Meeting 7/20/21
Meeting called to order by President Carl Blumenthal at 6:30 PM.
Carl welcomed all those online and to those present in UTSI’s Lannom Library Room to our July combined in-person and online Zoom Meeting. Many members were happy to be able to meet in person again. We met in the Library as H-111 was in use and will return to H-111 in August. We appreciate UTSI’s generosity allowing the club to use H-111 and their broadcasting capability.
Visiting Guests
None
Business
Officers and Committee Reports: Vice President & Program Chair Gary Runyon noted our August Program will be the Club Auction. The following months after August tentatively have programs assigned. Gary requested members email him any future program ideas to his home email: [email protected]. He noted that programs don’t necessarily need to be from local folks due to the ability of Zoom to connect us with anyone around the world!
The 2021 Calendar is correct with monthly general meeting dates and first and third Saturday Carving meetings as well as the UTSI & Zoom annotation for the monthly meetings. The special events column included “placeholders” for the special events. The special event leads will need to discuss the timing (if at all) of holding special events and update the calendar accordingly. Our Club Auction will be the August program. Karen Browning will work to set a date/time for the Annual Picnic in September or later.
Once the general meeting announcements concluded we moved to the Show & Tell portion of the evening.
Show & Tell
Mickey Knowles showed a spalted hackberry bowl he turned. He showed a hackberry cheese tray and glass dome. He showed a walnut hanging blanket stand. All were finished in sanding sealer and lacquer. The walnut blanket stand also had walnut stain. He showed a roughly 2 inch thick piece of stump he tried to turn into a bowl. After rough turning, he put the piece in a bag with the chips. When he went to retrieve it, the warping and splitting were beyond repair. Several suggested he simply sign his name to it as a unique, one-of-a-kind piece. Another suggested adding a clock movement and hanging it on the wall.
Chuck Taylor showed a finished pepper mill and one in progress made from spalted maple. He also showed a live edge bowl made from apple wood with beautiful grain. All pieces were finished in walnut oil and wax.
John Hartin showed some four beautiful lidded bowls he recently turned. One lidded bowl was solid cherry. He discussed the form of turning lidded bowls and “The Golden Ratio” for turning vases and bowls. The second lidded bowl was made from maple with a dark textured rim around the bowl body. The third bowl was made of a cherry bottom and a different type of wood top with a very unique textured top (made of glue and tissue paper, aka “toilet paper and snot”). The fourth lidded bowl was made of a blond wood with a natural finish. The bowls were finished with a cabinet grade lacquer then buffed out.
Judy Bennett showed an intarsia barn and birdhouse she made. She emphasized that she uses a large wood variety to match her project’s features and that she rarely stains any wood with other than natural stain. Once exception were the barn windows and open door. She stained those a dark walnut color to provide the shadow. She used walnut, mahogany, poplar and cedar for her projects and finished them with spray-on poly.
Bob Brown showed a picture book of woodworking projects he built for his kids and grandkids. The kids and grandkids made the scrapbook for him to show his work. The projects were too large to bring to show and tell and scattered throughout his children and grandchildren’s homes. The book’s entry included pictures of him as a youngster, “The little boy from Jackson County”. The projects were of large variety and all beautiful!
Jim Jolliffe showed a finished cottonwood bark carving of Christ with Crown of Thorns he carved as part of a Zoom Seminar with instructor Alec LaCasse. He added honey locust thorns to the carved crown vines as carving small, fragile thorns was impossible (in his mind!). He sprayed with 2 coats of rattle-can satin polyurethane.
Fred Heltsey brought an “Impossible Triangle” he and his grandkids made during their stay at “Camp Jewel’s”. The triangle is an optical illusion made of three pieces of wood that are not connected as a triangle. He showed a variety of pictures to demonstrate how to set the triangle and look through one open eye to see the completed image. The illusion is quick to make but challenging to position so it looks like a continuously outlined triangle.
Gary Bennett asked for support to make 18 identical balusters for a friend’s railing as he didn’t have a duplicator lathe. The membership provided Dean Lutz’s name to Gary as a possible solution.
Larry Wendland mentioned that a vendor named Starbond makes reasonably priced high-quality CA glue and guarantees it for 2 years if kept in the refrigerator below 40 degrees.
Program
Making Threaded Wooden Boxes
After a short break, Gary Runyon presented a slide show on how to make threaded wooden boxes. He brought and showed the boxes, mounting jigs and specially modified lathe tools to support the threading operation. He also showed the custom threading tool set and steps to align the wood grain on the body and lid (if the wood was from the same stock). It was a fascinating program! The slides are posted on the website.
Meeting adjourned at 8:15 PM. Our next meeting is on Tuesday, August 17th at UTSI’s H-111 Conference Room (our standard meeting location). We hope to see you all there or on Zoom! The August Program will be our Club Auction so bring something to raise money for the club and to spread your craftsmanship!