Master Class With Stuart King - October 2003

The morning started with the now customary pre start coffee which was warmly received and promptly consumed. Stuart King was introduced to the now seated audience and started off his demonstration by giving a short presentation on one of his pet loves TREEN. He managed to mix this up with a bit of history; he used his displayed items he had brought with him to show different forms and levels of patina. These included an old wooden block plane which had a groove worn into it where the carpenters fingers had rested, he also showed off some Romanian wooden multi axis flasks and took the time to explain how they were turned etc. Some of his other exhibits were bowls of various ages dating back to the 1940's, some of which were turned by a turner called George Lacy, in fact some were actually signed by the man himself. Stuart concluded this first part of the morning by explain how the various boxes and cups he'd brought were made.

Stuart's first practical demo took the form of a fruit bowl, which in his own words was from a log that's next stop would be fire wood, we all waited with bated breath to see how it would turn out if the pun can be excused. During this and in fact all the days demo's he took the time to discuss and point out the tools used, and the grind angles etc. During the hollowing out process he exposed a rotten knot that in his own words would prove to be a tad interesting. He was proved right when bits of the knot decided to fly out towards the guys in the front row; this left the bowl with a larger than intended natural feature.

The texturing of the bowl took the form of wire brushes of various stiffness; this was to provide some relief to the out side. Then using the reverse chuck method on what was left of the log to remove the stub, the finished article was passed round along with some of his other work for a closer inspection.

The next offering before lunch was in sycamore and rapidly took the form of an off centre turned candlestick. He started between centres to form a spigot and then into a chuck to turn the rest. After getting the basic shape and forming the candle end first, he showed how to turn the off centre or wobbly bit safely. Using the same standard chuck as before, proving you don't need expensive off cantered chucks to do this sort of thing. An intriguing process that was shared by all present, always ensuring that it was kept in proportion at all times so to keep it pleasing to the eye. It was at this time that someone asked if he had ever made a pair of this type of thing to which he replied, "the nearest I get to making a pair is that they both come from the same piece of wood!"

"Lunch" by courtesy of Don's wife and daughter followed (thank you ladies, it went down very well) the guys had a brief chat and inspection of all the displayed items and then it was back to the proceedings. The first part of the afternoon was taken up with a talk on his local area of Highwycombe along with a slide show showing local woodland folk at their craft of chair making. These bodgers were in abundance at one time in the area the slides showed, the talk got even more interesting as it was interspersed with model/miniature chairs that kept coming out of a old suit case on the table in front of him. These easily showed all the chairs and the differences were explained as the talk progressed. Without exception the display of these little chairs kept every one captivated, even more so when he explained that they were all made by his own hands.

Now it was back to the lathe. This time it was a type of large goblet, formed and textured as before but this time he sprayed it with red oxide and black paints. This was then re-sanded to reveal the highlights of the texturing; the base itself got the vinegar treatment, which gave the whole piece a very striking effect. His last piece for the day was wooden fruit; it started of as an apple but very quickly took the form of a pear in spalted beech, as it progressed the spalting became very pronounced and after being stained with yellow's and green's it looked good enough to eat. In fact it became a raffle prize at the next club night. (And guess what Derek, Boots won it)

All to soon the day came to an end; the members plus a few guests had a brilliant day watching and listening to this very experienced well-travelled legend. Ken thanked Stuart for his exciting demonstration and the guys responded with loud applause. A big thank you went out to all that worked so hard to bring about today's demo. This just left the packing away, sweeping up and the photo shoot.

Dave Hayward - Oct 2003
Pictures by Ray Mathew


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