Craobh Eo Woodturners tackle captive ring goblet at July meeting

Sean Byrne turned Craobh Eo Woodturners’ July meeting into a practical lesson in one of the lathe’s most intimidating forms, guiding members through a captive ring goblet from a 160 mm by 80 mm blank at the CraobhEo Centre in Aghamore. The club’s July 9 session focused less on showpiece polish than on the sequence that makes the form workable: round the blank, mark the cup and base, hollow the goblet, then leave the ring section until the shape is ready to be cut.

Byrne’s method showed why the project looks harder than it is on first glance. He turned the cup area to its finished diameter, reduced the ring area, deepened the section beside the first ring, then made narrow incisions before using a ring tool to free each ring. The emphasis throughout was on light cuts and careful control from the sides, so the form stayed round and needed less sanding later. He also sanded as he went, then used tape to hold loose rings back against the stem while the second ring was formed, before sanding through the grits until the rings were fully round.

That approach fit the kind of project captive ring goblets have long represented in woodturning: a traditional Irish wedding gift, usually turned from a single piece of wood and finished with two captured rings. The club’s report framed the goblet not as a specialist showpiece reserved for experts, but as a repeatable exercise in tool control and sequencing, with the ring tool doing the key work once the stem and ring sections were properly prepared.

Craobh Eo Woodturners, the Mayo chapter of the Irish Woodturners’ Guild, said the club was established in 2004 and meets every second Thursday at the CraobhEo Centre, also known as the Old Schoolhouse, in Aghamore, Co. Mayo. The Irish Woodturners’ Guild was founded in 1983 and now has 18 chapters across the island of Ireland, giving the club’s monthly meetings a wider place in an active turning network.

The evening also widened out beyond the goblet itself. Byrne discussed related gift ideas, including an earring holder for Christmas and a whiskey tumbler, while the club report noted that captive-ring techniques also show up on baby rattles, honey dippers, bottle stoppers and coffee scoops. Competition results rounded out the night, with Pat O’Malley, Sean Byrne and Denis O’Donnell recognized in the advanced group, and Tom Donnelly, Sean Byrne and Shane Henry listed in the intermediate section. The meeting’s strongest lesson was clear from the benchside demo: a captive ring goblet becomes far less daunting once the cuts are broken into a sequence turners can repeat.