wood blanks for the project was Maple sized to 10 inches by 3 inches. Martin started off by producing the outside of the bowl to a set curve, following the rule of 3rds and the golden ratio, producing a shape that is pleasing to the eye.
At the same time as producing the outside of the bowl, Martin was describing the three-point contact for the tools, During this process, Martin suggested that we should always try using each cut as a final cut to get a good finish without tear-out of the wood, in this way we are always practicing a final cut. A tenon was produced on the base of the bowl ready for mounting into Axminster gripper jaws,
When satisfied with the shape Martin decided where the band would be placed, at this point he used an Arbotech carver which had a standard cutter disc attached, this was applied to the bowl at around the seven o’clock position, with the lathe running at 400rpm. The cutter produced a texture all around the bowl, it did take a couple of cuts to get the required texture
ready for coloring.
At this stage, a parting tool was used to put a line on either side of the band. A sanding sealer was applied over the band at this stage. This area was now sprayed with a black spray and allowed to dry prior to adding a gold embellishing wax over the raised texture, with a light touch, using a paper towel so that it only covered the top of the raised texture.
Martin then took questions from a number of participants and answered accordingly.
The area above and below the band was now cleaned up with cuts to remove the overspray leave an unpainted area ready for sanding, then for sanding sealer to be applied, and when dry a lacquer was used from the Hampshire Sheen range of products.
The bowl was now reversed and held in the gripper jaws, at this stage the center was hollowed out at the same time as describing how to manipulate the gouge and keeping the bevel rubbing when removing the waste wood. Martin gave good explanations all the way through the demonstration.
Sanding started from 180 grit using a drill & pad and then through to 240 grit, then to 400 grit, and sometimes 600 grit. Martin then applied the sanding sealer, when dry Hampshire Sheen finishing wax was applied, a very small amount was used and then buffed up by applying light pressure with the finger pads and continue to shine, a number of coats were applied.
The final application of wax was heated by a hot air gun to melt the wax to give a shine and then it was and buffed up as before with the pads of the fingers to give a high shine.
At the end of the demonstration, a number of people asked for Martin to be a demonstrator in the future, due to it being very well presented and enjoyable as it progressed in addition to being over the three-hour mark for the evening entertainment.
At the end of the night, Martin gave a discount code for his products which I would hope some people took up. In our opinion, the demonstration was to a very high standard and worth every penny that we paid for his expertise.
