9 June 2009

This evening we were visited by Les Thorne who gave us an excellent demonstration of texturing and colouring.

Les commenced the evening by turning an ash blank then applying a coat of black lacquer to the rim followed by a coat of gold paste which enhanced the grain. The pictures below (sorry for the strange blobs on some of them :-( illustrate the process he used to obtain a stunning effect on the finished bowl.

First the underside was turned and sanded then the bowl was reversed onto the chuck  to allow the rim to  be turned. This shot  shows the  black lacquer being applied  to the turned and sanded rim.	The lacquer was allowed to dry for a  short period then the rim was coated with a  gold paste. This was then carefully rubbed into  wood grain	Once a good covering of paste had been  obtained the  excess gold paste was  removed with a clean rag
Once Les was happy with the finish on the rim the  interior of the bowl was carefully turned and  then power sanded.	Finally the bowl was mounted between  centres to allow the foot to be finished.	The finished bowl

After the break Les turned another ash blank, but this time he showed us how he uses an Arbortech Woodcarver to obtain a  textured finish.

As before the underside of the bowl was turned and sanded first. Then the Arbortech was used to carve a random pattern into the underside.	The bowl was then reversed onto the chuck to allow the rim to be turned   and sanded. Then rim of the bowl  got  attention from  the Arbortech!	Once all carving had finished Les used (a very expensive) sanding tool to remove the roughness from both faces and the edge of the bowl.
The finished bowl, complete with black lacquer finish and inserted MDF "feature" ring.

Les finished off the evening with a quick demonstration of spindle turning. He showed us how he mainly uses the skew to obtain the shapes he requires. Given the wood being turned was pine I was amazed with the superb finish obtained straight from the tool!

Note: clicking on any of the above images will bring up a larger version of the image.

We thank Wightlink for sponsoring Les's trip to the island to give this demonstration.