Meeting June 17th, 2025
Meeting called to order by president Jim Joliffe at 6:30 pm
Visiting Guests: Chris Sautter’s granddaughter Ramada from Point of Rocks, Maryland
New Business:
We regretfully report that Tennessee Valley Woodworker’s Club founder Henry Calvin Davis passed away June 2 at the age of 88. There will be no formal service.
The Cowan Memorial Turning Bee is being postponed to Jan/Feb 2026. The specific date for the turning bee has yet to be determined.
The 40th anniversary banquet is still scheduled for September 19th. The executive committee has approved $1,000 for door prizes. Tickets will be $20/person. The Manchester Coffee County Conference Center will be managed by the City of Manchester. We will follow-up to ensure they can support our banquet.
There have been some scam emails being sent out posing as Jim Jolliffe. Jim will not send you emails asking you to send him money or gift cards. If you are suspicious of an email not really coming from Jim, look at the email address of the sender – it should have Jim’s last name in the email address.
The TVWW picnic is scheduled for Saturday Oct. 11 from 11 AM to 2 PM at Falls Mill.
The Rich Wetherbee carving seminar is scheduled for October 18-19 from 9 AM to 4 PM. The fee to club members is $85/person, thanks to sponsorships both from TVWW and the Splinter Carvers.
Additional Announcements:
Vince Zaccardi is giving away some scrap gun woodstocks made of very nice walnut.
There are free woodworking books and magazines available.
Matt Brothers is offering to give woodworking advice and suggestions at his shop. If anyone is interested in receiving training from Matt in furniture and fine woodworking, please reach out to him.
Larry Wendland is still collecting door prizes from club members for the 40th anniversary banquet.
Coming Programs
Month Program Presenter
June Furniture Tony Murphy
July Scrollsawing Brenda Zaccaro
August Club Auction Jim Jolliffe & Gary Runyon
Show and Tell:
Jim Jolliffe showed historical slides of a cherry display case made by Henry and Lloyd with donated cherry wood from Tom Cowan. The slides are a subset of those posted on the club webpage.
Matt Brothers showed a side table project he made out of cherry with a maple-lined drawer. The legs were turned by Bill Guffey. Matt used a brown mahogany stain with a semi-gloss Linmar lacquer finish that he got from Hoover Paint.
Bob Truesdale showed a bowl he made from an irregular slab of coffee wood. He used 3 centers while turning the bowl and cleaned up both sides so that the edges would not get too thin. He used rattle-can lacquer for the finish. Bob burned a line around the bowl using a wire but had two flats that the wire did not burn so he cut a line on the flats with a saw and went back to burn those lines. It is often suggested to use copper wire to burn the lines, but Bob finds that picture frame wire works well for this. There was also a suggestion from the club to use a guitar string for burning lines in bowls.
Gary Runyon showed two needle boxes that he made. One was made of hickory, and it had a flared end so that the lid snaps on and off tightly with a nice “pop” sound. The hickory needle box was finished with Doctor’s wood-turning finish.
Gary also showed a needle box he made from elm. This one had a threaded lid and was stained. Gary also brought wood 90 degree squares he made for club members to take home.
Geoff Roehm brought a “cigar box” guitar he made out of Spanish Cedar which had beautiful inlay that he cut with his CNC machine on the fret board. The truss rod on this guitar is adjusted through the peg head. Goeff worked on this guitar on and off for three or four years and said it is one of the best sounding guitars he has ever made. Geoff said there are several myths in guitar making including that a Stradivarius finish or using Tone Wood will give the guitar a good sound. He said that any structurally sound and stable wood can make a good instrument.
Larry Wendland brought billet used for making a pepper mill. He showed a mill cutter with an adjustable, multiple cutter head function that he found online. The two cutters will cut both seats in 1 pass and the cutters are adjustable so they will work for any mill. This mill cutter can save considerable time when making pepper mills.
Richard Gulley showed a weaving frame he made out of sycamore. He used a CNC machine to cut the holes at regular intervals. The large version of the weaving frame is about 60 inches long.
John Lovett from Fall Mills brought a slab of walnut he is using for a sewing machine stand top. The walnut slab was made from 3 pieces and assembled with help from Gary Runyon. John is looking for a someone with a router bit he can use to finish the top.
Dan Buholzer showed a wolf in trees relief carving he is working on out of basswood. The carving is still in progress.
Program: Building the Philip Morley Barstool: Tony Murphy
Tony Murphy demonstrated how to build a barstool based on a class he took with Philip Morley. Tony has made four of these barstools. The first is made from walnut; the second is mahogany with a F-4 carving on the back; the third is maple with a F-15 carving on the back, and the fourth is mahogany with an stylized F-15 Eagle plane carved on the back.
Tony cut out the pieces over-sized roughing them out first and then finishing them in the planer. A multi-router was used for all joints in the class, and a square mortise was used for the legs. He recommended using an L-fence and double-sided Spectape from Woodcraft when cutting up the stock. Tony used a compression pattern router bit for cutting parts that would not work with the L-fence.
Tony built a jig for the floating tenons with a 5/8” gap and 5/8” bushing in the router. He lined up the center-line of the pieces with the center-line of the jig.
Tony had vertical mortises on the bottom and used a jig for the front and back. The seat is made from three segments glued together and planed. He clamped the pattern to the seat, roughed it out on a band saw, and then used a router to round the corners.
The crest rail was marked, cut, and drilled on a drill press. He clamped wood to sandpaper to add parallel scratches to the brass accenting the bar stool and used a nonferrous blade to cut the brass to get a nice edge on it.
Tony used figure 8’s to attach the chair to the rails. He suggested rounding the edges of your floating tenons so that they do not scrape all the glue down when gluing the tenons.
For the finish, he first raised the grain and then applied honey amber dye in water. He mixed in boiled linseed oil and put on one coat. He then added two coats of oil varnish blend water lox and used steel wool and wax to get the look and feel he wanted.
The jig used for making the bar stool can be found in Volume #301, February 2003 of Fine Woodworking.
Meeting adjourned at 8:15
The next meeting is scheduled for July 15th at 6:30 PM.