Serving Southeastern West Virginia
The West Virginia Woodturners Association provides woodturners in southeastern West Virginia and western Virginia with an opportunity to meet other turners, enhance their skills, and share their skills and interests in woodturning. Send an email to info@wvwoodturners.com to request additional information about the club and its activities.
Next Meeting: June 24
The next meeting will not be on June 24 at The Fort at Montwell Park from 9:30 AM until noon. Come by at 9:00 and enjoy coffee and donuts while you exchange ideas with other Club members. Many members often turn bowls of various styles but rarely create dishes or platters. Turning shallow objects provides a different set of challenges and opportunities and the demonstration will focus on these differences.
May 20 Meeting
Twenty two Club members and one guest attended the meeting on May 20. Everyone enjoyed coffee, donuts, and fellowship before the meeting and several won the drawings for the doorprize and raffle. Eleven members displayed some of their recent creations and two members participated in the Club Challenge and showed the goblets with captive rings that they created. Cliff Baker then demonstrated how to turn a natural edge bowl form a complex crotch.
Captive Ring Club Challenge
Charlie Myers received the First Place award for this short goblet with a captive ring.
Bob Nickell received the Second Place recognition for his goblet and ring.
Show and Tell
Steve Butler combined spindle and faceplate turnings to create this clock.
Ryan Cox turned this walnut goblet.
Wayne Ailiff turned this 9" bowl from hickory.
Bruce Brenneman used yellow birch to turn this natural edged bowl.
Gerald Chandler turned this set of three lidded jars.
This 4" bowl was turned by Charlie Myers.
Gordon Gregory turned the handle for this set of six interchangeable embroidery hooks.
Jerry Carter turned these three civil war-themed pens.
Ryan Cox created this set of small spindle turnings.
Mike Cope created this 19" thin-walled bowl from a pice of cottonwood he salvaged.
This small tea bowl was created by Wayne Ailiff.
Cliff Baker: Turning a Natural Edge Bowl from a Crotch
Cliff showed the Club members how to turn a natural-edge bowl from a complex crotch. Crotches provide many opportunities to create turnings that show unusual grain patterns, colors, and shapes. The real challenge for the turner is to look at a crotch, envision the many forms that it could yield, and cut the blank for the chosen form.
A small branch grew just below the main crotch and the blank had to be chainsawed at a 30 degree bevel.
In order to get an interesting rim, the 10" blank yielded a 6" bowl. Bigger is not always better!
The resulting bowl shows the interesting contours of the crotch, various grain patterns in the wood, and a range of colors.
Crotches Turned in Various Ways
The crotch was sawn lengthwise to give bookmatched blanks. Shallow dishes preserve most of the crotch figure.
A flat spot was cut on the front of the crotch and a waste block was glued. A tenon was turned on the back and the final profile retained the shape of the crotch.
Three branches formed this crotch on a walnut tree. After aligning the blank on the drill press, a 1 3/8" hole was bored and a dowel was glued in and gripped by a 4-jaw chuck to turn this end-grain bowl.
Pointers for Turning Crotches
- The best crotch figure occurs between the pith of the two branches.
- If a large bowl is turned, most of the best crotch pattern is turned into shavings.
- Blanks can be cut perpendicular to the axis of the tree, parallel to the axis, or at an angle.
- To get a pleasing form for the rim, the blank must be carefully aligned so the high and low points of the rim are similar.
- I put the blank with the rim up on the drill press table, move it to align the center, place small wedges under the blank to get the high and low points correct and drill a 1 3/8" hole to accommodate my pin chuck.
- As an alternative, a 3" forstner bit could be used to create a flat spot where a small faceplate could be securely attached.
- Another option is to mount the blank between centers and then move the blank so the high and low points of the rim are properly aligned.
- You can't depend on "rubbing the bevel" to align the tool properly since as the workpiece rotates, there is wood for support on only part of the rotation.
- Whenever you need to make a critical or difficult cut, sharpen the tool first.
- If it doesn't feel right when you are about to make a difficult cut, don't do it!
- When you are turning the inside of the bowl, always bring the tool in from the tailstock end to avoid hitting the rim.
- A white piece of cardboard on the lathe bed makes it easier to see the rim.
- Whenever the lathe is running, keep track of where the rim is to avoid getting your knuckles rapped.
- If the wood is green, turning to the final thickness must be done in one session to avoid checks.
- If it is necessary to stop for more than a few minutes, put a plastic bag around the workpiece to avoid drying and checking.
- When I turn green wood, I use a kitchen scale to weigh the piece, record the date and weight, wrap the piece in newspaper, and put it in a cardboard box. I check the weight every few days and remove it from the newspapers after about 15% of the original weight has been lost. I let it air dry until it stops loosing weight and then finish it.
- After the weight has decreased by 15%, I often put the piece in a microwave oven for a minute or two until the piece is quite hot. This is equivalent to steaming which softens the wood and removes some of the stresses that occur when the wood dries and shrinks.
General Club Information
For further information about any WVWA activity, call Bill Sproul at (304) 497-2319.
Supporting Companies
We would like to thank these companies for the support they have provided to the Club during the past year. Check out their websites when you are ready to purchase products that they stock.
Craft Supplies USA is a one-stop shopping site for everything a wood turner might need or want - lathes, tools, accessories, project supplies, materials, and more.
Woodcraft offers a 10% discount at the Roanoke store to WVWA members when they show a current membership card.
TurnTex supplies acrylic casting resin, solutions for stabilizing and hardening punky and spalted wood, and associated equipment.
by WVWA, a chapter of the American Association of Woodturners