And so it begins ---- on Wednesday the 21st., we had about 23 members attend our monthly meeting:
Waiting for the Start
As you can see, the featured presentation has to do with carving so there were all kinds of little caricatures looking back at us. Jamie wasn't too crazy about some of "the eyes" staring at the audience while Randy gave his presentation! As is customary, we began with the round robin introductions and it seems as if we had a low key response tonight, even a number of folks sneaking in after the meeting began; were they hoping to be anonymous today? During the introductions Ed brought up (subtly of course) the fact that he was the national winner at the AWFS show and is now the proud owner of a SawStop --- what luck he had to be selected. Congratulations Ed!! Jamie mentioned that voicing problems about certain manufacturers booths and their lack of customer service brought results. If you went to the show you too probably encountered some booths that were friendly and eager to share their information with you and then some others that seemed to care less. One of those, SuperMax; was mentioned by Jamie in her blog and she was contacted by the president of the company to apologize. Good for them! One other item of business was the Lie-Nielsen tool event held at WoodItIs. According to Jamie, the turn out seemed to be better than last year but she wondered if the revenue may have been less. Several members mentioned that the addition of a booth manned by Dennis and Scott demonstrating their carving skills was a great success and addition to the event.
Show & Tell
The theme of our meeting was caricature carving. Neal brought in some of his relief carving examples to share for contrast. As you can see, he also paints them for more contrast --- seems pretty relaxed and laid back tonight. Carving is a pretty relaxing endeavor isn't it Neal?
Purple Heart & Myrtle wood Tie
Bracelets
The Worthen family brought in items to share as well. The entire family obviously spends time in the shop creating various items out of wood. Starting with the Dad, Billy who brought in some lathe turned bracelets and a wooden tie! The bracelets are Myrtle wood and Olive wood. This tie (modeled by our very own Jim C.) is made from Purpleheart and Myrtle wood.
His son Will is also active in the workshop and brought in this very intricate, scroll saw cut jig saw puzzle. You can see the skill needed to cut those intricate pieces so flawlessly. Not to be left out was Heather, the Mom. She practices the craft of pyrography which utilizes a wood burning pen to "burn" an image onto the wood. She further enhances the burning process with water colors. Many of her pieces originate from her own photographs. If you're unfamiliar with this craft, here is a LINK showing what a basic wood burning pen looks like. Heather explained it's by using different tips and adjusting the heat settings that she's able to come up with these beautiful creations.
Our final show and tell for the evening was brought in by Adam. Since it is a rather large bar he showed it to us on his phone. He works for a convention company that builds displays and obviously this was for a liquor convention. Adam said he learned a lot of different aspects on the project including how to work with various laminates and aluminum edging. After the meeting he, Jamie, and myself were talking about having a way to share projects our members have made using a Pico Projector. Now, you know me -- hand cut joints, hand planed surfaces, etc. so this new fangled electronic stuff is somewhat of a mystery! Here's a LINK explaining the basics of a Pico Projector. Jamie thought it may be something we'd want to invest some of the club funds in so our members could share projects that are too big to bring to the meetings. Think about that, I'm guessing it may come up as an item for our next meeting.
Featured Presentation
Randy Glau -- Carving Presentation
Randy began his carving career on a serious level after retiring from 30 years in the steel mill. Obviously, wood is going to work much easier than steel to create all of the caricatures he's created in the 10 years since retirement! He started out with a book and a knife by copying what he saw on the pages of that book until his first block of wood looked like something totally different. He found this to be a enjoyable and challenging endeavor and soon found a local woodcarving club where his skills and abilities continued to increase to the excellent body of work he brought to the meeting. His preference is to add a bit of color to his carvings, a process that begins with a light coat of Deft to partially seal the wood. He then uses a craft grade of acrylic paint that has been thinned quite a bit, this allows the wood grain to show through and the final results are a carving that has an aged appearance to it.
Cypress Knee
He generally uses basswood for his work but showed examples of other materials he's worked with including this Cyprus knee. He mentioned carving one of these that happened to have eight "things" sticking up. He turned that into Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs -- I've seen that piece and it's a show stopper!
Knowing Randy personally I'll share something I learned about him -- he always has a piece of wood and a knife handy no matter where he goes. You'll even find wood chips inside of his car! When he goes shopping with his wife he doesn't mind at all if she takes her time selecting what she needs, he just pulls out a knife and goes to work. He mentioned a multi-bladed knife made by Flexcut called the Carvin' Jack. There are many places to buy these, including locally at Woodworkers Emporium. Here is a LINK from Amazon showing various models but let me encourage you to buy local if possible.
Some of Randy's Tools
Like all woodworking pursuits, tools are a requirement. According to Randy, you can get by with just a fairly basic knife but it's best to buy a quality one so it'll work the wood and not frustrate you --- cheaply made tools are no bargain! As you progress with woodcarving you'll probably fine yourself buying tools as needed to get the results you want. A trick he shared was one he learned from his carving mentor back in Chicago. He discovered that many old kitchen knives have excellent steel and can be re-purposed for carving. You could find those at garage sales and customize them for your needs.
Stella says: "where's the dog proportion chart?"
Even though the caricatures tend to be a somewhat comical representation of people, the proportions need to be correct. To help you with that you can find charts that size the human body according to head. Randy brought in a couple of them and I imagine they're available on line and art supply stores. When it comes to actually carving the wood there are probably as many approaches as there are carvers but Randy gave us a couple of insights as to his process. First of all, he suggested that if the carving has a hat, do that first and then scale everything else below it to "fit under the hat". You should always cut away from yourself as you carve and hold the knife in such a way that you are creating a fulcrum point to pivot the tool rather than wildly pushing it away as you carve. It's always a necessity to re-draw your design while you're working on it. Very easy to lose sight of what you hope to carve because you continually cut away the design during the process.
When it comes to tools and keeping them sharp there are probably as many variations as there are people who use them! Randy shared some of his techniques with us on his approach to tool care, use, and sharpening. He suggests stropping your tool after every 15 minutes or so of use to maintain the edge. In this way, you rarely need to sharpen that tool unless you drop it of course! Here's a LINK to a short video showing his stropping technique using a honing powder.
Randy and Dennis started a woodcarving club that meets the fourth Saturday of every month at Woodworkers Emporium. Here is a LINK to their latest newsletter. Randy brought in these examples of carving Cottonwood bark houses which was an activity for last Saturday's meeting (10/24). Members that attended were 3 of the Worthen family, Neal, plus my wife and I. For $5.00 we all had a good lesson and start on making our own Gnome Home! There is another class scheduled for next year dealing with chip carving. That person has a bunch of Basswood boxes and will demonstrate and teach how to go about carving those. If you're interest was piqued by Randy's excellent presentation, mark your calendar and plan to spend a Saturday seeing more of what carvings all about. Woodcarvers of Las Vegas meets from 9-12 on the 4th. Saturday of each month. I'll leave you with some images of the houses and chip carving.
Cottonwood Bark House
Houses done by Bob Pearce
Chip Carved Box Lids
And at the end of the meeting, Randy grabbed his hat (wooden!) and headed out the door.
Hope this guy got your attention, besides the usual happenings we customarily have at our monthly meeting like the business part, show and tell, and of course our round robin self introductions; our featured presenter is Randy Glau. Dennis and he started the Woodcarvers of Las Vegas group that meets at Woodworkers Emporium.
Randy has been carving for well over 10 years and much of his training and experience was obtained by attending weekly meetings of a carvers club in Illinois plus attending classes to learn his own, unique style of carving. He prefers doing work "in the round" rather than flat relief work. Hopefully he'll bring a number of his whimsical carvings to his presentation. I've seen a many of them personally and his caricatures have a unique quality that make them his own creations. One bit of advice he was told and follows is to not try to do an actual representation of someone -- they'll never be happy with it! We tend to see ourselves in a different light than we actually are.
The meeting will be at Jamie's studio/school Wood It Is located at 2267 West Gowan #106 in North Las Vegas. Should you have an questions or need further directions you can call her at 702-631-1870. Our meetings are open to the public so feel free to invite any of your friends who have expressed an interest in woodworking and especially caricature carving. You know the drill about limited seating so bring your own if needed.
As the time for the meeting got closer and closer I was starting to wonder if our members were more interested in the televised debate than to come to the meeting. With 10 minutes to go, attendance looked a little sparse! Politicians vs. wood --- how can that be?
I didn't think the politicians would win out over the woodworkers and by the time we started we had a good group of 26 or so, heck some even had to stand in the back.
We began the meeting with our customary round robin introductions and there were a couple of first timers, welcome to you! As far as our business portion of the meeting went there are a couple of exciting events coming up next month. Let's start with this one: Lie-Nielsen Tool Event will be at Jamie's again this year. Check out the link for a video and more information about it. They will be here Friday and Saturday the 16th. and 17th. of October. They usually invite a few select craftsman to set up a booth at these events and this year Dennis Patchett our accomplished carver was invited to show his work and skills.
The Woodcarvers club that meets at Woodworkers Emporium has a few classes in the planning stage. One will be on chip carving and the other will focus on carving Cottonwood bark. You may recall that Dennis and Randy brought in some examples of that type of work. They meet the fourth Saturday of the month. The Summerlin Craft Fair will be held in October as well. It has changed its location from the park on Town Center Drive to the new, outdoor mall located by the Red Rock Casino. The dates are October 10-11 and Downtown Summerlin is located on Charleston Blvd. west and the 215 Beltway. Not sure if any other members will be having a booth there but I will be set up with boxes and some furniture pieces.
Lastly, Mike noticed a neighbor cutting down a Mesquite tree so brought many pieces of it for and had it "up for grabs" for the many turners in our group. I saw all of them going out the door at the end of the meeting -- Thanks Mike!
Show & Tell
Speaking of wood turners, of the many members in our group that have gotten the bug, John brought in these examples of his latest work. These are examples of green wood turnings that take on some very interesting shapes as the wood air dries after being cut green. Wood for these were Apple and some sort of a Pepper tree. It's a little difficult to tell but notice how the rim of the one on the left is beginning to distort a little? That's what occurs after cutting the wood green as it begins to dry out. Nice work John!
I brought in this portable easel and palette made from some of the leftover Mahogany from the Armoire. It's a light weight assembly that an artist (my wife) can take for painting outdoors or attending workshops. It's used in conjunction with a camera tripod. The easel portion attaches by using the camera clip that comes with the tripod. The lower section is used for the paint palette, brushes, thinner, rags, etc.
Featured Presentation: Beth Wheeler
Beth and her Chair
Beth recently returned from a week long, chair making workshop with Jeff Lefkowitz. Here is a LINK to his website. Although you may not be familiar with his name, many of you have heard of Brian Boggs and his chair making expertise. Here is a LINK to his site as well. The reason both of these names are brought up is because Jeff started out making chairs on his own but then, like Beth; took a class from Brian. He and Brian hit it off and eventually he became the only person authorized to teach the skill of making a Brian Boggs chair to others. An interesting note here is that although you can learn to make one, only Brian Boggs is allowed to sell them; the ones you make are for personal use only!
Extra Legs
Before she left for the class which is located in Virginia she made arrangements to buy an additional set of back legs and also enough bark to make another chair when she arrived back in Las Vegas. These are carefully selected since they need to be steamed and then placed in a form Jeff made for about a week. Each leg blank needs to be steamed for 2-3 hours then quickly placed in the form and allowed to dry for a week or so in a heated closet. A unique feature of them is that they are canted at about 45 degrees to orient the wood grain for optimum joint strength.
Once the legs are ready to be worked and turned into these beautiful chairs the joints are cut where needed but Beth found a new passion in using a shave horse to transfer these square pieces of material into beautifully sculpted legs. This process begins with a drawknife and ends with a spokeshave. There is a video at the end of this blog where she did a short demonstration of this process.
Shave Horse Example
A shave horse is a device that captures the wood in a vise that has pressure applied with your feet. Matter of fact, Beth was so enthralled by this device she ordered one for herself that was waiting for her at home when she returned from the workshop! The process of making a square piece round begins by cutting of the corners to create an octagon.
From square to round!
These are then basically halved so you create a 16 sided piece then once more to create a 32 sided piece. By drawing lines around it every couple of inches you get a visual of how much material is taken off with a spokeshave as the stock becomes round.
Due to the time involved in making the rungs for the chair, Jeff had these lathe turned and ready for the workshop students to use. The official length of time for the workshop is 6 days so it was necessary for the rungs to be ready when the class started.
Chair Jig
Locating and cutting in all of the needed holes for the rungs, seat, legs, and arms was simplified with the use of this jig which Beth also bought for making her second chair. As part of the course, Jeff provides a very complete manual that shows how to make the chair. The last part to be assembled are the arms. When you look at it they seem to be tenoned into the rear leg and also onto the front leg -- a process that really isn't possible! Instead, the fronts have a small recess used to locate them and they are then drilled and pinned from above. Beth hand carved these pin tops into an octagon shape.
The pins used to secure the back slats to the legs were also carved into a pyramid shape. Now that the chair is completely assembled it's time to turn your attention to weaving the seat. A number of materials could be used; Shaker tape, rush, seagrass, etc. and Beth decided to go with Hickory bark which as you can see is a great contrast to the Walnut of the chair. The bark is harvested in the spring and I believe she said there are about 200 feet of it required for one chair. It's kept wet so it remains pliable for the weaving process and the first step is to wrap the strips from front to back. Most seats are wider in the front than in the rear so to compensate for that design feature those strips at the outer edges needed to be tapered. This is done with a knife.
Waxed cord to splice Hickory
After the seat is wrapped from front to back weaving the pattern begins going from side to side. Bark pieces start out about 20 feet in length so at first you're pulling these long pieces over, under, around, and through each of the wrap strands. To join them together you plan a splice at the bottom which is attached with waxed cord. A very time consuming but interesting process --- until you realize you missed a strand! Just saying, not that I've ever done that!! The end result is a seat that is both comfortable and beautiful.
Completed Seat
All in all, this workshop gave Beth everything she was looking for as her woodworking skills continue to grow. It had an emphasis on the use of hand tools which was one of her main objectives. She'll now be reaching for a card scraper rather than a sheet of sandpaper, grabbing a chisel instead of a router, and enjoying the process hand tools can bring.
Beth showed how to use the drawknife and spokeshave to take square stock and make it round. The process is one where the stock is taken from square to an 8 sided piece (octagon), then 16 sided, and finally 32 sided mostly with the drawknife. She then refines that piece with the spokeshave until it is as round as possible. Here the stock is in a vise which is a bit awkward -- remember she gave herself the present of a shaving horse which is now in her shop to make this process much easier and enjoyable!
Chairs = 4 legs + a seat + a back + maybe an arm rest or two!
Sounds pretty simple doesn't it?
Then why are they considered to be one of the most challenging projects a woodworker can take on?
Beth Wheeler may be answering that question at our monthly meeting tomorrow evening at 7:00 pm.
Beth will be our featured presenter and will share many of the things she learned at her recent class in Strasburg, Virginia. The style of chair she made is based on Brian Boggs well known ladder back style and in this class taught by Jeff Lefkowitz, every aspect of making this style of chair was taught. Look forward to Beth sharing her experiences that range from the initial selection of wood, shaping with drawknife and spokeshave, steam bending, seat weaving, and more!
Along with her presentation we will also have our regular business meeting and a time for show and tell where we can share our latest project, tool, or tip with the group. Remember to try and keep those presentations around 5 minutes to make sure we allow enough time for the featured presenter -- knowing Beth I'll bet she has a lot to tell us about!
As always, the meeting is open to the public so invite someone interested in woodwork to attend with you. Since seating is somewhat limited it's recommended that you bring your own unless you're among the first and get one of the padded stools in Jamie's shop. Time is 7:00 pm and we're usually done by 9:00 or so. The address is 2267 West Gowan #106, North Las Vegas. Call the studio at 702-631-1870 if you need any directions or have questions.
On a typically hot, August night more than 30 members showed up for our monthly meeting at John Eugster's (that's me!) house and shop. Love these panoramic shots that Lupe took of the gathering, makes my shop look much larger than what it really is:
After our customary round robin introductions the business part of the meeting began. There were quite a few new faces and I'm afraid I neglected to mention the blog when I introduced myself (seems my mind was elsewhere) so if you invited someone please have them contact me if they'd like to be added to the list.
We talked quite a bit about the AWFS show and the consensus seems to be that it appeared to be geared more towards large scale, computer driven industry then where we are. Matter of fact, I just received and filled out a survey from them and complained about the lack of education geared towards single craftsmen and women like we are and suggested better classes like they had in the past. As Jamie's experience with SuperMax and their poor customer relations at their booth pointed out -- it is worth the effort for us to voice our complaints. There was unanimous agreement that the highlight of the show was the display Fresh Wood which featured student work from secondary and post secondary schools.
There were some positive comments too, Mike mentioned that the folks at the General Booth were very helpful and informative at that booth. Others in the group mentioned that it seemed some of the booths at the AWFS show were manned by people that didn't seem to have the knowledge of the product or know much about interacting with potential customers. As for a future show, Jamie announced that Lie-Nielsen is definitely going to have their tool event again this year at her shop. That will be in October and they will have our own talented carver, Dennis Patchett, as a featured artist with a booth during their event!
Most of us are familiar with Bessey Clamps as they advertise quite heavily in magazines and are also featured on some woodworking shows. They recently sent a sample of them to Jamie for her test and evaluation. She has been less than impressed with them and is wondering exactly how to evaluate them without being as blunt as she'd like to be! Any of you out there that use them may want to shoot her an email about your own experiences with them too.
Show & Tell
We didn't have a lot of show and tell but what we had from Bill Patton was pretty spectacular. We all know Bill as being a kidder but his pictures show that for all the kidding and teasing he takes, he is also quite accomplished at his woodworking. He's been teased about how long it's taken to finish his desk but check out these pictures of it and accompanying cabinets:
Since we were visiting my shop, part of the show and tell has to do with the way I organized my work space. In this picture is my bench area and what I refer to as the original pegboard -- a board with pegs! I've had this at three houses and it's a 2x4 with a rabbet cut on top to hold a level and combination squares. I've placed pegs to hold the most commonly used tools like planes, bevels, mallets, marking gauges, etc. This way they're easily accessed for my work. The Baltic Birch boxes on wheels below the bench is where clamps are stored. Since I was doing joinery work the small workbench I bring to the meetings for demos is also clamped to the bench. At the far side is the chisel cabinet which is near the door. The door is one I made and allows me to get plenty of daylight to the bench. Before, if the door was opened I couldn't get to that cabinet. Now the sunlight streams in and the dog stays out! The cabinet behind me is where I store supplies, you can't see it in the picture but there is a drop down section for my chop saw. The drop down is sized so the chop saws table is level with the top of the cabinet which gives me a support on either side for longer boards.
Storing lumber and usable cut-offs is always a problem. This rack is a bit over 4' deep and I can stand up some lumber under 9" in length. The basket is for exotic scraps and there is a rack to the left where I store sheet goods. Most of us probably don't have the luxury of storing a lot of lumber so someone said it best: "we store our lumber at Petermans!"
Featured Presentation
John's Armoire
Allow me to begin by saying that it's difficult to write all of this since it's me I'm talking about! I'm proud of my work and my lifelong career as a teacher plays a huge part in wanting to share what I can with others -- that's really what it's all about for me. The last thing I want to do is come across as boastful. I appreciate your kind comments about the furniture and paintings in our home. Diane and I often joke that it's like we're living in our own little museum where everything (except the dog and cat) are for sale!
Hand drafted drawing
For starters I mentioned that furniture I build are pieces that I've designed myself. I get inspiration from looking at other peoples work, magazines, museums, etc. The inspiration for this piece came from Thomas Moser's piece he titled Dr. Whites Chest. My design eliminated the monolithic appearance of his chest and added an Asian flair to it. Like so many projects, the first designs were drawn on that proverbial napkin. I use a Vemco drafting machine which those of you on the house tour saw to make a scale drawing of the piece. I suspect that many of you are unfamiliar with what a Vemco drafting machine is so here's a LINK to one available on eBay. For me, drawing it out by hand allows me to "build it" in my mind, something I can't seem to do if I try SketchUp or some other computerized program. The over-all size of the chest is 74" tall by 19" deep and 48.5" wide. I wanted to use traditional practices which included the draw bored mortise and tenon joints for the framework. They were combined with handout dovetails on the lower, heavier stretchers. Drawers again are traditional with dovetail joinery, solid panels for the bottom are of Alder, as are the drawer runners. I started with 8/4 Genuine Mahogany so that I could resaw and get all of the wood from the same pieces of lumber. Since I very seldom stain my work it's important to me to get as much of it as I can from the same boards. This keeps the appearance of the piece as uniform as possible when the Danish Oil finish is applied. Most commercial pieces are dyed or stained so for that the pieces of wood can vary since the stains will unify them. As I mentioned, Woodworkers Source in Arizona is an easy 6 hour drive and great place where you can take your time selecting what you need. My best estimate on time is 180-200 hours and the material costs were around $2,000 or less. It took some time between other paying jobs to complete this project.
I'm sure I didn't answer all of the questions about the building of this piece. I blog most of my work as an extension of my teaching so you can click on this LINK to the blog entries dealing with this Armoire. If that link doesn't work you can to my blog and type John's Armoire in the search block you'll get a listing of the blog entries.
Here are some of the pictures that Lupe took to illustrate the presentation. In this one I'm showing the drawer stop which aligns the drawer when it is closed. The drawer itself is made of Soft Maple with the Alder bottom. The bottom was laminated together from 3-4 pieces then surfaced to 3/8" or so. It's rabbeted on the bottom side and slides into a 1/4" groove and is fastened with a screw in a slot to allow it to move with changes in humidity.
Jig for installing the 3 door butt hinges
Close up of hardware from Lee Valley
Jig used to locate the hardware (looks like the heat has gotten to me!)
Well, let's start it out with this undeniable fact:
Yep, if you're a long time desert rat this isn't too big of a deal -- we dress accordingly and drink lots of water. Why start this announcement this way? To quote Jamie, two words: Field Trip!
The field trip will be at my shop/garage which doesn't have any air conditioning other than opening the doors to capture any available breeze, I'll have a cooler full of chilled water and the temps shouldn't be much of a problem. It's in the southwest part of town.
As always the meeting will start at 7:00 pm with our traditional round robin introductions. Next up will be our usual business meeting and show and tell of your latest projects, tools, or tips. One of the purposes of a field trip is sharing how other shops are set up and utilize the often limited space most of us need to work around. Hopefully my shop set up will give you some ideas for your own space. The other part of field trip is sharing my latest project with you and talk about the design process I use. Jamie gave me one heck of a build up in her announcement so rather than try to write my own I'll just steal what she wrote and copy it here……..
Since we all like to see how other woodworkers have their workspace set up, we invite you to join us for a rare treat - visiting a master in his own creative environment. Last month John showed us how to cut a mortise and tenon joint using hand tools only and then draw bore it for added strength. There are 20 of those joints on the project he recently completed and will share with the group.
Besides those 20 draw bored mortise and tenon joints there are another 20 that aren't draw bored; needless to say these were not all cut by hand like he demonstrated at the July meeting! His goal was to utilize traditional techniques in the building of this piece. John plans to share his approach to furniture design and some tricks he learned along the way as this very complicated project came to life.
I'm happy to host our August meeting at my shop. Seating is pretty limited, I do have 4 padded folding chairs and and a couple of unpadded sawhorses so you'll probably want to bring your own seating.
Randy began his carving career on a serious level after retiring from 30 years in the steel mill. Obviously, wood is going to work much easier than steel to create all of the caricatures he's created in the 10 years since retirement! He started out with a book and a knife by copying what he saw on the pages of that book until his first block of wood looked like something totally different. He found this to be a enjoyable and challenging endeavor and soon found a local woodcarving club where his skills and abilities continued to increase to the excellent body of work he brought to the meeting. His preference is to add a bit of color to his carvings, a process that begins with a light coat of Deft to partially seal the wood. He then uses a craft grade of acrylic paint that has been thinned quite a bit, this allows the wood grain to show through and the final results are a carving that has an aged appearance to it. 
