Holy Mola!... this was a terrific meeting!

There was a gorgeous rainbow over the woodshop - perhaps it portended what a great meeting we had in store for September. Everyone settled in as we discussed a few things on the agenda - the Christmas party project,

 and a few show-and-tell pieces that members brought in to share. 

Neal made it a point of saying that he has given up working on cars, and moved into carving.  From what we saw, he made a great decision; his work is delicate and gorgeous.

John brought in a few bowls that he was giving to Lupe, who discussed her new online business adventure  - the Artisan Wood Market.  Her plans include featuring work by many local artists, and then branching into marketing these wares to local buyers. She has a talented and diverse group of woodworkers within our group, that's for sure. 

These bowls will join a growing inventory of pieces, both large and small, that will hopefully sell well during the holiday season. 

Our featured speakers were Cindy and Marylou, who started LazerLadies in North Las Vegas and offer full service layering engraving services.  

After eight years in the Air Force, MaryLou was inspired to start a full service company after seeing a need for military gifts, trophies and mementos in our town.  Along with their "secret weapon" - Papa (AKA, their father Ramon), these sisters offer laser engraving, screen printing, embroidery and custom woodworking, selling their wares worldwide. 

They brought a variety of their products, explaining that their four Epilog laser engravers  create a variety of military pieces, serving a much needed niche in the military community. 

About 90% of their sales come from the Department of Defense, and the fact that their company is veteran owned and operated is a huge advantage when working with the military community. 

And although they started with the idea of serving this community, they've branched out into many more areas, creating personalized pieces for the general community including schools and corporations. 

This jet was way cool! 

And the detail on this piece was amazing. 

Papa came up with this sweet little wooden base which holds a lasered flask and two shot glasses. It's precisely custom gifts like this that give the LazerLadies a great reputation for being able to come up with the perfect gift for anyone, regardless of their interests or status. 

This coin holder opens up to reveal a (lasered!) bio for the recipient, 

and one of his military coins. 

And YES.... 

they can even do baseball bats!

The main purpose of having them as our featured guests was to introduce their services to our woodworking community, and as our meeting came to a close, we all checked out Lupe's latest creation - her massive "Mola" Bookcase made of Cherry.  

As always, she wowed us with her impressive furniture making, but what made this piece particularly special was how she personalized it with laser engraved panels in the lower doors. 

Inspired by Panamanian Mola quilted designs, 

she hired the LazerLadies to engrave her door panels.  

As Lupe explained in a detailed write-up of her piece, "Molas are pieces of embroidered artwork made by the Kuna Indians of Panama. These depict themes from nature - mostly animals and plants. I picked two elements that would look graceful on the doors: a fish and a sea turtle."

Our Sin City Woodworkers group has been around going on eight years, and Lupe is certainly one of our more inspired and motivated members. And this meeting embodied what we're all about - sharing talents and techniques, and networking with other woodworkers. A big thanks to Cindy and Marylou (and Lupe too!) for bringing this all together. 

A Bittersweet Farewell to John...

It was a warm night, but some of our dedicated members met to give John Eugster a proper send off. John's been a long time member of our group, and he's moving to Arizona to start a second chapter in his life. 

As always, we started the meeting with our introductions, and a few members shared some things they brought. Eric brought some samples granite, explaining how he sharpens on the stone for a perfectly flat bevel on his chisels.

With just some simple wet or dry sand paper, you can sharpen chisels quite efficiently. One of our new members, Michael, walked away with a piece of the stone, and I'm sure he's already gotten a pretty good edge on his chisels.

As always, you never know who's going to pop up at one of our meetings, and we were delighted to have the owners of California Pacific Specialty Woods, who came by to talk about their products and services. Their mill is located in Red Bluff, California and they sell a variety of slab and log products. 

Need a claro walnut live edge slab? 

Or some Oak for a live edge table?

No problem!  Their website has a huge selection of slabs, lumber, turning blanks, gunstock and more. Check out their lumber page here.

On to more business... we talked a bit about the Christmas party, and what we would be choosing for our woodworking contest. From the sounds of things, the theme of this year's holiday contest will be BoxMaking. I'm sure that will work out much better than last year's toy making contest.  (That was a dud.)

It was fitting that John brought his Canarywood chair that he'd built many years ago - for it was this exact chair that we was working on when we first got to know him. 

John began the discussion on reinventing himself as a woodworker in Arizona talking about his older work - like this chair,

 but explained that transitioning to a smaller woodshop meant that he's now working on smaller pieces - mainly picture frames. As most know, his wife Diane is a fine artist, specializing in painting, and John is her main frame-maker. 

John explained that "A frame is just a frame; the painting is the star" but I'd have to disagree - John's frames are works of art in their own right.  In most cases, John starts with poplar or basswood, machining the stock into a frame profile, and then carving a variety of motifs into the wood. 

Celtic knots and bougainvillea leaves are popular, but he tries to match the frame to each painting. He starts by making some basic design template, 

and then transfers it to the wood using dividers.  The BIG trick is owning enough chisels that one needs to make each cut! 

This Art Deco frame, and many others, feature gilding, in which gold leaf is applied to the wood. John explained the differences between real gold leaf and composition gold leaf, which was much cheaper, but had a very different appearance.

 His gilding techniques is laborious - and includes sizing with a clay base, gilding the actual metal to the wood, and then a variety of finishing layers that include shellac, steel wool, wax and a final rottenstone polish.

 No wonder some of John's frames sell for what they do!

As always, it's sad to see people leave our woodworking community - but we wish John and Diane all the best in their next chapter of life. Thanks for the memories, and all the enriching discussions that you shared with us - we'll miss you!

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.