The next regular monthly meeting of Fine Woodworkers of Austin will be Thursday evening, April 1 (no fooling), from 7 to 9 pm in the Woodcraft classroom. Most Woodcraft club discounts have been discontinued, but last month, Sandy, our local manager, continued the 10% discount for our club members, on most merchandise, on the day of our meetings. Hopefully his offer will continue indefinitely. Come early and spend hearty.
The program this month will be conducted by turner Curtis Turner - he will send more details of what he has in mind in the reminder notice during the week, but I believe the plan is to survey the different types of turning - spindles between centers (such as legs for furniture makers), mandrel turning (such as pens), faceplate turning (such as bowls), hollow vessels, and so forth. You aren’t likely to become an expert on all types in the hour or so of our meeting, but hopefully you will learn what is involved in the various types of turning, and may want to get involved.
Bring your show and tell for admiration, critique and assistance (it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, and can be a plea for help).
For the May meeting, I think it is time to get Bill McCaffrey back to actually demo the techniques he uses with classic tools to make chair seats and other chair techniques. This may be a good time to include some other hand tool topics - suggestions?
Future programs….please add to the list, or if you don’t like some of the topics, let me know, and perhaps we will remove it. I would appreciate your comments, preferences, and suggestions for the upcoming meetings.
David Petersen is one of the founding members of the club. As a full-time pro who uses a lot of veneers, he has offered to conduct a program on veneering. Only one person signed up for his Woodcraft class on veneering, so I wonder if this has widespread interest?
Sharpening tools other than flat plane irons and chisels, such as turning and carving gouges, including discussion of grinders
Finishing, including water based finishes, and rubbing out a film finish (satin, semi-gloss, gloss, grand piano), french polishing
Staining and dying - how to match wood colors
Tuning a bandsaw for cutting curves and resawing
Choosing a sander or sanders (the power kind), exploring functions, not necessarily brands
Types of planes, and building your collection of planes - I assume tuning a hand plane was covered enough in the Lie-Nielsen program last month
Shop-made tools and jigs (Rob Harris offered to coordinate this if other members would contribute)
Advice on how to choose and restore old hand tools (This sounds Like Rob or again, or Mark Wells, or other members might contribute)
The next regular monthly meeting of Fine Woodworkers of Austin will be Thursday evening, March 4, from 7 to 9 pm in the Woodcraft classroom. Although most Woodcraft club discounts have been discontinued, Sandy, out local manager, has continued the 10% discount for our club members, on most merchandise, on the day of our meetings. Come early and spend hearty (we will have a full program, so try to do your purchases prior to the meeting, if possible).
The program this month will be presented by Joe Slack, the master luthier at the Homestead Heritage Woodworking School near Waco. Joe teaches classes in making guitars as well as other woodworking courses. He will present a program on some of the woodworking techniques that he uses in making guitars, especially those that are applicable to both guitar making and other projects, such as resawing and bending wood, working with different wood grain, the multiple techniques that might be used to create an inlay like the rosette on a steel-string guitar, use of different glues, and how he has moved to largely hand tools in the making of his musical instruments. He points out that guitar making is such an interesting challenge that many of his students build guitars for the fun and challenge, even though they are not guitar players.
Bring your show and tell for admiration, critique and assistance (it doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, and can be a plea for help).
Future programs….please add to the list, or if you don’t like some of the topics, let me know, and perhaps we will remove it. I would appreciate your comments, preferences, and suggestions for the upcoming meetings.
Bill McCaffrey has offered to return to actually demo the techniques he uses with classic tools to make chair seats and other chair techniques.
There have been several requests for a program on turning - which might be an overview or it could involve as many as three programs
- Turning spindles (long pieces between the head and tail of the lathe) and including turning pens.
- Turning bowls (open pieces attached to the head of the lathe) - these projects are especially fun since they can often be completed in an hour.
- Turning hollow vessels (special techniques used to hollow a vessel through a small opening).
David Petersen is one of the founding members of the club. As a full-time pro who uses a lot of veneers, he has offered to conduct a program on veneering. Only one person signed up for his Woodcraft class on veneering, so I wonder if this has widespread interest?
Sharpening tools other than flat plane irons and chisels, such as turning and carving gouges, including discussion of grinders
Finishing, including water based finishes, and rubbing out a film finish (satin, semi-gloss, gloss, grand piano), french polishing
Staining and dying - how to match wood colors
Tuning a bandsaw for cutting curves and resawing
Choosing a sander or sanders (the power kind), exploring functions, not necessarily brands
Types of planes, and building your collection of planes - I assume tuning a hand plane was covered enough in the Lie-Nielsen program last month
Shop-made tools and jigs (Rob Harris offered to coordinate this if other members would contribute)
Advice on how to choose and restore old hand tools (This sounds Like Rob or again, or Mark Wells, or other members might contribute)
