A day in the company of Nick Agar

There was just the four Forest members to set the hall up on the Friday night, Nick was late due to a light on his dashboard coming on and he had to check it out before moving off again, thankfully just an oil change warning, READ THE MANUAL NICK. It was a good time to chat to Nick and learn a bit about the man I was about to write an article on. I told Nick the length of this article is determined on how good he is, so here goes.

He started, we had lunch, he did some more, we packed up and went home!

But he did say he may be able to help us out early next year so I think I'd better write a little more.

As usual there was tea and coffee to greet the members, they chat as they find there seats, some have seen Nick before and others haven't, this creates some healthy discussion. As we where all there we started slightly earlier than the prescribed time, Don welcomed nick and introduced him. Nick explained his own world of woodturning and it was immediately evident we were in for a brilliant demonstration. His first project was a heavy wide rimmed bowl, first it was shaped then attacked with a 4" coarse sanding disc with a backing pad, there was no intimate calculations done, it was just a case of chase a curved indent from centre to rim, when satisfied it was regularly irregular enough its was burnt, when I say burnt I mean burnt, from the back of the hall I could see glowing timber, and a little smoke to, the burning was accompanied by the occasional spray of water to control the effect and douse the flames.

Next came the stiff brushing to remove the charcoal, then an arbour with Nyweb pads crimped together was put into a drill and this was worked over the whole surface. Black paint was then sprayed onto the surface followed by a rubbed in coat of Verdigris wax. This was wiped and polished before reverse chucking to repeat the process on the top with a small hollow/bowl turned in the centre, the finished piece looked stunning, the best bit is there's very little sanding, I like that bit of the process. This Oak burr looked beautiful, the texturing, colouring/Verdigris was enhanced by the delicate graining of the burr in the bowl.

Next came a 16" x 16" x 2" thick piece of timber, the effect adopted was multi centre turning plus blowing colours as he went, and finally a 4" disc cutter with both narrow blade and sanding disc used, and most unusual was the counter sink bit drilled at various depths here and there. With all that, plus the turning on a not to flat a surface it looked ok, in fact I as most probably thought yes it was ok but nothing to write home about. Then Nick put the final touches to it down one side, he cut a defining line from edge to edge and sprayed some yellow on it and WOW, and I mean WOW, see picture insert. I have never seen anything change so much by doing so little, absolutely brilliant.

Nicks next piece was just as stunning; he showed us how to just go for it using an arbortech tool, and to remove material from both sides if you don't like what you see. The sanding disc was used briefly again before it was finished off. The base was coloured in the band as well as the centre foot, but the foot had some short lines cut out to break it up, again quite stunning. This project was followed by the turning and decorating of a deep quite thick walled bowl with metal disc cuts around the rim and taken just slightly down the inside and outside walls, in between these cuts at various places it was painted a number of colours, again very simple but produced a very beautiful modern looking bowl.

I have to say, I as many aren't or should I now say weren't to keen on colour, I'd say most of us have never really tried it and probably not really liked the finished pieces so the colours stay in the pots on the shelf gathering dust. But having been shown the best medium for accepting the colour, and more importantly how to apply it I think there's more than a chance our club at least will have a more than the average number of colour users now. This method of modern art rather than woodturning pieces I think will catch the attention of many of our members, and there are a number of good reasons for it, very little sanding, easy cheap application of the colours, i.e. no air compressor and cleaning out nozzles. Tooling, well we should all be able to do this quite easily and should have enough tools already, disc cutters and sander, probably get away with other methods without making a special purchase but I think our club members know they only have to ask and somebody will provide.

As with the thread chasing demo we had from Julie Heryet early this year, I wasn't to interested in the basic concept, I couldn't see me doing it really so I wasn't expecting to take on to much detail, just to enjoy the demo as a whole, but I couldn't do that, again as with Julie I want to try this method as soon as I can, that's the sign of a good demonstrator. We not only had a very good demo today, but we were shown a idea we could try our selves quite easily plus there was plenty of first class humour, what you need if you've been watching demos for years is to be entertained as well.

Mid way through we had our lunch break, this was supplied by Aline and daughter Nicky and as always it was brilliant, all served hot and tasty followed by dessert, tea and coffee. I'd say one of the best master classes I've been to, many thanks Nick Agar, by the way Nick, does this now mean you will help us out next year now?

So as with all good things it was time to pack everything away, the hall was cleared, Nicks gear back in his van and the last goodbyes and doors locked, and there goes a very brilliant master class.

Boots Nov 2007


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