The temperate forests of the United States contain more than  fifty
                       important broad-leaved tree species.  Most are commercially sought
                       - some have uses that are not considered commercial.  This massive
                       hardwood  forest is spread over 730 million acres (302 million
                       hectares) of United States forest and extends from North-East to
                       South across 2000 miles (3000 kilometers).  Forty percent of the
                       timber growing there are hardwoods (deciduous), 60 percent are
                       evergreens (coniferous).

                       The major portion of The Great American Hardwood Forest occurs
                       in the eastern third of the United States and the country can be
                       divided into five regions.  Each region has many different forest
                       types.  These forest types maintain their own character based on
                       local climate, topographic, and soil conditions. Most hardwood
                       species overlap a bit and are growing in several regions.

                       The Southern Region touches the Atlantic and Gulf coast from
                       Maryland and Delaware to Texas, then north through the lowlands of
                       Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri, and east via the Ohio River
                       Valley. This is the largest hardwood producing region. Abundant
                       stands of sweetgum, red and white oaks, hickories, yellow-poplar,
                      ash, hackberry and cottonwood are growing.

                       The Appalachian Region  covers the mountain areas of New
                       York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia,
                       Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and northern parts of
                       Missouri, Alabama and Georgia. Major species in the region include
                       red and white oak, yellow-poplar, walnut, the maples, ash and
                       hickory.

                       The Northern Region encompasses the New England states, the
                       Great Lake states and the upper Mississippi valley. Species in this
                       area include the maples and oaks, cherry, ash, the birches, beech,
                       and basswood.

                       The Central Region includes some or all of 13 different states
                       located mostly in the central lowlands: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
                       south-western Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas,
                       northern Oklahoma and Arkansas, Missouri and western Kentucky.
                       The principal species are walnut, the oaks, the hickories, ash, the
                       maples, yellow-poplar, basswood and cottonwood.

Announcements:

President Tom Cowan announced an Executive meeting to be held January 30th to discuss future workshops. Tom announced the Woodworking show February 2, 3, and 4 in Lavergne, Tn and suggested car pooling might be a good idea.

Show and tell:

John Sargent – two segmented bowls
Tom Cowan – two mahogany church collection plates
Loyd Ackerman – butternut bowl and holly bowl
Ruth Ryan – wooden Christmas ornaments
Maurice Ryan – pictures of a restored antique vanity
Tim Halbeck – turkey call and an oak ball made for a tugboat company
Bob Gunderson – turned poplar porch railing spindle
Dean Lutz – rustic Shaker style pegs and a sourwood candleholder
Manuel Brown – metal scraper tool for lathe
Ross Roepke – brought patterns for the replaceable table saw inserts and showed an occasional mahogany table
Harold Hewgley – photo album of an 1860 renovated home
Harry May – elephant carved out of black gum
Tom Church – brought magazines with an article for turning green wood
Jim Roy – walnut top for a tip top table. Chopping block cabinet with drop leaf made of curly maple and oak
Tom Gillard – a circle cutting jig for router

Our program was presented by Bob Levine, a knife make for Tullahoma. Mr. Levine is a member of the American and German Knife Maker’s Guilds. He has been making knives since 1982. The knife handles are made from woods with wild grains and exotic obscure woods. All knives have handmade hollow ground blades. These knives have their own genuine leather sheaths made by Mr. Levine.

Until next month!

Shirley Bishop

                                 Although you will never come across a wood species that does not
                                 move, it pays to know what woods move the most or the least and
                                 exactly how far they might move. To find out, we worked with
                                 experts at the U.S. Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory to
                                 develop two charts. Click here to view Softwood Chart (182k) or
                     Hardwood Chart (217k). For printing the charts, click here for
                     Downloadable Charts (34k) in Acrobat 3.0 format.

                                 Most wood movement that will affect your work will occur across
                                 the width of a workpiece. And, that amount will vary depending on
                                 whether your boards are flatsawn or quartersawn. As shown in the
                                 illustration below, you can tell these boards apart by looking at the
                                 grain pattern on their ends and surfaces.

                                You don't need to be concerned about shrinkage or swelling along a
                                board's length or thickness. That's because wood moves a negligible
                                amount along its length, and boards less than 2" thick move little in
                                that dimension as well.

                                In the chart, we've listed the potential cross-grain movement for a
                                12"-wide workpiece. These figures apply to single workpieces or
                                multiple workpieces glued up for width. Of course, you can use
                                these figures to calculate the potential movement for pieces wider or
                                narrower than 12". Just divide the width of your workpiece by 12,
                                then multiply that number times the figure in the right column of the
                                chart. For example, say you make up a 26"-wide panel of black
                                ash. Dividing 26 by 12 equals 2.166. By multiplying 2.166 times
                                .250 (for flatsawn stock), you come up with the potential movement
                                of your 26"-wide panel: .542".

                                Now, what can you do to deal successfully with this movement?
                                Plenty, as you'll see from our list of strategies that starts here.

       STRATEGY 1: Use the chart when you're building a project that
                                requires relatively tight clearances between moving parts. When
                                practical, choose from among those woods that move less than
                                other varieties available to you.

       STRATEGY 2: With the help of this information, decide how
                                much allowance you must make for wood movement when planning
                                your projects. In the example discussed earlier, the panel could
                                move more than 1/2" from season to season. So, you have to allow
                                the panel to shrink and swell about 5/8" across its width. (When
                                you're in doubt about how far a workpiece will move, always err on
                                the side of allowing more movement room than necessary.)

• Don Michelotti, the creator of Sheet Layout for Windows has updated this popular software program. He has a new site where you can read about and download the latest  version today! Sheet Layout is a Windows based program that allows you to generate  layouts for most effecient use of sheet goods like plywood and laminates. (7/8/99)

• Atlantis Software Development introduces their new EasyCab v4.0 Cabinet Designer. This is the real thing! Familiar Windows format with all the features a professional cabinet builder would expect from a state-of-the-art cabinet design program! EasyCab has just been upgraded to include both American and metric measurement capabilities and now comes with a project manager. You can now put up to 52 cabinets per cutlist, sorted,  labeled and print on Avery mini labels (2160). Keep track of complex projects, produce  master cutlist of All, just cabinets, doors, drawers, face frames, and shop drawings of the whole project. Quick viewing and editing of all cabinets in the project. This software has it all! Download a trial version today to see why this is where you end your search for design software! (5/9/99)

Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft

WOOD ONLINE newsletter

Falls Mill

Appalachain Center for the Arts

Forest Products Lab. 1999 Wood Handbook

Jim DelToro

Highland Hardware

Woodworker's Journal

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