For this evening’s demonstration and entertainment, we welcome Richard Findley who has his own business known as ‘The Turners Workshop’ and is a production turner for his living. The project will be a Box with Alternative Ivory Insert. The wood will be Walnut.  Size being 80mm x 80mm x150mm

Tools that Richard will use:-

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

For those that joined early, they were shown by Richard how he sharpens his chisels and gouges which is via a freehand method. 

The Walnut blank needed to be turned down to approximately 75mm square, it was roughed down to round and had a tenon put onto each end ready for the chucking process.  Richard roughly shaped the blank to help decide where to part off the pieces.  At this point, the sections are parted.

• 

• 

TIP – When checking the size of the tenons with callipers, round the tips of the callipers so that they do not dig into the wood and also do not press too hard when getting the required size.

LID – This is mounted onto the chuck and then hollow out the inner area by using a spindle gouge with the flute at about 10.0’clock on the centre line, do not use an aggressive cut as this will tend to rip the wood out.  The round negative rake scraper to clean the end and also cut a recess which must be square.  When the desired inside is finished it is sanded to a final finish. 

TIP – Use a rule to press into the recess and line it up with the lathe bed, in this way we would have a parallel edge on the lid.

BOX BODY – This is also mounted onto the chuck and the edge is now cut to match up with the lid, this is not the final fit at present, this is done later, therefore he starts with a cut that does not match up at present.

The hollowing is now carried out with a slight undercut produced within the confines of the body and then sanded to a finish.

At this point, Richard gave a good explanation as to why he prefers to use a negative rake scraper and also to keep the angles the same, which in his case is 35⁰.  This was followed by a demonstration of how he sharpens a negative rake scraper.

• 

• 

The tenon where the lid fits into the box has a rounded dome shape applied so that the lid will fit on without having to push down on the straight edge of the box body.

The lid is fitted to the box using the body as a jam chuck, the final shape of the box is then refined, prior to removing additional material from the lid to form a recess to take the alternative ivory.

The box body is now also ready to be parted off from the waste material prior to finishing the base. The remaining blank material is now turned so that the box base can be jam chucked onto it. The box base turned to clean the parting cut. Then sanded to a finish.

Richard demonstrated an ALTERNATIVE IVORY RESIN insert material for the lid. This is a dense material which is ideal to use a negative rake scraper with, we also need to be careful as it can chip.  

The streamers that come off will need to be removed with the lathe off for safety purposes.  This is cut to the required diameter to match the recess within the lid. 

This material is now semi-parted off and then sanded, this needs to have a finer finish than the wood, and an abrasive of up to 1200 grit was used as a final abrasive, a burnishing cream was then applied as a final finish.

The depth of the disc is now measured and can be cut to fit the lid.

The project would be finished with hard wax oil.

Richard gave a good explanation all the way through the demonstration and answered all of the questions that were presented to him.

Richard recommended a book on turning boxes.

REFERENCE – Turned Boxes 50 Designs by Chris Stott.  1-86108 203 7

Yet another very good excellent demo from Richard,  which went down well with the members.

Report by Barrie Fisher and edited by Steve Hackett