Club Meeting: 4 June 2015
Report by: Bill Alden
Photos: Ross Johnson

Rolling Pins can be traced back to the 9^th Century. Commercial production of them started in the 18^th Century and were made from Pine, probably a harder wood than we are used to. They were also used for crushing Oats. In the late 18^th Century JW Reid patented a rolling pin with a central rod handles on each end which could be held firm in use. In the USA 650 to 700,000 are sold pa. They are made out of a wide range of materials. Some are patterned to leave an impression in the dough.

They can have handles or be just a straight cylinder with many different diameters and lengths. Smaller ones are used for icing sugar. A French rolling pin has a taper from the centre to each end.

Colin demonstrated some beading with a bead cutter on a small pin in order to pattern the dough. Black Maire is a good wood as it is heavy and turns well.

We discussed ways of keeping the cylinder equal along its length. Sight the tool rest with the bed and follow that, another method is to Part down to a given size using callipers slightly larger than the required finished diameter.

Thank you Colin for an informative evening.

Club Meeting: 27 May 2015
Report by : Ian Connelly
Photos: Ross Johnson

In typical Terry fashion the demo started with a story about the history of the caddy spoon and how valuable tea was etc. etc.  then he finished by saying what he read on the net was very interesting and we should all go and read it because he had forgotten and just made up everything.  Terry had many different spoons to show, which ranged from functional to purely decorative.

Caddy Spoon

Mount a 47 x 47 block,  in a 50mm chuck with a steb centre in the tailstock

Round with the roughing gouge

Smooth with the skew

Mark out a ‘ball’ at the spoon end, using a parting tool to defined the sides and round roughly

Shape the handle

Terry used a sharpened pipe to tidy up the rounded ball (ideally the pipe diameter is less than the ball diameter ehh Terry)

Remove the tailstock, and clean up the end

DON’T PART OFF YET!

Take out of chuck and use bandsaw to split down the middle (the square end makes this easier)

Make a jam chuck to hollow the spoon, some people may find the hot melt is also required to help hold it.

Sand the spoon and handle.

Cooking Spoon

Mount flat piece of wood between steb centres. (Terry used wood about 12 x 80mm)

Turn the handle

Sand

Part off at end of handle

Shape spoon with bandsaw,  grinder, sander, dremel ……  (hand tools probably work too, but Terry avoids these)

Club Evening; 20 May 2015
Report By: John Smart
Photos: Ross Johnson

Dave spoke about the word Tartle.

‘Tartle’ is a word derived from the Scottish Language which means “The act of hesitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name.” Todays item refers to an item used by Cooks & Bakers it assists in pushing pastry into pie trays.
Supplies; Start with a block 130mm long & 65mm square. Straight grained wood which will withstand frequent washing is recommended.

In Projects on our web page you will find a full article under Tartle it has the various measurements which if you make one of these to get “Brownie Points” you need to check which baking trays  are stored in the cupboard as there is a bit of confusion regarding the diameter at the base & top of the tray plus ensure the depth is taken into account.

As this effort was as a fill in along with our AGM Dave did a job that got our members all looking. Plus his talks about the lathe he has at home and his system he uses for sharpening his tools I expect we will see quite a few of our members trying it out.