April-01

SPLINTERS

Tennessee Valley Woodworkers
Vol. 16/ Issue4 April 2001 Editor: Tom Gillard Jr.

Meeting Notice:
The next meeting of the TN Valley Woodworkers
Will be held, April 17 at 7:00 p.m. in the
Duck River Electric Building, Decherd, TN
All interested woodworkers are invited!

The following people have agreed to serve as contacts for their particular skills. If you have questions, suggestions
for activities, or other comments relating to these skills, please call these folks. Their interest is to help the
club better serve their area of expertise. Your participation with them will help them achieve that goal.

Alice Berry     454-3815    Design                    Phil Bishop         967-4626    Finishing
Tom Church   967-4460   Turning                   Harry May          962-0215     Carving
Bob Reese      728-7974   Sharpening              Jim Van Cleave    455-8150    Jointery

Maurice Ryan 962-1555 Health and Safety

Calendar of Events

Event Date

Spring Workshops                        TBD
Spring Seminar                           4-21
Turning "bee"                                5/12
Summer Picnic                              6/23
Fall Seminar                                  TBD
Coffee County Fair                        9/20-22
Christmas Party                             12/7

It’s a rare project that doesn't require some attention to the potential for wood movement. So keep the following strategies in mind no matter what you're working on.

STRATEGY 6: If a workpiece is warped, true it up by face- or edge-jointing before you rout, saw, or assemble it for your project. Don't attempt to force the board into flatness with clamps; the warpage will show up invariably in your finished project.

STRATEGY 7: Cupped or twisted boards can lose practically all of their thickness by the time you joint one face to flatten it, and thickness-plane the other face to flatten it as well. To preserve most of the thickness of such boards, rip them into two or three narrower pieces as shown in Step 1 below. Then, edge-joint these pieces and edge-glue them together into as flat a glue-up as possible. After the glue dries, face-joint and thickness-plane the glue-up. You'll come out with more usable stock.

STRATEGY 8: Severely bowed boards may require more drastic measures. If you come across a board seriously bowed along its length, cut the board into shorter lengths before jointing its edges. That will help you preserve the width of the workpieces.

STRATEGY 9: Minimize the width of cross-grain workpieces, such as the rails in a rail-and-stile cabinet door. Because the grain in rails runs at 90 degrees to the stiles, conventional wood-movement theory suggests that this joint would not hold up well. But, because the rails are typically less than 2-1/4" wide, their movement is slight enough that a joint glued and reinforced with dowels, biscuits, or pocket screws will not come apart.

Likewise, the pieces of a mitered picture frame will fight against each other under changing humidity levels. To prevent wood-movement problems, it's a good idea to keep these pieces no more than 3" wide.

STRATEGY 10: It also pays to make the cross-grain dimension of tenons no larger than necessary. That's because the wider you make a rectangular tenon, or the larger in diameter you make a round tenon, the more that tenon will swell and shrink. And the more they move, the greater the likelihood that they will loosen over time.

STRATEGY 11: Use plywood, melamine-coated particleboard, and other "engineered" wood products when you want to avoid wood-movement problems. These products are much less apt to move than solid wood because the veneers or chips that make them up run in opposing directions. So, if you simply don't have the time, skill, or inclination to make flexible joints, and plywood or particleboard will serve the purpose, use it!

However, even if you prefer to work with only solid stock, you still should use plywood for your drawer bottoms. Why? When we build drawers, we like to use the bottom to square up the drawer. This requires that the bottom fit tightly into its grooves, leaving no
room for expansion. By doing so, we also can glue the bottom into place knowing that the bond won't break. We've seen many drawer bottoms made of solid wood that have cracked or caused the sides of the drawer to push out and bind.

STRATEGY 12: When applying finish to your projects, always use the same finish--and the same number of coats--on all surfaces of the project parts. The finish helps prevent wood movement in two important ways. First, the finish helps prevent a sudden change in the moisture content of the wood by slowing down the gain or loss of water during sudden ups and downs in seasonal humidity.

And, coating both surfaces of a workpiece helps prevent warpage. How? A board that's finished on one side and not on the other will gain or lose water at different rates on the two surfaces. Then, the two surfaces will move at different rates, causing the workpiece to warp.

STRATEGY 13: Always try to run the grain of your glued workpieces in the same direction. This way, the pieces will expand together, not in opposition.

For example, if you glue up a cutting board with grain running in different directions, workpieces swelling across their widths will be trapped by opposing pieces that do not swell along their lengths. Under these conditions, something has to give, and either the workpieces or the glue joints will split.

When you must join workpieces with opposing grain directions for aesthetic or functional reasons, you need to devise a flexible joint.

March Show & Tell:

John &Josh Thompson-turned lamp bases
John Sargent-Valentine Box made from wood from Puerto Rico.
John Mayberry- Box elder and Black gum bowl
Ben Whiteaker-Cherry mantle clock
Steven Savelle-Whittled and carved figures
Ken Gould-cherry mallet, crotchwood vase
Kenneth Clark-Ash lamp base
Don Helton-Titans shelf, Christmas ornaments, all done on the scrollsaw.
Manuel Brown-Mosaic turned bowls
Loyd Ackerman- showed another mistake made in turning split spindles.

Visitors:
Ray Torstcarson
Steve Shores
Andy Butterfield
Loyd Weaver
Ken Miller
Hugh Hearst

-------------------------------------------------------- For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
Song of Solomon

2001 Spring Seminar
Lathe Techniques for Woodworkers

Price: $5 for members and $25 for non-members

Date: April 21, 2001

Place: Foothills Crafts classroom – Woodbury Highway (53) Manchester

Instant Gallery in Foothills Store

Registration – 8:00 to 8:30 AM
Beverages and Pastries

One hour lunch break – Local restaurants or bring your own

Morning Program – Doyle McConnell
Basics for Beginning Woodturners

Lathe and it’s parts
Centers
Drives or Driving methods
Basic Tools
Sharpening and types of Steel
Types of Turning
Wood Selection
Sanding
Finishes
Embellishments

Afternoon Program

Split spindle turning – Loyd Ackerman
Roughing out a bowl – Tom Cowan
Discussion,questions, answers – Matt Brothers

ROUTER DRAWING

Just a reminder to resister at the April meeting for the router drawing. Remember that the only way you can register is to be at the meeting.

Henry wants to remind everyone that DUES are due.

$10 for singles $12 for families

WEB SITES of INTEREST

Arrowmont School of Arts and Craft

WOOD ONLINE newsletter

Falls Mill

Appalachain Center for the Arts

Forest Products Lab. 1999 Wood Handbook

Saw Blade Sharpening Services: Branching Out is now offering their services as a drop off spot to have your saw blades sharpened. The blades will be picked up (Tuesdays), sharpened, and dropped back off at Branching Out. The Leitz Tooling Systems out of Collierville, TN will do the sharpening. Call (393-0525) or stop by for details.

Webmaster:
Tom Gillard Jr.