Ryedale Woodturners
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ANDREW
MORBY-SMITH
Thursday 2 March2017
Snainton Village Hall
Club member Andrew Morby Smith talked to us about how he made a large chandelier centre some years ago, and how is currently attempting to repeat the process.
A large project
Andrew told us how some years ago he had made the centrepiece of a large chandelier, based on one he had seen in an antiques shop. This was over a metre in length with a width of 390 mm at the base. It was to be finished with a high quality joiner shop spraying system.
A detailed template was drawn on a board, which had two holes in the corners so that it could hang over the lathe. The key elements of this template were the widths at different points on the chandelier. Once these had been achieved, the beads and coves in between could be turned to fill the spaces.
Andrew also had a cut away template for a smaller chandelier, which could in theory be placed against the work as a test, or its cutaway could. In practice he reckoned the drawing with measurements was more useful.
The chandelier he has demonstrating was made from a blank made of laminated srips of pine, all glued and cramped to create a large square mass. As the piece developed additional pieces could be glued on to add width. All would be hidden by the finish.
The length and bul of the blank can be seen in this photo. Clearly this was not going to form part of tonight's demonstration, as a much longer lathe bed than our club Nova has would be required. Andrew had brought along a smaller version, which he had mounted between centres on the lathe. This had been laminated together from various offcuts and odd pieces he had available. Door frames may have been the original source.
Andrew did some turning with a gouge, just refining the shape a little on a couple of areas of the pre-turned blank.
Whilst turning he talked a little about his home-learnt technique, how he still doesn't always find resting on the bevel straightforward, how turning endgrain produces some rough finishes.
After the break he aplogised for not doing any more turning as he felt the piece shouldn't get much smaller. He promised to bring in a finished version at the next club meeting. He talked instead about finishes. glue, using copper pipe to provide the arms, and electrics.
We can look forward to seeing this at the next meeting.
Thanks to Gordon for the photos - I forgot my camera.