May | 2022 |

The demonstrator for this evening is Tony Jones. Tonys project for tonight is one of his signature pieces a thin-walled Vortex Bowl, The blank Tony has chosen is a piece of Spalted Sycamore 8” x 3”.

Tony came along with a good selection of his own turned work which was displayed at the back of the room.

The cameras were set up by a new crew this evening (Ian and Greg) who got on well with the process. with Rob assisting in finalising the set-up.

Tony started by turning the blank flat and squared the edges to get a true round-shaped blank to start working with. The centre was identified by the use of skew and then this was used for the callipers to give the size of the overall diameter for the chuck which Tony stated was 44mm for this project. This was then turned out ready for the chuck.

During the demonstration, Tony gave out some tips on how to keep wet sycamore workable and to get the best out of it. At this stage, Tony also asked for questions from the assembled turners either at the break or during the session.

Whilst turning Tony started to get the overall shape of the outside of the vortex bowl that he liked.

Throughout the first half of the evening, Ian received additional training from Rob in using the camera broadcasting technology.

During the first part of the demo, it was hard to hear what Tony was saying due to the dust protection mask that he was wearing but this was sorted during the break with a different type of mask, which increased the understanding for all during the second part.

When he was happy with the outer shape the sanding began starting at 120 grit and working down to 400 grit, this was then sealed and finished with a microcrystalline wax finish. Again during this sanding process, Ian helped out with the vacuum to clean the dust away.

The blank was now turned around and mounted in expansion mode ready for the centre of the bowl to be turned out. During this process Tony only took out part of the centre and sanded as he was going down, leaving a lump of wood in the middle to keep the blank stabilised.

The next part was to remove the central lump of wood to form the bowl shape itself, at this stage the thickness of the bowl was looked at during each stage to arrive at the desired thickness for the project. Again the centre of the bowl was sanded down in the same manner as before.

At this point Tony started to use Cole Jaws to remove the dovetail chucking point of the bowl, remembering to use a piece of tissue between the aluminium surface and the blank to prevent any marking from showing up on the bowl. This was then sanded and finished in the same manner as previously. The bowl was then passed around the assembled turners.