May 2013 - Review John Stinson – Pole and green turning

John, an ex-member of Cheam Woodturners, introduced those of us with no experience of pole lathes to a fascinating demonstration and talk about outdoor wood turning. He mentioned that the disadvantages include bad weather, the winter and the need for a lot of equipment! John has a 5 acre wood near Cranleigh and runs practical courses there. He started by talking about the background of pole turning, mentioning Mike Abbott who also runs making courses in Herefordshire - http://www.living-wood.co.uk/index.html.

John started from scratch – showing us how to make a home-made using a 2-bevelled and a ‘beetle’ to drive the axe into the log. He sawed partway into the log halfway down and used the axe to create the handle, shaping the wood by feathering the wood on the lower half with his axe, then chopping down.

John spoke about his ‘beetle’, turned on a power lathe, using a power torch to white heat to create the metal rings which are round the ends to prevent the . The handle has a ball on top, pushed through a 1” hold and with a on the knob to prevent the handle slipping out May 2013 - Review John Stinson – Pole Lathes and green wood turning

John then showed us how to split a log, once again with his axe, which proved to be impressively simple and quick. He drove a long narrow wedge into the wood and levered it up and down. It is important to remember you don’t want the pith to remain and you offset the pith with equal weights of wood. He then cut the ash to be used turning a chair leg, trimming it with his axe. John remarked that there is nothing to replace ash for tool handles, chair legs, etc – it is springy and absorbs the force (for example when using a hammer), it splits easily and is bendy enough to make archery bows. It is obviously important to keep the axe sharp and John showed us a video of axe making.

John then moved on to his to make the log into a cylinder for turning. Once again this was surprisingly easy and quick, creating long shavings. It was important to keep checking it was straight. (There is more information about the shaving horse on the Abbotts website - http://www.living- wood.co.uk/shaving_horse.html)

John mentioned that despite working outdoors he has no problem with using power tools where they can be useful, his beetle was turned on a power lathe and he uses Timberfix Plus timber screws, there is no need for pre-drilling and they come with a hex magnetic socket

The wood cylinder was then mounted onto the . The long cord suspended from the pole was wound round the wood and is turned (using leg power). He started with a wide low curve roughing gouge, with his hand on the tool to keep it down and lifting the tool off the work on the up stroke.

May 2013 - Review John Stinson – Pole Lathes and green wood turning

John spoke about the history of , most of it in the Herefordshire area, and showed us a 1935 video of a bodger working in the . Moving onto 21st century technology he showed us a Veritas Power tenon cutter, which allows the turner to produce a perfect tenon at speed. Another tool John uses is the Robert Sorby sizing tool – attached to a parting tool to turn spigots to a precise size.

To join the leg and cross piece together John augured into the chair leg. John spoke about the oval shrinkage of green wood, which is 5% in one direction and 10% in the other – i.e. a 17.5mm diameter tenon will end up 16.6 x 15.8 mm. This means that the joint created cannot be removed once the cross piece is in place. He passed round the resulting joint and challenged anyone to try to separate it – even offering a cash prize, which was not claimed! Other interesting information imparted by John included the fact that is usually used for seats as it has a close interlocked grain. He passed round a roll of bark which is stripped from certain trees to produce a flexible leather-like seating. He showed us a carved bowl made from a half-log and using his beautiful carving tools. John completed our interesting and informative evening by showing us a series of videos about felling a tree, firstly how to do it correctly including an interesting ‘tongue and ’ technique and then “How not to cut down trees” which can be found on YouTube!

May 2013 - Review John Stinson – Pole Lathes and green wood turning

During the break members showed how interested they were in the tools and techniques demonstrated by John, with Bob even having a go on the shaving horse and producing a reasonable cylinder!

David Buskell attended a course at John’s wood in 2008 and a write up of this can be found on page 6 in the September newsletter: http://www.cheamturners.co.uk/data/newsletters/Newsletter34.pdf.