Meeting May 20, 2025
Meeting called to order by President Jim Joliffe at 6:30 PM.
Visitors: Brian Rabenda visiting from New York.
New Business:
The Rich Wetherbee seminar slipped a week to October 18th-19th.
As a result, the annual club picnic at Falls Mill has been moved to October 11th.
Arbor Day Celebration was held Friday April 25th. There was discussion of three trees important to Tennessee: Sugar Maple, Tulip Poplar, and White Oak at Arbor Day. A tree of each type was planted at Frazier-McEwen Park. There was mention that the company Diageo reuses their white oak barrels, and those barrels are sometimes used for sixty to seventy years.
Next year’s Arbor Day Celebration theme will be “The Art of Trees” and will be held on Saturday, April 25th, 2026.
The Cowan Memorial Turning Bee will be held on Saturday, July 12th from 8 AM to 2 PM. There is a $15 fee which covers your lunch which will be ordered from Rafael’s restaurant. Coffee and donuts will be provided in the morning.
There was a proposal by Gary Runyon to offer 40th anniversary t-shirts. The cost of the shirts will be about $20 each. There was consensus at the meeting that the shirts should be 100% cotton. Brown and black were mentioned as colors to offer the shirts in, but other colors may be possible. The shirts may have pockets and a choice of logos. Simpler logos and wording were preferred. The Anniversary Committee will look at options and will present to the Club at the June 17th meeting.
Christian Carroll created a new TVW logo for the club’s Facebook page. The logo received positive feedback. Post meeting, Steve Cox is working with Christian on logo options.
The club is offering a 25% scholarship and the Splinter Carvers are providing another 25% scholarship to the Oct 18-19 Rich Wetherbee carving seminar for TVW members who would like to attend. That reduces the price to $85/carver plus the cost of any roughouts. Lunch will be provided both days. The seminar will run from 9 AM -4 PM each day.
Gary Runyon brought a piece of African Rosewood for sale for $25. He also brought some free Ash turning stock.
Vince Zaccardi brought some workbench legs which he was offering for sale.
Coming Programs
Month Program Presenter
May Social Hour None
June Furniture Tony Murphy
July Scrollsawing Brenda Zaccaro
Show and Tell:
Jim Joliffe showed historical pictures from the Tullahoma 2014 show. Pictures included a variety of bowls on a unique stand, a pair of lamps, a fiddle, a guitar, a music stand, a full human carving and a “hat man” carving.
Jim also showed a totem pole the carvers worked on in the shop and took to a variety of festivals.
Geoff Roehm showed rosettes he made for various guitars over the years from spalted wood tiles cut from trapezoidal pieces of wood and bookmatched.
He also showed the dust hood for his CNC machine. The dust hood has a bush that can be pulled off to change the bits.
Geoff also showed a circular staircase he built in Sewanee. It was the second set of stairs put in the house before the house was completed. The first staircase was way off so they tore it out. Neither level of the floors was level so a transit was used to measure level. The stairs were modeled in Cad before building. Evey riser had to be different and it was built with individual horses for each tread and riser.
Next Geoff showed another rosette he made from spalted sycamore and then another two in spalted maple. He went through slides showing various rosettes in different stages of completion.
Geoff also showed his 4’x4’ CNC machine. He decided it was too large for his shop so it is for sale. It is a Woodline-1313.
Larry Wendland showed an unfinished bowl made of Norfolk pine. The wood was dried for two years and cut on the endgrain. Larry got a hook cutter, and it did pretty good but vibrated some. He found a straight hook turning chisel and one with a slight curve that were made in Belgium and cost $135. He has not decided if the wall is thin enough so he may turn the bowl thinner.
Larry also showed a box elder pepper mill finished with polyurethane.
Social hour was announced at 7:15 PM.
Meeting adjourned at 8:35 PM.
Next meeting will be held on June 17th at 6:30 PM.