| Inland Woodturners Newsletter | May 2006 |
Again we gathered at the Janet Goeske Senior Center in Riverside. Our meeting brought out many of our members and a few new folks, namely Paul Assad, Norm Peckham and George Neander, who all hail from the Yucaipa and San Bernardino area. We also had the use of our new Jet lathe recently returned from its use at the Edward Dean museum show and demonstrations. The lathe was to be used for the first time today by Darrell Harris in a demonstration of bowl turning. More later.
Our president, Matt Heffron, mentioned that the AAW conference will soon be upon us in Louisville, Kentucky, and for those planning to be there it is time to make final arrangements.
Our librarian John Stoner says that some of the videos and books are overdue and please bring them back soon.
There was no new information on the club T-shirts. Stand by for more information. (I still want a vest instead of a t-shirt.)
There was a recent e-mail from the AAW asking if there are club members who would be willing to demonstrate at the 2007 AAW symposium in Portland, Oregon. More information can be had from Matt Heffron.
Finally, we are trying to arrange to have a demonstration in August from a turner from Vancouver, Canada, namely Art Liestman. A fee will asked from all attendees. More information on this turner will be forthcoming.
Speaking of demonstrations, three of our members were able to attend the demonstrations by Dick Sing while he was in the area earlier in the month.
This day was to be the last day of the exhibit and demonstrations at the Edward Dean Museum in Cherry Valley. Putting on the exhibit was a lot of work for many of our members, but especially for Mary and Kurt Baruch, who are docents at the museum and made most of the arrangements for us to show our work and for the demonstrators. The turnings from the exhibit will be returned and members can pick up the turnings they lent for the exhibit at the upcoming meeting on the 25th of June. Kurt Baruch has agreed to bring the turnings back (Thank you, Kurt!) and you will be able to take them home after the meeting. Thanks to all who had a part in the exhibit and the demonstrations.
Finally, an announcement was made about our raffle chairman Glenn Honeycutt, who is in the hospital awaiting a heart transplant. I am pleased to report that Glenn got his new heart and is on the road to recovery. His wife says that he’ll be making trips into Los Angeles for checkups and/or repairs for awhile but things are looking up and I’m sure we all wish him well.
One final announcement concerned Dave Holzberger who had won three ribbons for his turnings and carvings at the Woodworking Show held last January. Out of the blue he received a special gift from Lee Valley Tools in recognition of his fine craftsmanship. The gift turned out to be a large low-angle plane worth about $190! Way to go, Dave.
The Challenge for May was to make a lidded box of some sort. There were seven entries in the challenge. The first to show was John Stoner who brought two lidded boxes made from avocado wood. Dave Holzberger also used avocado for one of the two boxes he brought. The box also sported a top made from some exotic wood. Dave’s other box was turned from chestnut wood. Gary Bingham turned his box from cherry, but painted it a bright chartreuse color which really caught our eye. Gary also said that he got inspiration from the book by Richard Raffan on boxes, which he brought in to show. Dwain Hardwick turned his 6 inch tall lidded box from juniper wood. Unfortunately, he cracked the box by using too heavy a hand when using his chuck in the expanding mode. The final entry in the challenge was from your notekeeper. I turned the lidded box from some exotic wood that I received in the wood raffle, so I can’t be more specific as to species. The lid was different from all the others in-as-much as it is one called a wobble lid and is removed by poking at a specific spot on the lid which lifts the other side of the lid so that you can get a finger under the lid and remove it. My box was made to hold postage stamps and it is happy in that humble station.
All those entering the challenge were given raffle tickets and the ticket chosen was held by Gary Bingham. Congratulations, Gary, and thanks to all who took part in the challenge.
John Stoner was the first one to show the turning he’s made recently. It was a new type of pen made using a piece of exotic wood from the stock of our own importer of fine woods, Dwain Hardwick. John’s pen was of a design that I had not seen before. The elegant style is called the Sierra design and uses only one piece of wood instead of two. It does require that you buy special bushings but uses the common 7mm size mandrel. I was so impressed that I went out to Rockler the following week and bought a kit, the necessary bushings, and a nice piece of dymondwood to make my own pen. If you are careful you can get two wood blanks from one piece of the wood we buy for pens. But watch out for the brittleness of the dymondwood. I broke the first half of the material by drilling too aggressively, but managed to drill the second half successfully. Thanks for sharing your expertise, John.
I don’t know where Dave Holzberger gets his chestnut wood but he showed two recent turnings made from the lovely but holey wood. The first was a nicely shaped bowl about nine or ten inches in diameter, and the second, a pen made with the warm colored wood.
Next up was Larry Cooper with several turnings, such as an 11 inch diameter shallow bowl and an olive wood vase. That bowl and another bowl he called a banana bowl both won prizes at the San Bernardino County Fair. Another bowl, a natural edged one in English walnut won “Best of Show”. Larry also brought a tree ornament turned in part from dymondwood. All together an impressive show of talent from the high desert.
Another high desert turner was Bob Rodriguez with a nicely turned and finished bowl in maple. Bob also showed an olive wood vase which unfortunately got rather distorted in the drying process. Olive will do that to you, but we are all tempted to turn green wood and not allow enough wood to re-turn the wood after the piece has been roughed out and then allowed to dry and stabilize before re-chucking it and turning it to the final shape. I’ve had my share of these pieces of dried out wood that are now too distorted to even get back on a chuck. So they become fancy firewood.
Gary Bingham showed a vase made from the exotic wood estorque, and also a homemade steady rest he made for the hollowing out process when you have to go deep into a rather long piece of wood. He also showed one of the books which inspires him, “Turning Projects” by Richard Raffan. I’m not sure if we have that one in the club’s library.
Jim Thompson came to us with a modified and rebuilt meat mallet. He used the old metal part and turned a new wooden head from Brazilian pallet wood, and a handle from hickory. Hope you get that throat cancer under control, Jim.
Last, but not least, was Bob Beckel with a nicely finished 6 inch diameter plate turned from an unknown wood. The finish Bob used was MinWax brand of Polyurthane.
A final thought. How well did we get on with the critiqueing of the pieces as they were presented at the Challenge and Show and Tell? Not too well I’d say. We need to not be anxious to return to our seats. Bearing in mind that the critique idea is a new one for us, we need to try to make an greater effort to discuss the pieces while the creator of the piece is up there to answer questions. Let’s keep working on this.
Our demo of the afternoon was to be the first use of our new club lathe at the Goeske Senior Center. Darrell was all set to turn a bowl from a rather large piece of dry eucalyptus wood. But after struggling with the wood for awhile he abandoned it and found a softer piece of wood to continue the demo. It isn’t impossible to turn bone dry wood but it sure takes longer. So, for the sake of speeding up the procedure another softer, and perhaps greener, piece of wood was found for the demo. Darrell went through all the steps of shaping the outside of the piece and preparing a means to reverse the wood in order to hollow out the inside. Sanding and finishing the piece were given only a lick and a promise. This was to be a demo of the shaping and hollowing steps. We still need to work out some of the bugs of our set-up, but in time all will be ready when one of the professional turners come to pay us a call.
Before the meeting started a few of us got there early to bring the lathe in and re-assemble it. Dave Holzberger had made a locking box to hold our chucks and other tools, to keep them from walking off. So we owe Dave a vote of thanks for this special effort. Pete Preschern was there to haul the machine to the meeting in his van. And as more people got to the meeting there were other hands to share the load of getting the lathe ready to go.
The final event of the day was the wood raffle, but in fact there wasn’t much wood to raffle off. But Harold Hardy produced, as if from thin air, a large group of precut rounds of a hard tropical wood. Some of it was two sizes of wood glued together as if it was planned for a certain job. Harold donated the wood to our raffle and saved the day. Many thanks Harold.
I say Challenges because there are to be two challenges, if you are willing to accept them. The first challenge is to turn a bowl as shown by Darrell. It can be any size or style, in any wood.
The second challenge is to design and make a gavel for the use of our president. The pieces in this second challenge will be subject to judging by members of the club. The winners of both challenges will be rewarded with gift certificates. So, get designing and turning. Let the chips and sanding dust fly!
--Pall, your friendly notekeeper
June 25, 2006 @ 1pm