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  Happy new year to you all.
  Whilst most people would be nursing a sore head from last nights parties, visiting friends and family or just taking in some fresh air, I have been slaving away to update the website calendar with this years schedule.
  There are still details to be finalised in some areas but the dates have been confirmed.
  I have also updated the dates for the spring term, learn to turn dates.
  Should you wish to print these dates out, Barbara has produces a calendar which can be downloaded from the button below:
  2018 Dates For Your Diary
  As we are approaching the end of the year the club house opening times have been scaled back to cater for the festive season.
  The opening details for December are as follows:
  - Hands On – Tuesday 5th December
  - Mark Baker (All Day Demo) – Saturday 9th December
  - Nikos Siragas (All Day Demo) – Tuesday 12th December
  - Christmas Social – Wednesday 13th December
  - Hands On – Saturday 16th December
  The workshop will be closed for the Christmas/New year break between 17/12/2017 and 10/01/2018.
  The Christmas Social
  As is usual for the Club, the December meeting is a social gathering where we bring food and drink to share, get the opportunity to chat whilst trying to figure out the answers to the devilishly hard quiz and submit our entries for the turning challenges.
  The Meeting will be held at the Kegworth Village Hall, next door to the Club House, and will start at 19:00.
  Barbara has a list of who is attending, the number of guests and what food are bringing food.
  This year we have the following categories:
  - Turning between Centres
  - Turning using a chuck
  - ‘Anything Goes’
  - The Chairman’s Challenge
  - The Charnwood Machinery Challenge
  You can enter all five competitions or just a few. If you cannot make it to the social but would like to enter the competitions, you will just need to get your pieces to the club on a Hands on day, or contact Barbara.
  The Chairman’s Challenge is to turn and construct an Elephant as demonstrated by Ian Ethell at the November Meeting. Details of the elephant can be found by clicking the button below:
  Download The Christmas Elephant Plans
  The Charnwood Machinery Challenge
  This year, Charnwood Tools have again agreed to donate a tools voucher to the winner of their challenge.
  To be in with a chance you will make a Christmas themed free standing money box with the following limitations: it must be mainly turned, but could include some/limited carved work; The top can be screwed, push fit or have locking peg; It can be painted, stained or plain.
  The October 2017 Competition, to create a Genie Vase, received a flood of entries and all were to the usual high standard.
  - Derek Henderson
  - Martin Stenlake
  - Stan Ethell
  - Tony Stubbins
  - John Spray
  - Bill Percival
  - Melvyn Francks
  - Ben Wild
  The winners were:
  1st Derek Henderson
  2nd Martin Stenlake
  3rd Stan Ethell
  Click here for details on the competition brief.
  Peter Tree Demonstration Evening 11-Oct-2017
  Peter comes from Sleaford where he has been a chair maker for about 35 years. He is clearly a multi-talented individual, carrying out all aspects of his work himself; making his own tools, felling, seasoning and bending the timber, turning, assembling and carving the finished chairs.
  He brought one of his chairs for us to see; a typical example of his work which would take him about 3 days effort to make and which he would sell for £495.
  For his demonstration for us Peter was making a kitchen stool. In order to complete the project in the time available Peter pre-prepared the component parts:-
  • an 11 inch diameter circular ash blank about 1 inch deep, drilled with 4 holes to accept the legs
  • 4 octagonal section beech spindles for the legs, each drilled with a hole to accept the cross brace pieces
  • 1 octagonal section beech spindle for the main cross brace, drilled through to accept the smaller cross brace
  • 2 square section beech spindles for the smaller cross brace. Only one was needed, but since its eventual turned diameter is critical to the construction, a second piece was brought just in case !
  Each of the leg spindles was turned between centres until the flats from the original section had disappeared leaving a cylinder which then was turned down to the required shape by eye using a very aged (and short) roughing gouge then shear cut with a skew to produce an excellent smooth surface. Next Peter added a simple 3 ring decoration; he used a flat scrap piece of wood which he marked with the desired position of the rings so that they were cut in exactly the same place on each leg. It was noticed that Peter made all the left hand cuts first then all the right hand cuts (initially with a spindle gouge and then with a skew) rather than completing one ring at a time. Apparently the style of decoration used historically was specific to the area where the chair was made, the 3 ring style was representative of the Thames Valley turners, so once you know your decorations you can tell what region the chair came from.
  To ensure that all the spigots required for joining pieces together are the same size, Peter uses the same parting tool cutting the spigot two and a half widths of the tool. Then, rather than using callipers to get the spigot diameter correct Peter uses a home-made multi-cut template made from old saw blades (this material gives excellent rigidity to the template). Once the spigot has been turned nearly to size, Peter applies the template which cuts into the work piece leaving a burnt line that he can then turn the whole spigot down to to achieve the correct diameter.
  The cross braces were then turned to shape and spigots added at each end in the same way as for the legs. The smaller cross brace was turned to the diameter of the hole in the larger cross brace, again using the multi-cut template; this was the bit where he needed to be careful – too large and it wouldn’t go through the hole, but too small and it would rattle around and not provide the required support. If he had had more time, Peter would have drilled through the centre of the two cross braces and fixed them with a glued dowel in the hole.
  The seat blank was mounted on a face plate, the side trued and the face slightly dished to make the seat more comfortable. The top edge was rounded/rolled over, two simple rings added to the side for decoration and the bottom edge slightly beveled. If he had had more time, Peter would have turned a number of small conical plugs which would have been glued and hammered into the screw holes left from the face plate then sanded flush with the base of the seat.
  Finally with the help of his trusty home-made mallet the cross pieces were joined to the 4 legs and the seat added, resulting in a very attractive simple stool created from scratch in less than two hours.