A Day of Service

Once again, our photographer didn't show up so we'll have no pictures for this entry.  Please feel free to volunteer for the unofficial title...

The Water Gap Woodturners pitched in to help the Peters Valley Wood Studio reorganize and get ready for the 2011 season.  I'd like to thank the folks that lifted and tugged all of that heavy equipment around and repositioned into a more turning friendly shop.  When we left, there were still a few kinks to work out, but I am sure that Jim Whitman appreciates all of the man power we brought to bear.

In addition, you will also notice that the big Vega Lathe is no longer in the way!  YEAH!

We will be getting together in June on the 8th (not the first, as I have a prior commitment and the only key to the shop :-)  The topic is TBD.

In the May meeting, we began by discussing the topic of the upcoming David Ellsworth lecture.  It was agreed that we would fund it in the amount of $100.  Ed had suggested that we contact Kristen with regards to holding a raffle to recover some of the costs, but Kristen informed me that Peters Valley doesn't hold a gaming license.  Instead, we will be silent auctioning off the bowl gouge donated by Doug Thompson of Thompson Lathe tools with a starting bid of $85.  The retail cost of this gouge is $110 in the 16" handle, and if it doesn't get the minimum bid, we will take it back to the Water Gap Woodturners for another function.

On the topic of Doug's tools, we did raffle off a nice Thompson Spindle gouge and the winner was... ME!  After a fine celebratory dance worthy of Youtube fame (thankfully, no pictures taken), we took advantage of the new layout to practice making tops.  Got to get everyone ready for the December meeting, so practice, practice, practice!

Until June 8...Safe spinning!

P.S.  If you happen to be ANYWHERE in the Peters Valley area, check yourself for ticks...they are everywhere this year!

P.P.S.  The correct term for the item Peter brought was a molinillo (I think I said molinaro).

Better Late Than Never!

The Water Gap Woodturners finally caught a break after the winter and got together in March at the Peters Valley Wood Studio.  The road was "passible" and  8 hearty individuals came up for a deep dive on the ins and outs of hollow turning.  After the discussion of business and the fact that there was an issue with the chimney and we couldn't run the heat, we did our usual Show and Tell.  Of course, there weren't any pictures, so it never happened!

 The topic for the day was hollowturning, lead by yours truly, Steven Antonucci.  We defined the term hollowform as a vessel that the opening is less than 1/3 of the major diameter of the vessel, and then proceded to talk about how to make tools, measure, and the proper techniques for getting the insides out.  The diagram at the right describes the cutting sequence and oddly resembles a set of Sorby Calipers?

With the shop heat only being provided by 2 small space heaters, we decided to make the day less hands on and more demonstrative.  Unfortunately, the vessel didn't make it off the lathe in one piece, but the viewers agreed that it was valuable to watch how the insides were cut without that little hole at the top.  Substantially easier to clear shavings too...

In the end, we parted with a mission for all of the attendees to try hollowing at least one time.  I can't wait to see the next S&T.

In closing, we'll be getting together one last Saturday before the Peters Valley season begins in May.  We are looking for members to step up and demonstrate at the next meeting.  Any and all topics are welcome and appreciated.  Turning experience not necessary.

Then, you can have your demo picture posted in the blog like this little beauty:

See you in April. 

Safe spinning.

 

Holiday fun and a good cause!

Happy Holidays to and from the Water Gap Woodturners.  On December 4th, a great group of people got together for a Holiday party and to make a bunch of toys for the Marine Corps Toys for Tots Program.  Thanks to everyone that contributed and made the event the amazing success that it was!

I was going to write a lot of gushy stuff about how much I appreciate the folks that stepped up, but I decided that I'll just share some of the picture that Jim and I took (mostly Jim!)

Al works the spray booth.

Eyes and carrot noses pile up

Steve turns a cup...who is doing the assembly?

 Dick makes some wheels for the trucks

 It had better snow soon, cause we've got some snowman parts!

 Our tops are tops, and our ball in cup toys are mesmerizing

 Jim in the color finishing area...

Izzy busy?  You know he is... 

I never thought we'd get through all of this material... 

 And I never thought we'd get through all of this food!

Richard is focused, Joe is listening to Christmas songs, and Peter is ducking a photo op... 

 Tony is the final quality gate for assembly...

Wil and Harvey hard at work. 

Santa's elves form a production line...

Our next meeting will be in a similar format.  I still have to get an OK from Jim Whitman at Peters Valley, but assuming that is not going to be a problem.  We will meet at the shop around 1 PM on January 22nd until we are through (no lunch this time, so be prepared or eat first) and we will be back to our normal SHOW AND TELL followed by a hands on program (TBD).  If you have any suggestions, send them my way...

Happy Holidays and safe spinning-

October recap

No pictures, so we can't prove anything...

We gathered to a growing crowd of turners, and interested bystanders.  As mentioned, anyone coming to a meeting and thinking about joining, here is your chance!  Join now for 2011, and we will grandfather you in for the rest of 2010!  The best deal in town just got better...

We kept our business and our show and tell to a minimum.  The S&T was about 12 objects made from the cherry that Dick Plog had brought in 2 meetings back.  Ed Brannon mentioned that we might want to do a similar event with the wood from Grey Towers as a potential fundraiser.  Kristin Muller also sent me the following note about Grey Towers locust auction:

Subject: Historic Locust Trees from Grey Towers to be Auctioned

Hi: The attached press release has details about the US Forest Service auctioning off historic Locust trees from the grounds of Grey Towers National Historic Site, home of conservationist and PA Governor Gifford Pinchot, Milford PA. Perhaps your organization might be interested in bidding for use as a fundraiser, or you may have some craftsmen who would appreciate working with this material.

Feel free to contact us with any questions you might have....

Lori Danuff McKean, Assistant Director
Programs, Partnerships and Communication
USDA Forest Service
Grey Towers National Historic Site
P.O. Box 188
Milford, PA 18337
(570)296-9672

Please direct any questions to Lori at lmckean@fs.fed.us .

In addition, Kristin also invites us to the Sussex County Fall Harvest Festival:

Subject: FW: Revised Harvest Festival Registration form


Calling all Agritourism, Ecotourism and Heritage Tourism entities out
there! Sussex County is having a Harvest Festival on Saturday, October
23, 2010 at the Sussex County Fairgrounds and we'd like you to
participate. See the attached registration form. There is no charge for
this event. The Fairgrounds is providing us the use of the livestock
barns, so everyone will be under cover. This event will help get out the
word out about all the good work you do. There will also be fun
activities for the whole family and demonstrations by Peters Valley
craftspeople. This is Peters Valley's 40th anniversary and they will be
celebrating with a separate dinner and auction (fee) that evening which
you can also register for. Feel free to pass this on to other relevant
organizations and individuals. Hope to see everyone there on October
23rd.

Donna Traylor
Sussex County Office of Farmland Preservation and Conservation
DTraylor@sussex.nj.us

Anyone interested in this event should contact Kristin (director@pvcrafts.org)  and Donna about attending (I have a prior commitment.)

Our main topic of the evening was on how to build a lathe with matchsticks and ducktape.  Since there were no pictures taken, you'll have to take my word for it.  Seriously, we need someone to be the official photographer or this blog will be pretty sad (although much easier for me, since I don't have to edit pictures and layouts...).

Our main topic was finishing.  Joe volunteered to lead session about finishing, since he had taken a workshop earlier this year and works at a cabinet shop.  He walked us through a vairety of topics, including burning and wirebrushing to create texture, aniline dyes, and using scotchbrite pads to level the finishes.  He also brought a "reject" from his days at Tiffany, and suffice it to say that we'd all want to be able to produce this quality work!

Our next meeting will be on November 3.  As a reminder, it will include a show and tell as usual, but we are also going to be having a swap meet/tool sale/surplus inventory reduction.  Bring in that stuff that you don't use anymore and see if someone else might need it!  Bartering, cash, trade- we're all adults, and the rules are simple:  if both parties are happy, it's a deal.

Time permitting, there will be a short demo TBD on something... I reserve the right to make up something on the spot...

Safe spinning-

Steve

An apology to Joe Eid

I'd like to begin this entry with an apology to Joe Eid.  He had volunteered to lead a "hands on finishing" workshop for the September meeting, and I had no idea that we'd run so late with the usual stuff.  In the October meeting, we will limit the new business discussion to the following two topics so that Joe has all of the time he needs for the workshop:

1.)  Dick Plog's Cherry challenge (in place of the normal show and tell).  Please remember to bring your item that you made and we will limit all Show and Tell to be completed by 7:45PM, so try to get to the meeting by 7PM promptly.

2.)  Peters Valley Craft Fair recap and any other PV related requests.  As we know, the use of the studio is greatly appreciated and it would be great if we could contribute our time and some work as fundraisers for the programs that PV runs.

With the holidays approaching, won't it be great to know that you can become a world class finisher  if we can just give Joe about 90 minutes to get us through his program!

Steve Butler says hello.  As you may have heard, he's started the Blackstone Craft School in Massachusetts (http://www.theblackstonevalleyschoolofcrafts.blogspot.com/).  He also sent me a short commercial for a new public access program that he's doing called "The Garage".  I'm playing with Blogger features, so I hope this will appear in the post!

As a recap of the September meeting, we had a lengthy show and tell and discussion of club business. Of note, Dan Moore will be moving to Virginia in a couple of weeks, and as such, resigned as President. Richard Wortman will be filling the vacancy until the next election. Thanks to Dan for his efforts and Richard for stepping in!

Lastly, there seemed to be a good deal of interest in making a cowboy hat as a topic for future meetings.  Now that the summer workshops have ended, it may be possible to move the November meeting to a Saturday (I have to check).  Would anyone be interested in an all day WGW meeting one Saturday for a "super demo" meeting?  The idea would be to have two or three topics going on at any given point and a floating audience.  If the idea of making hats or a holow vessel or a bowl is intimidating, we could have lots going on!

 Until next time, happy trails, partner!

Lots to catch up on!

Firstly, pardon me for missing July.

I wanted to start by welcoming our newest member, Rick Dorbney.  He joined us at the August meeting, and we quickly converted him to membership for 2011.  If you want to bring a friend along to the meeting like Ed Brannon did, please feel free to do so.  We are running a 2010 membership special- anyone between now and the end of the year that joins (new) can pay for 2011, and we will grandfather them for the rest of 2010!

A quick round of thanks for the following people and reasons:

Dan Moore and Tony Whalen for helping me set up the Sussex County Arts and Heritage Council Show.  If you haven't stopped by to see it, it is certainly worth a visit to Newton.  If you go, you may find parking on Spring Street (free), but if you have to park in a municipal lot, find the parking machine because they do ticket!

We had a good turnout from membership presenting their work.  From memory, the following people have items in the show:  Dan Moore, Mike Gurodis, Rick Wortman, Tony Whalen, Ed Brannon, Wil Goldschmidt, Jim Matthews, Joe Eid, Bruce Gordon, and Steven Antonucci.  (Sorry if I missed you, but it is from memory...)

Dick Plog handed me a front page article from the NJ Herald that ran a feature story on the SCAHC show.  It mentioned the Water Gap Woodturners throughout the article, so I am expecting that we will all have to start wearing sunglasses and big hats to walk out in public soon.

I would also like to thank Dick Plog for setting up our second club challenge:  the Cherry Challenge.  I would like to continue to do these challenges, perhaps twice per year, so if you have any ideas for one, please bring them to the meetings.  For 2011, I'd like to get some formal plans together around the calendar, rather than being so seat-of-the-pants all of the time.

Dick brought in a bunch of Cherry blanks with the theme 'Let's see what people do with this"... pretty wide open, huh?  We agreed that the October meeting would be the Cherry Challenge Show and Tell, so you've got about 8 weeks to figure something out.  Let's aim for 100% participation?

Ed Brannon mentioned a Swap Meet/Tool Sale meeting again, and we agreed that the December meeting would be the time for that.  With the holidays just around the corner, who couldn't use a little extra cash and room in the shop for some new tools?  The December meeting will be a Holiday Extravaganza-NOT TO BE MISSED!  In addition to the Swap Meet, we will also be running a Secret Santa program and a "party".  If you would like to Volunteer to be the December meeting coordinator, send me a note!

After the Show and Tell, our guest demonstrator (kudos to Mr. Brannon for arranging!) was Alan Gilburg from the Central New England Woodturners.  Alan brought a very interesting project that he suggested sold very well to the high end culinary types- A salt vault! 

The salt vault is a container for storing fancy salts that require "just a pinch".  Alan made glue ups  from a variety of hardwoods, but he doesn't recommend using walnut because of the end grain tearout ;-)

The process begins between centers and turning the blank to round.  A small offset point is chosen to get an offset tenon on the now rounded blank, and the tenon is turned to fit a chuck jaw.  The offest is necessary to offset the storage compartment in the vault so that there will be sufficient room to install the pin for the lid.

Alan turns a shallow recess/bowl in the top of the vault to hold the salt.  He recommended that it wasn't too large, or the salt will be harder to reach and tends to cake with the humidity.  The lid is kept in place by a small magnetic catch, and pivots freely around the pin which he turns from a contrasting hardwood.  Design options are limitless!

With the holidays coming, this project might be a nice stocking stuffer for friends and family.  Alan mentioned that they go together pretty quickly, don't require a lot of specialized tools or machining, and that everyone loves them. We really appreciate Alan coming out to Peters Valley to join us and want to thank him for demonstrating his very useful project!

Our next meeting will be in Early September.  We do not have a topic yet, so if you know of a guest turner in the area, feel free to reach out to me to get them on the schedule like Ed did. 

Until then, safe spinning...

One for the ages

June's meeting was held on June 3rd at the Peters Valley Wood Studio.  The meeting began outside, but not because we didn't have access to the studio.  (I now have a key!)  The meeting began with an announcement by our current President, Dan moore and a challenge to the club.  Dan will be relocating to the Richmond, VA area in the next few months, and Richard will be assuming his duties as the Vice President (in a bloodless coup).  As usual, the group would greatly appreciate someone stepping up to the nomination for President.

In Dan's departure, Dan and I discussed the disposal of some of his assets to be shared by the club.  It was proposed that Dan and I would bring the wood in question to the club to be equally dispersed with the following challenge:  you have to make something to bring to the July meeting.  Unofficially, we're going to call this Moore's Wood Challenge (I tried to come up with something catchy, but failed...)  You can make ANYTHING at all out of the wood you took, but you have to bring one item to the next Show and Tell.  Prizes will be awarded for first, second, and third (Dan and Steve will judge)

Once the mosquitoes had their fill of us and the last bits of wood were out of our trucks, we went inside where we discussed the club business.  Peters Valley had contacted us to let us know that they would allow us to exhibit at the Craft Fair in September with the jury process.  Several members voiced their concern over tax issues and their was moderate interest in doing this individually.  Upon further conversation, it was not viable to do this as a club.

From here, the conversation shifted to future demonstrations.  Joe Eid, who felt left out because he hadn't seen an e-mail from me in months (because of a typo in the list I was given...sorry Joe!) suggested that he would be interested in doing a hand rubbed finishing demo based upon a recent workshop he took at Peters Valley.  It was highly and enthusiastically approved by the group, and we'll make sure that we get Joe on the calendar in the next few months.



Show and Tell featured some recent work from the group.  It's hard to move the meetings alone AND be the photographer, so I am looking for some more volunteers to bring cameras and capture the action.  Here are a couple of pieces from the S&T:

Our main topic for the evening demo was the tool making.  As a starting point, Steve started out by walking through the steps for making handles.  As a reminder, using a chuck to grip the blank, drill a hole in the one end using a slow lathe speed.  The hole will be automatically centered when the tailstock point is inserted.  Next sneak up on sizing a tenon to fit the ferrule.  A copper tubing nipple is a great ferule, and copper is soft enough to be turned on the lathe with conventional tools.  Once the ferrule has been fitted, turn the handle to fit your hand.

We also covered the differences between tool steel and cold rolled.  Tool steel can be sharpened and hardened for a cutting edge.  Cold rolled is typically used to hold a piece of tool steel.  Round rod can be sourced to make numerous tools (very inexpensively) as compared to catalog prices and they work equally as well.  If you've never tried making your own tools, it is a great way to save a few hundred dollars.

Stay tuned for an announcement about the July meeting.  It will most likely be moved to accomodate one of the Peters Valley wood studio instructors availability.  Once I have confirmed the date, I will let you know

Safe spinning.