Thursday 16^th January 2020

Welcome to everyone that turned up for the Black Country Wood Turners event, the first for the New Year. We have had the pleasure of having Bob Mercer for this evenings demonstrations, which was a three part event.

The Black Country Woodturners put on a hand’s on event with two lathes being used for this process and two different projects on the go at once, the club members are invited to take an active part within these sessions so that they can develop their individual skills to a new level.

In addition to the practical aspect of this the other members can ask relevant questions to gain underpinning knowledge of other areas that they may be struggling with.

Project 1

Tool Sharpening

Bob Mercer will be taking the lead with evenings interest.

Bob will be bringing his own grinding station to the evening event and hopefully members will aid the event by bringing along their own tools that they need sharpening or if they require additional information in how to sharpen properly. Bob will give an explanation of the ins and outs to gain a good sharp edge with the correct bevel angle for the tool. Bob was using CNC grinding wheels for the demonstration.

Bob was kept busy for the duration of the night with other members taking an active part in developing their own skills, in addition to correcting poor techniques used by some members due to approaching the grinding station correctly.

Project 2

The next part of the demonstration was showing the correct techniques for stripping down and cleaning a scroll lathe chuck. Andrew Dore taking the lead for this part of the evening. In addition to demonstrating the cleaning of chucks, and what to look out for when putting them back together in the correct manner.

Andrew also showed some of his own made chucks for development of other projects such as pool-ball boxes.

Project 3

Rob and Wolfgang also demonstrated how to make a simple screw chuck. Other members were then invited to take an active part within this session, this also had a number of people around asking questions throughout the session.

The materials used for this are as follows:-

• 65mm x 65mm x40 Pine blank
• 50mm Woodscrew
• 3mm drill bit
• Countersunk bit
• Screwdriver
• Super glue
• Members are able to use club tools for this small programme.

Bob hopes that the members will make their own screw chucks and bring them with them for the April event on the 16^th where they will be used to make items of fruit or some other small item.

For each of the Black Country Wood Turners evenings, the members bring along their latest creations for the interest of the other club members, and will also explain how they went about turning them and putting them together or decorating them.

As normal the club itself has a number of wood blanks for sale which is a regular for the club, In addition to this individual members can use this time to sell on any unwanted tools or wood blanks that they no longer require, There is also a raffle with various items donated by members going on at the same time as having a mid-session break for a drink.

We also had the potential to take on an additional eight new members who turned up for the evening and from what was stated would be interested in taking up the hobby of turning, two have actually signed up on the first night.

Thursday 21^st November 2019

For November’s meeting, we had the pleasure of Richard Ross, regional area manager from Wessex Resins and Adhesives, who are based in Romsey in Hampshire.

Wessex Resins and Adhesives have been developing and manufacturing high-quality epoxy products since 1981. During this time the company has worked with a large range of organisations that demand specialist formulations, including the Ministry of Defence, London Underground, Bombardier and BAE Systems, the company have in recent years been developing a range of general pouring resins, suitable for numerous applications including the professional and hobby craft arena.

Richard began the evening with a very interesting history of how the company Wessex Resins began by two brothers from humble beginnings in the early 1980’s, its continual development to, todays achievement where it has a substantial product range covering a worldwide market for many diverse industries.

Richard distinguished the differences between epoxy resins and polyester resins, describing their advantages and disadvantages; he described exactly what an epoxy resin is, being a bi product of the petro chemical industry, and highlighted to the audience how the industry in general is working very hard to make resins a “Greener” more sustainable product.

Richard then went on to discuss, demonstrate and mix a range of resins and adhesives, establishing and emphasising the need to measure the resin and hardener in the correct proportions and mix meticulously for at least two minutes allowing the chemical compositions to bond together properly. His demonstration of what happens when proportions are mismatched was an eye opener.

Richard encouraged and fielded a lot of questions from the audience throughout the whole evening who were eager to fill their subject knowledge gaps.

After the break Richard invited anyone to go up to the demonstration table and have a go at mixing and pouring and experimenting with the resin products.

Steve Hackett had kindly prepared some bowl/platter blanks by drilling holes around the perimeter to be filled with resin for the Christmas raffle where lucky winning members will take away to practice on.

Several other members also brought in items for discussion with Richard on how to progress with project ideas or simply fill with resin to have a go with at a later time.

Sadly the meeting had to be drawn to a close at around 8.45 pm with audience members still keen to gain product knowledge.

Richard was given a warm and appreciative round of applause for giving up his time to educate and entertain us all.

The club wishes to thank Richard for a great evening and hopes he will come back to entertain us at some future time.

Hopefully, in the months to come, we will see resin-based projects appearing at our meetings.

For product information, Wessex Resins company websites are

www.wessex-resins.com & wessexresins.co.uk/en

Saturday 19^th October 2019

For the 2019 all-day club event, Blackcountry Woodturners were very fortunate to have secured the professional services of the renowned National and International Woodturner Les Thorne, who travelled to us from his Hampshire home. 

This was Les’s first visit to Blackcountry Wood Turners, but hopefully not his last.

Les Thorne has been on the Register for Professional Turners since 2001 after spending the majority of his working life involved with the family wood business.

From his workshop in Old Alresford in Hampshire, Les is primarily a production turner and works on a huge variety of jobs and with many different clients.

To entertain and educate us today Les was treating us to a number of projects with and without decoration, covering box making, bowl turning and a candle stick. 

Doors opened at 09.00; the audience began to drift in and engage in the wood and tool sale areas, viewing and discussing displayed members’ work, hot drinks and general banter. 

At 09:30 the audience took their seats, Les was formally welcomed to the club by Mell Adams, Club Secretary, and the day began to unfold. 

Les began by introducing himself and described his woodturning journey to this point in time; he then began his first project and one that would then take up the morning and early afternoon sessions.

Project 1: A long curved lidded box, textured and coloured, this style is one of Les’s signature boxes, the audience were completely embroiled for the whole of the morning in listening, laughing and watching Les work his magic, each stage is well described, and demonstrated in great detail, his open manner prompted many a good question from the audience. 

Les has an instinctive knack of using tools gained over thousands of hours and many years of work, he is always in complete control of what goes on at the cutting edge, and portrays this in a relaxed, confident style and light-hearted banter.

Having had lunch the audience assembled for the afternoon treats, initially Les finished off the lidded box, describing each step of the texture and colour application.

Project 2: A decorated Ash bowl “au natural”…no colour on this one, to the delight of Elwyn in the audience!

Les demonstrated each step of the way from mounting the blank, consideration of design and tool usage. Les again described and demonstrated to great effect various types of cuts including pull & push cut, shear cut and scrape used to form the bowl profile detailing the pros and cons of each method and the best time and place for their usage. Once the back of the bowl was complete in profile, Les then demonstrated how to place several bead rows onto the piece without taking the tool off the wood, a feat none of the audience had seen before, earning Les an appreciative and enthusiastic round of applause. 

The bowl was turned round, and Les began work on the front outer rim decoration and hollowing techniques, again he very effectively described the tooling techniques used at each stage, going to great lengths to fully demonstrate and describe the inner lip undercut tooling sequence.  

Following afternoon tea Les treated us to the making of a candlestick; he did this in what he described as “working mode” we all were amazed at the detail speed and accuracy he was able to achieve this project from complete start to finish, all the way through describing why and what he was doing. 

His final half an hour is what he described as his “Play” time, demonstrating to us his bead forming skill with a skew chisel and a few other very unusual tools.

The day came to a close at around 16.30 with Les receiving a well-deserved and warm round of applause from all in attendance; we very much hope we can lure him back to the club in future.