May 2007 - Club Meeting

This month Ian Dudley came to show us how our obsession with fruit has progressed over the years. As small boys some of us may have been caught scrumping apples while in our more enlightened years we can be found turning them on the lathe.

First of all he reduced a log to a cylinder between centres, created a spigot on one end and mounted it in a four jaw scroll chuck. This first picture shows him rounding the end of the cylinder over.

Now he's defined the basic shape of the apple and is drilling a hole in the end. This serves two purposes. Firstly it provides an anchor for when he reverses the piece and holds it on a home-made screw chuck in order to finish the bottom. Secondly it provides a hole into which the stalk can be glued. The stalk can be a small piece of ebony, turned to a taper between centres and the top end chamfered to 45 degrees on a disc sander (or by hand).

Next comes the obligatory sanding and polishing. Here Ian is using a paintbrush to buff the friction polish and wax which he'd applied to the apple. This was a technique which, I think, was new to most of us and which he'd picked up from one of the finishing experts on a trade stand at the recent Yandles Spring Show. The advantage of this method over the usual "soft cloth" method is that ridges aren't formed in the finish as the work rotates. Just goes to show how new techniques are still being developed in woodturning.

. . . and here we see the finished article - well almost. It still needs it's stalk superglued in the top. Also, a clove superglued in the flower end (that's the bottom to you non-horticulturalists!) adds a realistic touch.

Pears can be turned in just the same way - you just use a slightly longer log to begin with and turn a pear shape instead of an apple shape. Easier said than done, I know - the trick is being able to turn a realistic shape. Still, I suspect most of us have good examples in our fruit bowls to work from.