The Club has its own newsletter – The Circular – which is published every two months.  Regular features include the Chairman’s Chat, news from the Northern Federation, details of forthcoming events, competition results and a crossword.  Until the artist ran out of ideas, a strip cartoon was also featured.  Now one of our members draws a cartoon, ususally based on the last demonstration.  (A crossword or a strip cartoon can be found by clicking on the appropriate button.)  Any remaining pages are filled with articles by members, or by articles culled (with permission!) from other clubs’ newsletters.

Here's an article from a recent issue:

I’m ashamed to say that it’s been a while since I entered anything in the monthly competition, but a wet afternoon persuaded me to get back in the workshop and have a go.

‘An egg in an eggcup’.  That seemed like something I might tackle, especially as I once wrote a short article for The Circular called ‘Towards the Perfect Egg’, in which I set out the required dimensions.  Indeed, have a little gadget consisting of a thin strip of wood with a block glued to one end.  There are two holes drilled through the strip.  After turning a square down to the right diameter and cleaning up the tail end, the strip is ‘hooked’ on to the revolving workpiece and a pencil poked through each of the two holes, to draw circumferential lines.  One line shows where the maximum diameter is to be, and the other fixes the length of the egg.  It’s then a simple matter to turn a more or less hemispherical shape at the headstock end and an ellipsoidal shape at the tailstock end.

The first thing was to find a suitable piece of wood.  I don’t carry large stocks these days, but I have a shelf in my workshop on which I keep offcuts of all shapes and sizes.  There was a piece of beech which would have been suitable, but I rejected it as being without character.  Then I came across a piece of burr elm which offered great possibilities, even though I could see I wouldn’t provide an eggshell finish.

So I made the egg, and I was quite pleased with the result.  As I expected, the surface was flawed by small holes in the ‘paw prints’ of the burr.  Still, it polished up well and had an interesting appearance.  I was told by a neighbour who happened to look into the workshop when I had just finished it, that it looked like a gull’s egg.  When I looked on the Internet to check this, I found that a herring gull’s egg is a brownish colour with dark blotches.  Yes, mine was one of those!

Now it was time to think about the eggcup.  I had already decided that it was easier to make the cup fit the egg rather than the other way round.  What wood had I got?  There on the shelf were two pieces of Bankia nut.  Would one of those do?  It would certainly provide a cup of unusual appearance.

Having squared off the ends, I put the nut in the lathe and turned a groove near one end to accommodate the collets in my chuck.  I still use an old-fashioned Craft Supplies 6-in-1 chuck, and for mounting things like goblets it gives a very secure support, even though it does waste an inch or so of wood at the headstock end.

What a dirty thing to turn is a Banksia nut!  Your face is sprayed with bits of seeds and fine dust particles.  I’m always amazed at how tough the nut is, even though the surface is perforated with holes for the seeds.

I soon roughed the nut down to a cylinder, and then I hollowed out the cup.  I started with a 1-inch Forstner bit, and then opened up the resulting hole with a gouge, trying the egg at intervals.  One advantage of the seed-holes was that I could see the egg inside the cup, and thus determine where the cup needed enlarging.

When I’d got a good fit, the cup had a jagged rim, due to the presence of the seed-holes.  I decided that it wouldn’t do to leave it like that – I must add a rim of a contrasting wood.  What was on the shelf?

I came up with a bit more elm, not burr-y this time.  I sliced off a thin layer and cut it to a rough circle on the bandsaw.  This was to be glued on to the top of the cup.  I reached for the superglue, only to find that it had dried up.  Ah well, PVA would suffice, although I would have to wait for the glue to set.  With the cup still in the (stationary) lathe, I ran the PVA round the rim and offered up the disc, bringing up the tailstock to hold it in place and apply pressure.

Now I had to leave the job for a few hours.  When I returned, I drilled a 1-inch hole in the disc, and then attacked the outer rim.  To my dismay, the disc promptly split and half of it broke away from the cup.  Looking at the block from which I had cut the disc, I realised that there was a shake running through it, which I had failed to see.

Obviously I needed something tougher, free from splits and shakes.  I cut a slice of American oak, but that, too, broke as soon as I bent it slightly.  Finally, I prepared a piece of bubinga.  After gluing it in place, I left it for 36 hours to make sure the glue was set hard.  Then I began to turn the rim.  Crack!  This time the Banksia nut broke in two, unable to withstand the applied torque.

Now what?  Although I still had another half of a Banksia nut, I decided not to risk another disaster.  There on the shelf was a yew branch, given me by a friend ages ago, so I reckoned it should be pretty dry.  The branch was just the right diameter at one end, and although there was a side-shoot sticking out, I felt that the resulting knot would make an interesting feature.

So I turned the cup in yew, producing a bead around the rim to give it the finish which I was aiming for when I tried to add a rim to the Banksia nut.

Yew always polishes up nicely, and this piece was no exception.  It looked a bit dumpy, but the egg fitted quite well.  I didn’t expect it to win any prizes, but at least I got a point for my entry in the competition.