The meeting was called to order by the president, Doyle McConnell, Tuesday, October 21, 2003 at 7:00 PM. There were 64 in attendance, including guest Joe West, Ron Cato, Tom Ingleburger and Steve Chapman. Bud and Ann Chittenden became new members of the club.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Doyle asked that guests please sign the guest register and Henry would give them a copy of Splitters if they wanted one. Henry has TVW hats for sale for $4.00 a piece. We need a volunteer for making refreshments for the December club meeting. See Doyle if you are interested. Bob Reese had by pass surgery and is now at home recovering. Doyle sent around a get well card for him for all to sign.

Doyle went to the great outdoor weekend festival at Gruetli-Laager and had a great time.

Manuel Brown passed away and the club donated to The Tullahoma Library in his name.

WoodCraft is opening a store on highway 96 in Franklin this weekend.

Wood Works is also having a show this weekend at the 24 Expo Center and have several $2 off of admission on the table for anyone that wants them.

The 22^nd annual Mid. South Woodcarving show and competition is also this weekend at Depot Museum Round House in Huntsville.

Doyle passed around the sign up sheet for the Christmas grand door prize.

Henry announced that Dixie Woodworks had donated a lot of boxes of 80 grit and 40 grit sanding belts and they are outside by the door and anyone that wants any may help their selves but must take by the box.

OLD BUSINESS: On Saturday Tom and Loyd and Doyle and Steve Shores will be putting on the turning seminar. Loyd said that registration will start at 8:00AM and at 8:15 will be the introduction and the first session will start at 8:30AM. The people there for the basic session will be in the gallery and the advanced session will be in the main shop. They already have 40 people signed up so between sessions they will need your help by going outside as soon as session is done so they can set up chairs for next session. Ken Gould will keep everything on schedule. The second session will be faceplate turning and wood art. There will be a break for 1 hour for lunch to be served down at the Presbyterian Church. The lunch will be chili, and sandwiches, turkey, ham or roast beef and peach cobbler for desert. After lunch will be Tom’s session turning for furniture. Doyle will also do a vase this session. Steve will do Christmas ornaments. There will be a drawing at the end of the day for 2 gifts. One is a 3/8 ASP spindle gouge that the club donated and the second is a set of Foster bits donated by General Supply. Make sure you do not park on the road. There will be plenty of parking places behind the shop by the barns. The club’s tent will be set up outside for our breaks. The club bought a TV System and there will be two monitors set up so we can see the different angles of the demonstrations.

Tom McGill library project is coming up soon so keep it in mind.

NEW BUSINESS: Last year at the Christmas party everyone was asked to make a small project that could be given away as a door prize. This went over very well and Doyle would like to see it done again this year. Andy Weaver is the chairperson for this year Christmas Party.

Henry announced that the coming election is not far off. The nominating committee was Henry, Loyd and Doyle. They met and considered several factors and one being that they wanted to elevate existing officers but also wanted to involve new faces and ideas into the club. Looked at members that were active and came to most meetings and were willing to serve in the selection process. The executive committee is made up of passed officers and the current officers. This committee sets the criteria for the year. They selected the passed vice president Ken Gould for President and the passed secretary Barbara Keen for vice president, Newsletter Editor this year was Tom Gillard and he was selected again for the coming year. Henry was selected again for treasurer. Chuck Taylor was selected for secretary and Larry Bowers was selected for publicity person. The election will be next months and if you want to nominate someone different than those listed make sure and ask him or her first if they would take the nomination.

Ken Gould brought in an 18th century trammel 4 wick lamp he made using his black smiting knowledge and then he decided to make another wooden mechanism. He made a reverse trammel and it could be used for the mechanism of a music stand or an adjustable feeder. Took him much less time to make the wooden one.

Maurice and Ruth Ryan while on a trip to Wisconsin saw some neat wooden butterflies made from various scrap pieces of wood and another wooden item that struck their interests. They brought in pictures of both pieces for us to see.

John Mayberry brought in 2 boxes with Curly Maple matched tops. The box is made of Cherry with Black Walnut trim around the tops. They both have sliding lift out divided shelves in them. He finished them with lacquer.

Jeff Roehm brought in a copy of an 1869 classical quitar that he is making. It has Red Cedar, Black Walnut, Brazilian Rosewood, and Satin Wood in it. He is doing a French polish finish on it. He uses hide glue to put the bridge on with and said he has seen guitars 85 years old and the glue still is holding well.

Karen Kerce brought in a bowl that she started in May and stopped and put it in the shavings from the turning operation for storage. She got back at it and finished it. It is Cherry with a turned base on it. She also built a barn this summer and brought a picture in of it. She used OSB board that she got for $5.00 a sheet and than textured it to look like stucco.

Doug Dunlap brought in a project he had done long ago when he was in school for a shop project. It was a cannon which he turned the brass for the barrel and made the carriage out of Cherry.

Don Powers brought in a couple of stylized power carvings. One is made out of Chattam Burl, which is sometimes called yellow wood or smoke tree. The bird on it is carved out of Cherry. It only grows from here to edge of Alabama and is getting scarce. The other is made from Chattam and cedar driftwood and mounted on an Oak block.

Hugh Hurst awhile back brought in a bedpost that he was practicing turning and he had 4 to make for a bed. He brought in tonight one of the four. This one he did not have a long enough piece of wood to make it in one piece. He had to make it in pieces and found out that you had to do this a certain way or it would not be straight. He enlisted Tom’s help for the technique of how to do this. It ended up being 3 pieces. You have to turn tenons on the pieces that are going to go together.

Doyle McConnell brought in a saw blade with tar and pitch on it and he showed how you could clean it by putting Ammonia in a pizza pan and then putting the blade in it. He said the pitch just floats off with out scrubbing or anything. He said that he had worked on some very early Tennessee pieces and that he had a sugar chest that had to be taken apart since it had a wide board in the bottom and it had shrank over the years leaving a sizable crack. He had to jack it apart and the tenon pulled a part before the glue would come loose and this piece was a 150 years old.

Phil Bishop brought in pictures of his latest restoration project. One of them was a Horner Atlas dining room suite. He needed to make 7 leafs for it. He also had to do some carving on several pieces. This suite could bring more than $88,000 at auction. He also raised a bed 16 inches.

PROGRAM:

Ken introduced Steve Shores who talked about making wooden ornaments. He will turn one of these at the seminar. Most of his tools are hand made. He had his brother make him a hollowing out tool since his brother is a tool and die maker. He made a cut off blade and this always needs to be very sharp to work correctly. He starts by cutting chucks of wood and makes 12 or more blanks at a time. He than glues a piece on the ends to clamp too. He may put a blank between centers and rough out each side so that he has 2 globes roughed out. He uses a roughing gouge to knock off the edges. He drills them out on the lathe and stops just short of where the bottom will be. He makes a little larger hole for the tool to fit in. He has made a caliper for checking to make sure he does not get them too thin. After he has hollowed out than he re-drills a little deeper and than uses a parting tool on them. Before he does this he sands from 180 to 400 grit and to 800 grit if he wants a really polished piece. He does this on lathe. His walls are less than 1/16 thick. Cedar he leaves a little thicker as he does all lighter weight wood.

For the spindles he chucks up a blank between centers and rounds it out and then works his way down it a small section at a time. He sands and finished each little section and then goes on to next. You can not go back and turn the first sections since it would wobble too much. Do not use your tool on the bottom of piece always keep it on the top. He also makes the top out of this same blank. You need to keep tool rest real close to work. He glues the pieces together with yellow glue Tite Bond II. He hangs them and spray lacquer. The ones he is going to get painted he send the globes alone to her and then puts together afterwards. When he started it took him about 2 ½ hours to do one and now he can finish one in about 45 minutes