WSWT Newsletter, November, 2009

Meeting Report, Sunday November 1st

Club Notices

The committee has elected Jim Young (vice chairman for the last two years) as our new Chairman, and it was Jim, appropriately, who kicked off our meeting!

All of those on email will have seen the recent note announcing the death of Maurice Lancashire, a stalwart of the club for many years. Jim was able to add that he and other WSWT friends attended the funeral.

On a more cheerful note, Jim congratulated those that contributed such excellent work to the recent Turner of the Year competition, thanked those that oiled (wined?) the social side and also thanked the judge, ‘figure artist’ Elizabeth. He then welcomed new member Martin Shepherd.

John Byford, a member for the last couple of years, has offered to take over producing the newsletter in a years time; he will start contributing by the middle of 2010! Now that is very good news!

The club has received a letter of resignation from Rex Bailey (now in Watford) in which he recalls attending his first meeting (March 89!) in a small room beneath the stage of Pulborough Village Hall! Bill Hughes had opened the meeting with “Wow - this is great, we now have 12 members!” Rex sends a ‘Big Thank You’ to us for 20 years of happy memories and generously shared methods and ideas. We can in turn thank him for the many times he contributed to our internal demo days, often (in my time) drill sharpening with great skill - and wish him well.

Demonstration by Stuart Mortimer

Rex Bailey?s note concludes with ?Keep the wood turning and the chips flying?. That is exactly what Stuart managed to do for the full day and at great intensity. Possibly not quite a hurricane, but much of it storm force 12! His collection on display included spectacular items that just did not seem turnable, but by the end of the day he had showed us a string of techniques to create twists or holes in different situations. Marking up his rapidly shaped work by just ‘eyeballing’, quite deep hollowing with a wingless spindle gouge, rough cutting the twists with an Arbotech (one handed!) and sanding with rolled strips of Vitex abrasive - everything seemed to be at 10,000 revs or more!

During the course of the day he produced two hollow forms (with his trademark embellishments) – the first in dry yew, the second in wet Icelandic Laburnum that has a lighter coloured heart-wood than our version – and a goblet with a twist stem. When turning the wet wood, having hollowed his desired profile first, he used an interior light to indicate progress in finishing the outside – thinner and thinner. Real drama! In the final half hour or so he maintained the pace with two fancy finials in mahogany. Many thanks to Stuart and our two projectionists, Bill W. and Colin W. for all their hard work in making the day such a success.

For Sale (or Not)

Sealy Lathe 4 speed 9 inches over bed; 1 metre between centres. Old fashioned but in working order. FREE! 01730 816883  (Midhurst )  

Tom Garner, now retired from the club, still has a lot of wood for sale. He can be contacted on 01403 731040 (Barns Green)

Next Meeting

Will be on Sunday, December 6th. It is an open competition – which means you can enter any type of work – and the judges have an even more difficult task than usual.
And please don’t forget to wear your identification tags – either form.

Post Script

Ted Hickford, as a back bencher for the first time in living memory, behaved impeccably. We might have expected a Dennis Skinner type interjection at times – or even an attempt to correct the chronology of the historical events in Stuart’s great story involving Caesar at Hadrian’s Wall (some 200 years after his own death!). Perhaps he just thought that the story wasn’t true…