The York Woodworkers Association

Transcription

1 The York Woodworkers Association Newsletter for June 2017 Greetings all and welcome to the June 2017 club newsletter. The goal of the letter is to provide timely information on club activities and things going on around the area that may be of interest to our members. The letter is intended to combine with the website as your source for info on club and regional doings. We ll cover what s happening at meetings, recent projects, tips, techniques and help wanted questions. If you have suggestions for segments you d like to see added to the newsletter, please drop me an at (tom23.browning@gmail.com). So let s get to the news Message from the Prez: Well, we had a wonderful trip to Amana Iowa, but before we got there we stopped overnight in Le Clair (Iowa), home of the American Pickers. Their Iowa shop is right across the street from the Mississippi River. We visited their shops (old and new one) and talked to the employees. No, Mike, Frank and Danielle were not there, they were out picking! We had a good visit including touring Wild Bill Cody museum and the old steam driven river boat. On to Amana, I just thought I had some tools. Well if they didn t have it you didn t need it. If it was a hand tool, they had it, and usually more than a dozen or so of them. I was amazed at the demonstration, especially the one making a Windsor chair from green white oak that had been split and worked on a shave horse using draw knife and spoke shaves. Well I can see another class coming in my near future. We really enjoyed the trip, tools, and presentations. I would recommend this trip to anyone. It is every 2 years. Look up Handworks.com and look for 2017 for info. Helpful Hints: During my 2 days in Amana, more than once I heard the remark you have got to have sharp tools. This applies whether it is a hand or power tool. Maybe there is someone who would like to do a presentation on how to sharpen tools. Dues: Remember dues are due. If you haven t paid yours for 2017 please get with Donnie at the June meeting or you can mail it to him at: Donnie Lee, 5090 Lockhart Hwy., Sharon SC

2 May Meeting: The May meeting went almost 2 hours and was attended by 19 members and guests despite the rain. The club also gained a new member-ed E_more@sbcglobal.net. Please introduce yourself to Ed at the next meeting and make him feel welcome. We now have 31 members in the club and planning to grow from there. We even had one of the charter members in attendance Mr. John Chason. Donnie Lee hobbled about the shop and gave us an excellent presentation on turning a bowl on the lathe. Chinaberry tree that her husband had recently felled. This would serve as the starting point for the bowl. More on the Chinaberry tree later. His neighbor Mrs. Helen Maloney gave him a section of a Donnie s bowl making technique is known to turners as a once-turned bowl. You start with a green blank, fresh off the tree. A blank is often chosen from the junction of two major branches because it yields a dramatic grain pattern in the finished bowl. You can see an example at the right. The red line shows the outline of the bowl blank as it will come out of the wood. The blank is usually sawn in half to remove the pith from where most cracks originate and a block or bowl blank is created. Donnie drills a 3/8 inch hole in the face of the blank for attaching it to the lathe chuck via a worm screw. You can see some bowl blanks that are ready for turning at the right. 3/8 hole for worm screw Once it s on the lathe, Donnie attacks shaping the outside of the blank with a well-sharpened 1 roughing gouge, a ½ and a 5/8 bowl gouge. The final shape evolves as a blend of what s in Donnie s mind and what the blank will yield. Here he has chosen a deep bowl shape with straight sides that merge into a catenary curved bottom. A tenon is also cut at the bottom of the bowl with a parting tool and a spindle gouge. The tenon is needed to reverse the bowl on the chuck so you can hollow out the inside. Its diameter is a precise fit to the chuck jaws for maximum holding strength. After sanding to 400 grit the outside is complete and the hollowing of the bowl can begin.

3 At this point in our story an apology is necessary. Your intrepid Newsletter editor was asleep at the switch and did not get a picture of Donnie hollowing the interior of the bowl my bad! So with apologies to Donnie, I substituted a pic of a bowl that I turned several years ago to give you an image of hollowing a bowl. This is when the chips really fly and Donnie accidently sprayed some on the members viewing the demonstration from behind him with chips. Again the weapons-of-choice are a ½ inch bowl gouge and a long-handled scraper. The scraper serves the same purpose as your card scraper does on flat work. It smooths out tool marks prior to sanding. With the interior smoothed and sanded, and the tenon removed we have the final form of the bowl. Next the finish sanding is completed and several coats of lacquer are applied. Finally a top coat of carnauba wax is applied to get the WOW factor. We are all indebted to Donnie for the demo. He was hobbling about on the shop floor only eight weeks after knee surgery turning a bowl for us ringing wet with sweat.. and one tired puppy when he was done. Thank you Donnie. My brother-in-law Jeff Penley attended our May meeting. He and I were so inspired by Donnie s presentation that we headed directly back to Jeff s house and under the glare of my truck s headlights plotted a possible career path for two old Chinaberry trees growing in his backyard. Check This Out: The Chinaberry tree that yielded Donnie s bowl has an interesting story behind it. Known scientifically as Melia azedarach, it is commonly known by many names, including chinaberry tree. It is a species of deciduous tree in the mahogany family, Meliaceae that is native to Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. The plant was introduced around 1830 as an ornamental in the United States (South Carolina and Georgia) and widely planted in the southern states. Today it is considered an invasive species by some groups as far north as Virginia and Oklahoma. But nurseries continue to sell the trees, and seeds are also widely available. The main utility of Chinaberry is its timber. It is of medium density, and ranges in color from light brown to dark red. In appearance it is readily confused with the unrelated Burmese teak. Melia has a timber of high quality, but as opposed to many almost-extinct species of mahogany, it is underutilized. Seasoning is relatively simple, in that planks dry without cracking or warping and are resistant to fungal infection. Older dried wood however can be harder than the head of a 12-year old!

4 June Meeting: We ll be back at Jimmy Matthews s shop. This month we ll have a follow up presentation by Harold Roddey on how to build the Zig-Zag box and a panel presentation comparing the Go To finish techniques of three of our members. Hopefully we can de-mystify the art of finishing a bit. Who s making chips?? John Sherer has been busy building a his and her chest-of- drawer set. The pieces are made of walnut with white maple inlay. The finishing begins with a 50/50 mix of boiled linseed oil and clear gloss polyurethane. Then 3 coats of 100 % waxfree shellac and 2 coats rubof polyurethane (satin and gloss 50/50 mixture). Of course sanding between coats. John- Thanks for sharing! More Chips: It s not really making chips, but it s as close to woodworking as I ll get until my shop is built. My son got married last weekend and his bride-to-be wanted a rustic trellis for the ceremony. I chain-sawed a couple of trees, pulled some vines down and put this together in the garage. I can t wait for that shop to get built!! Classes at Woodcraft: HVLP Spray Finishing, Saturday, June 17, 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM at the Charlotte store Woodcarving Basics, Saturday, June 24, 9:30 AM - 1:30 PM Regards, Tom Browning Tom23.browning@gmail.com New Subscriptions: Names and Addresses: If you know of someone I ve missed in sending this newsletter out, I do apologize for that. Please get me a name and address, so I can set the matter straight. Names and address of subscribers of this newsletter are used only for the communication of club business. They are never sold or distributed for any other purpose. Should you receive any unwanted communication that you believe originated from your subscription to this newsletter please advise a club officer so appropriate action can be taken.

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