15th September 2021

We had the pleasure of welcoming Shaun Clifford to the first event back after Covid. For our first event Shaun’s plan was to show us a three pointed bowl with English walnut that's quite green, cut the day before the event, with about 20-25% water content.

A bit about Shaun, he’s been turning since he was 10, that's 47 years! He turns bowls makes a living via galleries and selling wood! You can contact Shaun via Facebook, or on his mobile 07769 821882.

To start on his project, he started with a V-Gouge from America with lead in the handle to absorb vibrations, which he used to get the main shape of the outside of the bowl of the lovely piece of Walnut.

Once Shaun is generally happy with the shape of the piece, he starts sanding with 240 grit which is usually a higher grit. As Shaun hates sanding, he spends time getting a good finishes with the tools; he keeps cutting until he's happy. Saying that, for his finished worked, Shaun sands up to 1000 grit as a minimum.

When deciding on the surface finish, he keep going until there is a uniform colour; the surface finish is not quite right if there's a darker mark in contrast to the adjacent areas.

Shaun likes to add features with a small spindle gouge ground as a bowl gouge. He adds details such as ridges so that he doesn’t have to sand as much (did I say he hated sanding?). For our demonstration, he added a bead to the top of the bowl and then finished it using a beading and parting tool as a scraper to sharpen up the top edge bead as a feature.

If there's a part that is difficult to sand, Shaun raises the grain with a sponge and some water and then dries with a paint stripping heat gun, then re-sands.

In general, Shaun power sands and then touches up by hand with Abranet or Rhynogrip

For detailed work, Shaun tends to use a smaller gouge to get finishing cuts for more control, and then uses a scraper to blend sections together

After marking the feet, Shaun uses a ‘Rotary Cutter’ (brand) head which has a triangular head. It originates from the States at a cost of approximately £46 delivered.

The technique could be done with a coping saw with sufficient patience.

Once the roughing was done, Shaun used a mini hand held belt sander to finish the feet.

If the wood is too wet to sand, dry with heat gun. This is how Shaun finishes green bowls.

Please see below the full event gallery of the evening’s session.

Questions for Shaun

Q- Will the green wood not warp as it dries?

A -It shouldn’t do as thickness will be the same across the bowl so it will dry the same all down the bowl and not warp. Issues arise when there are different thicknesses of bowl.

Q - As you turn green wood a lot, do you protect the bars of the lathe?

A - I don't find I need to as I clean it regularly and I haven’t had any problems on any of my lathes.

Shaun’s Words of Wisdom

• Cut it once, cut it twice and then keep repeating that until you're happy, (and sharpen in between).

• Use a smaller gouge to get finishing cuts for more control

• If the lathe can turn the other way with reverse drive, you can turn some trouble spots away. The grain will be pushed up hill by normal turning, reverse turning can remove that. Safety note - Do note that if possible, ensure that your chuck can be locked to the spindle when reversing the lathe.
  

Event Gallery

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