Lupe's latest magical creations... her Maloof rockers and tables

We had a nice intimate gathering this month, when one of our more ambitious members – Lupe Nielsen – presented an amazing pair of Sam Maloof inspired rocking chairs and matching side tables.  Built in just 320 hours! More about her process, and tips and tricks later...

But first, we had our usual show and tell.

Pam brought a bark carving that she's been working on - her goal this summer is to put in 10 minutes a day with a carving knife. We were all envious of that dedication! 

Mike brought a few examples of some lasered plywood pieces he's been working on. He’s been trying to perfect his technique, and asked for advice about keeping plywood flat in his laser engraver. (We all said– buy better plywood!) 

These panels could potentially end up in a West Elm catalog, which would be very cool for him!

And Kate brought a few samples of her engraved journal covers,

she's been taking a CAD class and working with laser engraving.

That's some amazing work!

We were also sorry to hear that we were losing a few members - five in total are moving away. We’ll miss Ted’s expertise, Bill’s humor, Pete’s extraordinary cutting boards, Russ’s thoughtful questions,  as well as words of wisdom from our former blog writer John, who is moving permanently to Arizona. It’s always a shame to have members move away, but we wish them well with their relocations. May your shops be cool and productive.

And finally - on to the main event. As always, Lupe’s presentation was detailed and filled with background information. 

Lupe explained that although she's been doing woodworking for about five years, up until three years ago, she would not have had the necessary skills to build these pieces. These demanding chairs required a full range of woodworking expertise, including lathe work, coopering (as in barrel-making), carving, grinding, bandsaw work, bent lamination, sculpting, and more. Not for a rookie!

She did quite a bit of research first, reading several books including Maloof’s biography. 

She thoroughly explored his thoughts about the evolution of this chair, and then researched the various plans that were available, including Charles Brock’s version, William Ng’s design, and eventually settled on Scott Morrison plan. 

One reason was that his plan required only 8/4 lumber, which is much easier to acquire than the 12/4 lumber that is often required in other's plans. Oh, and did I mention that she decided to build a couple of matching tables too? I'm not sure where she gets her energy, but she has all of my respect. 

She warned us that all plans include mistakes, and suggested that a thorough understanding of this chair is necessary before starting it.

Scott's chair design required these special router bits 

to cut this mated joint.

And in addition to those, she bought or borrowed a Lie-Nielsen spoke shave and Auriou number nine rasp. 

After all that shaping -  (whew!) – she THEN used a die grinder and a Holy Galahad wheel on her Milwaukee grinder. 

Much of this process involved making templates that she then transferred to wood and sculpted. 

A particular challenge was the bent lamination of the rockers - she built a one-part jig and laminated a rocker, but was unhappy with it. It needed even pressure for a better glue-up, so she ended up making a two part jig that allowed her to apply better pressure for a stronger lamination. 

These Klingspor memory blocks helped her with the final sanding on all the sculpted parts.

If you know anything about Lupe, you know she is a stickler for a good finish on her pieces. For first coat was Tried and True Danish oil.

This was then followed by Maloof's own poly/oil finish. She started with 180 grit wet sanding, and by the time the last coat was applied, she was up to 1500 grit paper. Whew!  I think she applied six or seven coats, before the final wax.

Why do we always pointed out the flaws in our pieces? 

Lupe explained that she had a few areas that required some TLC. She ended up using a slow curing tinted epoxy to fix a few defects, and some Mohawk stain markers for touching up the epoxied areas. 

Honestly – you had to put on your readers to see any of her mistakes! 

The evening wrapped up with everyone trying out her chairs. We could be more amazed at the work she does, nor more pleased with her efforts. Great work, Lupe!

June 2016 Meeting Announcement!

Grab your calendar RIGHT NOW and mark this date: June 15! 

You’re in for a special treat - not one, but two Maloof-style rocking chairs with matching side tables will be on display this month at our next Sin City Woodworkers meeting.  This is truly a special opportunity to see these very distinctive (and challenging!) chairs up close, and feel the amazing way they fit your body. 

These chairs are considered the epitome of fine woodworking - they challenge every aspect of this craft - including carving, bent lamination, hand tool work, joinery, lathe turning, bandsaw work, shaping, grinding and more… in fact, you won’t find a more difficult and sometimes misunderstood piece of furniture out there. 

So join us at the next Sin City Woodworkers meeting , which will be held on Wednesday, June 15 at 7:00, and one of our more energetic members - Lupe Nielsen will be presenting her two Maloof rockers and matching tables, discussing some trials and tribulations of building them. 

As Lupe says - “Making these chairs has been like taking a graduate class on woodworking.”

Here are a few more details that Lupe shared - these chairs took 340 hours to build, and are made of Black walnut, ebony plugs, wenge detail on the rockers. The side tables are of solid Black walnut

The finish on all pieces included a basecoat of Tried and True Danish Oil, 3 coats of Maloof-finish (linseed oil, Tung Oil, polyurethane), 3 coats of Maloof-wax (Tung Oil, wax). Each application was done with progressively finer grits of sandpaper.

Seriously - this is a MUST-SEE meeting - so join us at Studio: Wood It Is!, 2267 West Gowan, unit 106 in North Las Vegas. As always, the public is welcome to attend the meeting, so members - please feel free to bring a guest along. But remember that there are a limited number of chairs in the woodshop. Attendees might want to bring a folding chair if they wish to sit during the meeting. If you have questions or need directions, call the studio at (702) 631-1870.

It's a Family Affair...

Remember that old Sly and the Family Stone song - It's a Family Affair? 

This month's meeting featured a very laid back group of woodworkers - 

all quite curious about Billy Worthen's Gatling Rubber Band Machine Gun. 



But before he jumped into his presentation - his wife Heather shared a very nice wood carving made on a piece of cottonwood bark. This carving/stamp was designed to be used in wood prints, and although she mentioned having some problems with the ink, I think this print is awesome. (She also shared another talent later in the meeting, but more on that later!) 

 Billy captured the crowd's attention with his creation - inspired by the plans in this magazine.  Here's a link to the plans on the Instructable's website.  

He brought copies of the plan, and shared some REALLY valuable things he's learned while making these toys. 

His first suggestion was to make sure that you download the plans and check the ruler that's printed on each page, to ensure that you're cutting the parts to the correct size. (You can see the ruler in the lower left corner in the picture below.)

Next - he told the group two very interesting tips - instead of using spray adhesive to mount the pattern on the wood, a better solution is to cover the wood in blue tape first, and THEN attach the pattern on top of the blue tape. 

This accomplishes two things - first, the blue tape can be removed from the wood very easily, so there is no adhesive residue like you would have if you glued the paper directly to the wood. (Good to know!) 

Even more importantly - the blue tape actually does two things to help you cut the pieces - first it helps avoid chipout, and more importantly, the tape actually helps lubricate the scrollsaw blade, making it cut much more easily. (Great tip, Billy!)

Some of the other suggestions he mentioned included buying your rubber bands first, so that the length of the barrels could be adjusted to fit the bands. 

Each barrel has to have a notch in the end of it, and he suggested making a jig to drill a hole in the dowel, and then simply cutting the dowel in two, creating a notch on one end of each dowel. That's another sweet time-saving tip!

This meeting really brought out the kids in all of us, as we passed the gun around, taking turns shooting our fellow members. 

Billy and Heather also create a nice line of wooden wares for sale in their Etsy store - take a look here:  Hobbyholica

They also brought a few of these very simple (but clever!) marshmallow guns that they made for their son's birthday party. Each attendee received a plain wooden shooter, and then were given the opportunity to color them with markers and crayons.  

What a terrific idea, and I think adults would enjoy this, as well!

One of our members brought a huge selection of hardware to sell, and Beth ended up buying it and then selling off bits and pieces of it to various members. Everyone seemed pretty pleased - there were drawer slides and great knobs, hinges and much more - a good deal for all involved in this transaction! 

And finally - that family affair thing I mentioned - Heather brought a loaf of her homemade bread, and sliced it up at the end of the meeting. (Her creativity is not limited to just working with wood!) 

This loaf disappeared in no time, and it was a nice way to close out the meeting. Thanks to both Billy and Heather for hosting such a nice night at the shop. You two make a great team, and sharing your talents was much appreciated!

Ann's a little off-center and we love it!

We had an intimate gathering of woodworkers for our April meeting - with some new faces joining us, which is always a treat! 

After our usual introductions and some business chit-chat, we settled into out show and tell, which featured Beth Wheeler's spoons, these were both turned on the lathe AND hand carved. She also brought one of the stools that we worked on from last month's meeting, finished and looking gorgeous. 

Mike Shore shared some of his turned pieces, explaining that he's been away from the lathe for a while with some health issues, but that it's great to be back working with wood. 

 Heather Worthen brought this terrific wood burned slab, and bragged a bit about her hubby Billy - whose Lego Tie is going to be featured in a Legoland commercial.

She also shared that their work - a 3-D butterfly puzzle received a nice mention in Scrollsaw Woodworking and Crafts Magazine.  Congrats to both of them for building a terrific presence in the world of wood! 

Even from Arizona, John Eugster managed to share some of his latest work - this intricate frame that he not only built, carved AND applied the gold leaf. All we had was a picture of it, but it sure was gorgeous. It's one of the last of six frames that are headed to a show in South Carolina, featuring his wife Diane's paintings. We wish them both a ton of luck!

  And finally - our guest presenter and one of our original members - Ann Casey.  Ann has dabbled in a lot of various art forms  - from marquetry and furniture making to marble carving, but it's safe to say she's found her sweet spot in turning wood. She's been at it for a few years - after taking her first serious lesson in late 2011.  Ann has dabbled with faceplate work -  bowls and platters, to spindle work.  

She constantly challenges herself with new and difficult methods and techniques, and for our meeting - she bravely attempted off center turning, which - when done on both sides of a lid, produces a lovely lace-like effect. 

Armed with her tools and a variety of experiments, she explained that the choice of wood - 

its dryness, weight and density all play a part in the success of this undertaking. 

Here is partially turned lid - you can see the on center cuts on the bottom, and the off center cut on the top. 

Accuracy in finding the center, and marking the off-center distance for re-chucking the lathe are important for success.

Because the wood is spinning off center, she explained that the weight is critical - too heavy a piece and the lathe can vibrate right across the floor.

 Her long handled Mike Jackofsky gouge gets braces tightly against her body, to steady the tool against all the vibration.

 She uses both a skew chisel and a parting tool to round over each groove that she's cut into the lid. Finding the optimum death for each groove is painstaking work, and going just a bit too deep can destroy the lid. Here's she's working on the top of the top, but later will re-mount the lid to work on the underside. 

 This isn't for the faint of heart - there are so many things that can go wrong when turning off center, and cutting wood away from both sides of the lid is an even more harrowing undertaking. She brought in these Sand-its, which help a great deal when getting into tight spots. 

And as she got closer to finishing the lid....

 BAM!

Oh well! We learned a great deal about her process and got a glimpse into her creative journey. A wise man once said - Each an every effort has value in the end. Even in disappointment, the worth and beauty are often found within the dance of doing. 

Our group's success is due to members like Ann, who give freely of their time and expertise, sharing their successes and the lessons they learn along the way. We certainly enjoyed Ann's efforts! 

_________________

And last but not least - a special thanks to Lupe for everything photo related - taking our photos, making and editing videos, and uploading everything to Dropbox - her efforts are SO appreciated!

Enjoy this video!