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Sharpening And Hollowing At The NWG • May 13, 2008

We were treated to two great presentations last night at this months Nova Woodturners Guild meeting. The first was a sharpening presentation by Don Moore and the second was an information session on hollow turning by Dave Wilkins.

Don began the evening showing us the various facets of correctly sharpening our woodturning tools. Some of the information he imparted (and/or reminded us of) included:

Sharpen scrapers upside down. This automatically creates a burr on the top edge.

Keep the grinder wheels dressed.

Mark the full breadth of the tool edge with a marker. This not only helps in setup but will show any areas that the grinder may be missing.

Round the bottom edges of the scraper to ease movement across the toolrest.

Remove some of the heel on the scraper to facilitate getting into bowl corners.

Add a piece of leather to your grinder station for quick honing.

He also showed, and told the benefits of, the grind he uses on his skew chisel. He grinds the first half at the standard 70 degrees and then curves the second half. This differs from the standard full 70 degree grind and the full curved grind.

Dave began his presentation with an explanation on how he created two different hollow forms. The first was a ‘bottomless bowl’ and the other, that can be best described as a wheel, had two openings, top and bottom. In addition to the challenge of turning these pieces there were obvious mounting issues.

Dave followed this with an explanation of the use of some of the chisels in the Kelton line of woodturning tools as well as performed a live demonstration of these tools on a small hollow vessel. This was followed by a short Q & A session while several members tried their hand at using these tools.

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Woodturning Spindles At The NWG • Apr 22, 2008

This month’s meeting of the Nova Woodturner’s Guild was another fun and informative gathering for approximately 40 members. We were treated to an instructional segment on spindle turning and a ‘show and tell’ of some great work by the Guild members.

Dave Wilkins conducted the spindle turning instruction, demonstrating the use of the skew and spindle gouge.

Working with just a scrap piece of wood, he turned it round and demonstrated the proper use of these two woodturning tools. Working with the skew he showed how the peeling cut can be used to remove a lot of material quickly and how the planing cut is used to smooth. He spoke of the ideal position of the skew on the wood, where using the middle of the blade is preferred. He validated this by showing us the riving action caused by using the heel of the blade and how using the toe easily causes a ‘catch’, the bane of the skew.

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From The Forest To The Lathe • Mar 18, 2008

We had another great presentation from master woodturner Don Moore at this month’s Nova Woodturner’s Guild meeting. His talk was on cutting bowl blanks from logs. He shared his experiences with tips, anecdotes and his usual light-hearted humor and banter.

I mentioned in a past post about Don that he owns, and lives on, a 450 acre woodlot. This has given him the opportunity to farm and cultivate his own wood ‘from the ground up’ and the experience needed to create quality wood for woodturning.

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A Bouquet Of Wooden Flowers • Feb 18, 2008

This month’s meeting of the Nova Woodturner’s Guild featured a presentation by Guild member Stuart Taylor who demonstrated how he creates his works of art that he simply calls ‘turned flowers’.

Working with a branch of wet wood he deftly created a unique, one-piece turning of a wooden flower. The wet wood allows the turning of the slender stem, along with a lot of skill.
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