Ryedale Woodturners
This website is being updated from August 2022. This is an archive page.
John Whiteley
Thursday 7 September 2018
Snainton Village Hall
John made his second appearance of the year, again filling in a gap in bookings. This was probably a unique demonstration for a woodturning club - one without any wood being turned. It was entitled "Making your own toolkit".
Nylon block and board
John started with a mention of nylon board - such as can be bought cheaply as butchers block or kitchen chopping boards. (John appears to be a regular visitor to Lidl and similar stores in search of bargain materials!)
Nylon can be turned easily - he screwed a piece to a wooden faceplate, and used a scraping rather than cutting action to shape an insert for a bandsaw. Soft jaws for a chuck can also be made.
Chisels and scrapers
Worn down chisels can be reground as scrapers. Round steel bar is cheap and available, to create chisels or carbide tip holders.
Carbide tips can be bought for a few pounds. Investment in a good diamond grinding disc (£50, or perhaps £10 as a bargain) and an angled holding plate can allow re-sharpening of these tips. The bar and handle to hold such a tip can be made from cheap steel bar.
A handle to hold the steel bar of a hollowing tool could be made from a piece of drainage tube, with a stopper and a collet turned to fit each end. An improvement would be to use aluminium tube.
A stopper can be turned from Tufnol - a dense plastic / organic material which turns well and holds its shape. A collet to hold the bar can be turned similarly, and then grub screws inserted to give the necessary grip.
Some entertaining methods of drilling the holes while holding the Tufnol in a drill chuck on the lathe ended the evening, with "helpful" advice offered from the metalworkers in the audience.
As I said at the beginning, a unique demonstration, definitely one of a kind. John's premise was to provide methods of producing relatively cheap but functional tools for turning. There was some discussion amongst members as to whether the saving in cost is worth the investment in time - time which could be spent doing more woodturning, which for most is the hobby they wish to pursue.
Gavels for the Chairman
Some light relief was provided at the meeting when a collection of gavels appeared, in response to Keith's desire for a gavel at the AGM to bring the meeting to order, and Malcolm's discreet email to all members apart from Keith.