Craobh Eo Woodturners demo iridescent finishes on ash clock and tee-light holder

Craobh Eo Woodturners packed turning, decoration and finishing into one lively night at the CraobhEo Centre in Aghamore, where Colm Brennan of the Sligo Chapter showed how an 11-inch ash blank could become both a wall clock and a tee-light holder with iridescent paint.

The club’s May 14 meeting, held on the second Thursday of the month at The Old School House in Aughamore, leaned hard into practical detail. Brennan started by cutting out the center for the clock insert, then reused that same cut-out piece for the tee-light holder, a neat bit of workshop economy that gave the evening a clear through-line from blank to finished display pieces. He worked the forms, cut the recess, tidied the surfaces, remounted in Cole jaws and sanded through the grits before the decorative stage began.

That finishing sequence was the real draw. Brennan protected the lathe from spray, laid down a matt black acrylic lacquer base coat, then mixed Jo Sonja iridescent paints with flow medium and applied the colours with an artist’s brush. Cling film and the spinning lathe helped move and blend the paint across the surface before he sealed everything with a matt clear acrylic lacquer. The result was a demonstration that kept the turning visible under the colour instead of burying it.

For Craobh Eo, the night fit the club’s long-running format. The group describes itself as a chapter of the Irish Woodturners Guild and meets every second Thursday of the month in Aughamore, about a mile off the N17 between Kilkelly and Knock. Its address is The Old School House, Aughamore, Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, F35 X375. The club was founded in 2004 and, in a 2024 profile, was described as having 55 members across the West, with Willie Creighton named among the founders and credited with years of teaching and outreach work.

The competitive side of the evening gave the meeting a proper scoreboard feel. Denis O’Donnell took first place in the advanced competition, Brendan Calvey finished second and Paddy Treacy placed third, with Brennan present for the awards. It was the kind of result sheet that shows a club still measuring itself on standards, not just attendance.

Brennan’s own background suited the demo well. Design & Crafts Council Ireland lists him as a Sligo woodturner who sources local wood and fully handcrafts his work, and the Sligo Woodturning Chapter, where he comes from, says it has been operating since 1995 and meets on the third Wednesday of each month. By the end of the night, the message from Aghamore was clear enough: one ash blank, two objects and a finish that added colour without losing the turning underneath.