Les Thorne RPT

A box and a "scratched bowl"

November 21st 2007

Reviewed by Martin Dudley

Les Thorne

The first thing noticed was a sign on the whiteboard, in Les' handwriting: "No, I'm not Jimmy Clewes!" owing to the fact that Jimmy had double-booked and called Les to fill in for him. With the tone of the evening set, Andrew took the microphone to conduct some Club business, while Les used his unlit blowtorch to suggest ways of improving our Chairman's coiffeur..! Of course, that had to be followed with a quick spray from the convenient water-spray to dampen down any chance of Andrew concentrating and carrying on too long.

…and so to the business of woodturning. Les outlined his intentions for the first session: An essential guide to the use of the skew and gouge in spindle turning. At the mention of the "s" word, people sat a little more upright and our attention was fixed. The half-inch, rolled-edge skew that Les chose to use has a shallow grind angle across the width of the tool; something in the order of just 10 degrees, with the cutting angle around 25 degrees. Moving on quickly to show the skew long point incising the start of a pummel, Les deftly produced the all-important slicing cut to create a smooth curve from square to round. Waste removal was with the skew, after creating a "fire-break" cut with the skew in peeling mode at the chuck side to give the skew an air gap before the jaws, allowing space to part off. The parallel section was then used as the canvas for the spindle gouge. With emphasis throughout on body movement, a pair of semi-coves appeared in the pine blank, with a centre portion left for the later rolling of a bead with the fingernail gouge. The speed at which the profiles were formed was quite amazing; perhaps 30 seconds total turning time. With the addition of an "eggy thing" and a graphic demonstration of the 3 stages of a catch (the cut, then the scrape, then the catch - deliberate, honest..!) the spindle project was removed from the lathe and passed to the eager hands and eyes of the membership for inspection.

The remainder of the first session saw a split and gnarly 12"x5" ash blank being brought under control with shear pull-cuts and the occasional push-cut where necessary, with the added support of the tailstock. "Anti-turning" was the title given to this part of the demo, and in the next 30 minutes or so, we saw the outside profile of the bowl refined, textured with a square-section "beader" tool, burnt with a blowtorch, cleaned with a high-speed nylon rotary brush and sprayed with ebonising lacquer…! Exhilarated by the rate of change (or possibly the fumes..!) we headed off for tea break while Les answered questions and nipped outside for his own brand of fresh air.

With the bowl now sprayed black on the outside, a generous brushing of liming wax was applied, followed closely by the same amount of clear paste wax on the top of that. The resulting colour was bluish-white, with the high-spots showing the shine of the wax as it was buffed with paper towel. Onto the hollowing…

…which progressed swiftly, using a couple of gouges, ground with slightly different angles; one shallower, for the initial cuts, and one with a steep grind to reach the parts that not all gouges reach. Curiously, Les seemed to have left a rather large (3" diameter) amount of wood in the bottom. Explaining that this bowl would be a bit different, Les fashioned the lump into a hemisphere - to add some interest...! With some lightly scratched rings put into the inside wall with the long point of a skew, the penultimate stage was the spraying of the inside with an acrylic sanding sealer.

The final part of the evening was the Q&A bit. Les treated us to his thoughts on various aspects of good woodturning, with some time spent on discussing texture, contrast, colour, warmth, art and sculpture.

Believe it or not, it all fitted into one evening, and with his colourful brand of banter, Les provided us with a real treat and of course, we'll welcome him back at anytime.


*Demonstrating the Skew*		*Scorching the outside of the turned bowl*

*Bowl Scorched limed and polished*		*Finishing cuts on the inside showing the domed centre*