It was a full house for our meeting with 44 members and 1 possible new member.
It’s great to see the club growing each month and members supporting our regular visiting demonstrators.

Chris Parker RPT

We welcomed the return of Chris Parker, who earlier in the year helped us do the trial Interactive Remote Demonstration in January. So it was a pleasure to see him in person.

Before starting he highlighted the AWGB one day courses to members that are FREE.
Access to these courses is via the AWGB website and are available to all AWGB members.
Chris is running some at his workshop but also highlighting the hope of running some in North Wales next year, already one of our members has been accepted onto a course later this year.

The theme of the demonstration was texturing and the use of various methods to texture, using both traditional manual tools but also power tools.
As we have some new members Chris started by explaining how to turn a basic bowl, the blank was air dried Ash 8×3 inches.
Starting to shape the back of the bowl he quickly formed the shape explaining each step and the use of the individual tools, what was interesting was how often Chris sharpened his tools on the Sorby Pro Edge. When sharping his negative rake scraper, he only sharpened one side to ensure the burr would give a good finish.
Reversing the blank into the chuck he quickly hollowed out from the centre explaining if it was a larger blank, he would start from the outer edge to maintain bulk in the centre for support.
Our new member was invited to check the piece out.
The next part was about handheld texturing tools from both Robert Sorby and Hope Woodturning, you should see examples from the many photographs taken.

Texture on end grain

Texture on side grain

What was important was the angle and presentation of the tool to the wood to get the various designs.
He then went onto demonstrate the use of crackle paint to achieve a different type of finish. Passing round the piece whilst it was still wet, but crackled and explained it take a few hours to dry.
After our tea and coffee break the results of the monthly competition and raffle were announced and we then continued into the demonstration by Chris using some his power tools such as Arbortech with various cutterheads, and rotating brushes in power drills.

Use of angle grinder with Arbortech cutter

This was great to see the various patterns and shapes that could be achieved enabling the uniqueness that could be made and hopefully you can see some of the patterns in the photographs.

Chris is unique in some of the texturing and use of colour he achieves out of some times very plain and uninteresting wood. Hopefully we will be able to welcome back Chris sometime in the future.

Use of crackle effect paint

Author Mike Wilson