Members enjoyed an excellent demonstration by Colwin Way at our March 2017 meeting.  On his way to a series of demos at the Axminster store at Warrington, Colwin dropped off at Sychdyn to entertain us with a high level of skill and an impressive ability to impart a clear understanding of design and technique.  

Colin started by demonstrating spindle and faceplate work in the form of a two part candle stick in Ash. Starting with turning an ogee base, sanding and polishing, Colwin moved on to shaping the stem between centres.

Colwin finished his demo by turning a bowl using his home made wood plate jaws.  These jaws were made from 2 layers of good quality birch ply, turned into a series of steps and cut into quadrants for attachment to each individual jaw on the chuck.  This gives a considerable range of bowl size options.

He then turned a table leg using a skew chisel to form the square shoulder and a bowl gouge to rough the basic shape of the leg which he refined with the skew. He suggested that use of the skew would be made easier by furnishing the cutting edge with a secondary bevel ( perhaps formed with a diamond hone).  A splendid job in 15 minutes!