January saw our first club night of 2024 with Jeff Belcher demonstrating a Nutcracker.

     

Jeff made a homemade jig to bore the body of the nutcracker, holding it in place with cable ties and hot melt glue.

The body was 60mm diameter with a 41mm hole drilled with a forstner bit to accommodate the nuts, being careful not to go too deep and go through the side of the body. The bottom of the hole was then scraped out with a round nose scraper to remove the forstner bit centre hole.

The wood used was boxwood, but any dense wood is suitable such as yew and fruit wood, these are also ideal to cut threads with.  Having removed the body from the jig a 16mm hole was cut for the thread, a 5/8″ tap was used.

     

The body was held in the chuck jaws by the spigot and shaped with a skew chisel, and the spigot at the front of the nutcracker was removed.  The body was then held in a jam chuck and the bottom spigot was removed and the bottom of the body was concaved to ensure it stood upright.

     

To make the plunger a 5/8″ diameter cutter was used in a wood threading kit.  A plunger of 19mm was turned and measured to length against the body, with a curve in the bottom of the plunger to accommodate the positioning of the nut.  To finish a handle was then turned and shaped for the plunger, this was secured with pins to locate its position, The nutcracker was then finished with a sanding sealer,  waxed and buffed.

     

Jeff brought with him a number of examples of his work for members to have a look at.

There was also a display table showing some of the work recently completed by the members.

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 29th February when our demonstrator will be Danni Flowers.

Look forward to seeing you all then.