The next meeting will be held at Woodcraft, as usual, from 7 to 9 pm on Thursday October 1. Come early to enjoy the 10% discount offered to members on most items on the day of the meeting.

John Parkinson will present a slide show about his apprenticeship program in England. It was originally scheduled for last month, but we ran out of time, so rather than rush it, it was moved to this month.

New member Mark Wells, who has taken the lead on hand tools, will lead a discussion, demo, and comparison of screwdrivers. The original intent was people-powered tools, but it has been broadened to include a comparison with all “cordless” screwdrivers, including battery powered impact drivers. If you have a favorite, bring it to compare with the others.

Bill McCaffrey, who did an in-depth discussion of marquetry and inlay last month, promised a brief demo on “doing it today” (rather than the historical techniques) - specifically something simple like inlay.

Be sure to bring your show and tell.

For the future, we are planning sessions like those below - all subject to change and looking for your comments and suggestions. One suggestion, that we are trying to incorporate, is at least some hand-tool topic each meeting, in addition to the “general woodworking with power tools” topics.

• November 5 - sharpening - grinding and honing - focusing on both sandpaper based and waterstone sharpening, especially for chisels and planes
• December 3 - Peter Clark will demonstrate carving a traditional furniture foot (ball and claw or some similar wild animal), Peter may be a surgeon, but he swears he isn’t a wood carver, so these should be techniques we all can use.
• In the sequence of “all the steps to design and build a piece of furniture” (such as a lingerie chest) we haven’t given any attention to legs and feet, so that may be a program to go with Peter’s tutorial in December. We will be looking for people to do parts of this program, like Terry broke up the carcase program into smaller parts.

Other topics for the future

• Turning spindles - lathe demo - if you don’t have a lathe, you world is square!
• Sharpening tools other than flat plane irons and chisels, such as turning and carving gouges, including discussion of grinders
• Veneering - at least simple stuff
• Finishing, including water based finishes, and rubbing out a film finish (satin, semi-gloss, gloss, grand piano)
• Staining and dying
• Tuning a bandsaw for curves and resawing
• Turning bowls - another lathe demo. Bowls are fun since many projects can be completed in less than an hour!
• Types of planes, and tuning a hand plane
• Choosing a sander or sanders (the power kind)

Don’t forget to pay your dues for 2009-2010.