Another Good Club Night

February 2004 Meeting

Tonight was a bit of a surprise to say the least, and I think I speak for the majority of members. There we where, all members of a woodturning club gathered for a demonstration on turning and not a lathe in site. In fact the lathe had been replaced by an overhead projector. Well I did the usual pre meeting chat, raffle tickets and competition entry. Apologised to the judge for my poor effort in trying to produce a rotten Pear, typically I left it to the last minute and wasn't really happy with the result, the main thing is I put something in. The guys behind the scenes put a lot into running the club so its only right we members appreciate it by getting involved as well.

The usual Chairman's welcome and news, a brief introduction to our guest for the evening and again were into another good club night.

Our guest speaker was Chris West and the subject was hat making. Now at this point I have to admit that since the last club night I have been trying to work out how you turn a head shaped hat on a lathe? And couldn't come up with an answer. As usual once its explained it's obvious, note I didn't say it's easy, I just said it was obvious.

The Top hat, Baseball hat, Stetson and Bowler are typically made because of their shape. Mainly men's hats are made but ladies hats can be made by turning one side of the brim up and one down, a man's hat would have both up.

Chris West prefers to use Sycamore, Cherry or Walnut but any tight grained wood will do and most importantly it mustn't be more than three weeks old. So this is a green timber project. One of the most important things to remember is that the turned piece must remain wet through all of the working. Chris continuously sprays with an indoor plant sprayer, (Mind your electric's). His success rate for producing a hat when he first started was about 10%; now having gained some experience it is about 65%. Hat sizes go from a 2" Crown to full size and anything in between. The size and shape for the hat is obtained by using a flexy curve (a draftsman's aid). When sizing you have to remember, as it's green timber it is going to shrink and on a full size hat it's about 6mm. The tools Chris uses are 5/8 and 3/8 Bowl gouge's, and as with most turners they are ground to suit him and the job they have to do. As you can appreciate this requires some pretty accurate measuring, what I find most impressive is the fact that the whole hat is only 3mm thick. From an original block of 70lb or so the finished hat has been reduced to under 1lb. That's a lot of shavings and a very wet wood turner. The out of balance blank is ruffed out at around 20rpm for obvious reasons. The inside and bottom is turned to the required calculated size and design. Part of the outside is turned and then turned around and put on a blank plug made to fit the inside, this gives the opportunity to finish the outside, the band is formed by burning with Ebony for black and Padauk for red. Just hold a shaped piece of the chosen timber on the band area while turning on the lathe, I would guess a fairly fast speed would be required. Because of the thickness and short grain it is not possible to use stain's for this. Chris uses his home made bulb on a stick to see through the thin timber to obtain the desired thickness, this is a very tricky operation as you cant measure the thickness, it's just judged on the amount of light showing through.

Once you have achieved the chosen shape/design you still have to get an oval/head shape from your round turned piece. This is achieved by fixing the upturned hat into a home made clamp and squashing it to the desired shape, it is taken just past the required shape to allow for spring back. To turn the brim up you just stretch elastic bands over and fix them to the jig to suit the required shape. Remember up until now it has been kept permanently wet. It can now be allowed to dry and it is at this point that the hat may crack. If all goes well then when dry you can finish sanding and polish. The whole operation really needs to be carried out without a break because it has to be kept wet all the time. There were two finished hats passed round for members to look at and all in all it was a very impressive demonstration.

The evening finished with the competition results, raffle and a bit more chat. Robin Lacey had displayed the pyrography technique on a table at the beginning of the evening for all to see. I have asked Robin to write an article on the subject for the Web site accompanied by photos. I won a bowl blank in the raffle and the chairman thanked Arthur Ellis for running the raffle so well for us but sadly this was probably his last time. I believe he is due to go into hospital soon, We all wish you the very best and make a quick recovery.
The usual tidy chairs away and there goes another good club night.

Boots - Feb 2004