David
Keating
David
Keating likes to dabble in sculpting. He has a keen eye for the
shape within.
When a
branch fell on his property he saw a seal and went about
providing the marine mammal with flippers and fashioning a tail.
The seal found its way to Willinga Park during Sculpture on the
Clyde. It was aptly displayed beside a water feature.
Making Trucks
Teamwork
Collaboration
Turned Table legs
How do you turn a table
leg?
Planning, preparation
and accurate measurements are made to ensure all legs are the
same.
How do you make an object that is not round all over?
You need to use
sacrificial pieces of wood!
Using sacrificial pieces
of wood to achieve an unusual design requires a lot of planning
and preparation.
In the picture above the
outside pieces of wood are sacrificial. In other words they are
not required for the finished design but are essential in
forming it.
Len Newman
was asked to make an urn. A very special urn.
First a bit of
preparation required.
Blank prepared by Eric Simes
The finished result - a unique urn.
How to Stabilise
Wood
In the pictures below you can see Malcolm McDonald
instructing members on how to stabilize wood using a
stabilizing resin called
'Cactus Juice' .
This is a method he uses on his pen blanks.
Before he began Malcolm explained that there are 3
steps. None can be missed or rushed.
First step,
removing the moisture from the pen blanks using a
toaster oven. This takes 1 - 2 hours at 110 deg Celsius.
Second step,
adding the 'Cactus Juice' till it covers the wood in a
special vacuum container.
Removing the air
using a two stage vacuum pump. This can take 24
hours!
The last step
requires drying the wood once again in the toaster oven.
The question was
asked 'What are the advantages of doing this?'
Answer :the
process prevents expansion and contraction, that is
cracking and shrinking away from the edge.
As well as this it prevents tear out when turning up to
the edge of the brass tube.
The epoxy fills the pores and results in a much better
finish after sanding and it does not affect the turning
tools at all.
Malcolm considers this process worth while even though
it may take several days.
Toy Making
Any craftsman will know that when making more than one
object a template is the only way to ensure uniformity.
As well as that it saves a lot of time and more than one
person can make it to the exact specifications.
Below is a result of Ken McIntyre's hard work and
attention to detail.
Ken recently brought in 13 frogs for the EWG sales
table.Each frog has been meticulously finished and will
certainly put a smile on any child's face even though
the frogs aren't smiling!