Another Good Club Night - November 2004

Dry night this club night compared to last months soaking. There was a trailer full of timber blanks for sale getting a lot of interest and as usual everything set up and ready to go. It looks like I'm going to have to get to a club night at mid day to help set things up. I put my competition piece in, put the novice's blanks out, collected my newsletter and chatted to a good number of guys. The chairman mentioned his woodturning cruise with details to follow. The usual informative chat including tickets for the December social night and Ken introduced Alan Hazel our demonstrator for the evening.

Alan Hazel was introduced as the lace bobbin man. He'd had a heart attack and bypass in 1989 but despite this he turned professional turner in 1995. There were two lathes set up tonight, one was Alan's old Gem and the other was the clubs. You must excuse me, as I have no idea what it is, well I'm honest if nothing else, I'll get the details and report back. After a brief chat about his history he began to explain miniature turning, it seems that one twelth scale is common practice for doll's house items.

He explained that for miniature turning you can make your own tools from Obo masonry nails, only use very good quality nails for this and only use these tools for miniature turning. From one piece of wood 30mm long Alan turned a pear an apple and a captive ring, all about 7mm in diameter, he also made a lace bobbin about 10mm long. Of coarse ever since then were where all found to be saying when discarding left overs from turning "there's about a hundred lace bobbins in that" I guess that one will run for a long time.

He carried on the theme of Bobbins only now they were full size; he explained all the relevant parts while turning one made out of two different timbers. It was obvious that he had turned thousands of Bobbins buy the speed and accuracy of the finished product. He then went on to briefly show us how to turn a Bobbin with a twist. Then he turned an off centre Bobbin. And with an appreciative round of applause it was time for tea and biscuits.

Thanks go to Alan Croft and George Eshelby for doing the tea and biscuits, forgive me if I got a name wrong as I didn't get time to confirm them.

Before we resumed the demonstration our club judge Eric spent a few minutes explaining next month's project for the novices, This is becoming a regular feature now giving useful hints and encouragement.

Back to our demonstration, Alan moved on to our club lathe now which already had a blank mounted on it. This was a log of Silver Birch about 15" long and 6" diameter. It was mounted in the centre of the length as opposed to spindle turning on the ends. This was part turned to show an alternative bowl shape. Alan then showed us briefly another variation for a bowl, which was a Mahogany bowl through a square which most of us have seen and now perhaps intrigued enough to try.

That concluded the evening demonstration and a good round of appreciation was shown from the members. I had asked a number of questions throughout the evening, one in particular about chucks and I was particularly impressed when our demonstrator for the evening Alan Hazel, made a point of looking for me afterwards to make sure I was properly informed. I've noted the information and soon armed with all my research I'll be off somewhere to make my purchase.

And back to this evening, we had the usual raffle draw, competition results and last minute announcements, then it was chairs away, sweep up and say goodnight.

And there goes another good club night.

Boots - November 2004