Minutes for April 16, 2013 meeting
of the Tennessee Valley Woodworkers

Vice President Karen Browning called the meeting to order at 7:02 PM.

• Members in attendance: 62
• Guests: (0)
• New Members: (0)

Special Announcements:

• The presentation began with a memorial to recently deceased TVW President, Kevin Deuermeyer, and recognition of his creativity and skill at intarsia. It was announced that a book on intarsia had been donated to the Tullahoma Library in Kevin’s memory.
• Visitation and memorial service arrangements were announced for longtime TVW Club member, Newt Wright, who passed away this month.

Reminders:

• Vice President Browning reminded all guest to sign the guest sheet.

Club events for 2013:

• Annual Club Picnic and Auction is scheduled for Saturday May 18 at Falls Mill. For those who arrive early, the Mill will be open for tours. See the club newsletter or website for the latest information. Volunteers were requested to help with drinks, setup, etc.
• Turning Bee date is June 1 at Larry Windland’s shop. Lathes/instructors are needed as well as volunteers to help with setup, etc. Driving directions  and more details to follow.
• Coffee County Fair will be September 16-21.
• The TVW Exposition will be at University of the South in Sewanee Sept 8-15. Contact Dan Maher to help.
• Shop Tours: reserve Saturday May 25 for tours of Dean Lutes’ shop in Tracy City and Goeff Roan’s shop in Sewanee, following a scrumptious breakfast at the Bakery in Tracy City. A show of hands indicated that twenty five members would probably participate. Doyle McConnell will have final details at the May 21 meeting.
• Fall Seminar has been scheduled for Saturday Oct 19, featuring local presenters.
• Christmas Party will be December 13.

Carvers Events:

• Meetings are held at Phil Bishops shop the 1^st Saturday of each month
• Cornbread Festival will be April 27-28.
• Polly Crockett Festival will be September 21-23 in Cowan
• Huntsville Show will be sometime in November or December.

Announcements:

• Vice President Browning encouraged everyone to us the TVW Forum. The more folks use it, the better the database becomes.
• Panoply will be held in Huntsville on April 26, 27 and 28, 2013. Demonstrators are primarily needed from 8am to 1pm on Thurday when the school children are there and before the event opens to the public. IMPORTANT: If you plan to demonstrate, your name must be on the Panoply Volunteer List. You will get a wrist band and free admission. Contact Greg for information at (205) 828-6637.
• Maurice Ryan is now at home recovering.
• Flute circle meets at Tom Cowan’s Artisan Shop in Cowan.
• Several pictures taken at the North Alabama Woodcrafters March 2013 Seminar were shown.
• Membership was encouraged to visit Henry Davis and the Club library.
• Also, take some time and browse the Photo Gallery on the Club website.

Old Business

• Dues for the 2013 year are due and payable to Bob Addington.
• Bob has about fifty name tags that have not been picked up. Do you have yours?
• Tools for Sale on the club web page and on the meeting room table. Contact Loyd Ackerman.

• See Chuck Taylor if your picture has not been taken for the website.

New Business

• No new business

Show and Tell for the February meeting:

Karen Browning commented on the positive influence of the club website for promoting woodworking. After seeing her work on the site, someone recently asked if she still did lathe-turned bowls. 

Tom Gillard brought several 6”x72” sanding belts to give away.

Gary Walker showed photos of his “computer box” side table and the walnut Mission style one he built to replace it. The new tables (he made a pair) were finished with boiled linseed oil followed by spraid-on lacquer.   He also built a maple Mission style bed and a quilt rack that included his first attempt at inlay.

Matt Brothers showed photos of a walnut dresser he built to match a bed that he completed a few months ago. The dresser has a tri-fold mirror and the top includes his first attempt at inlay. He thanked Jim Van Cleve for his previous instruction in string inlay. The dresser’s beaded bracket feet were patterned after an 1810 secretary that he once copied for a client. It took three passes with three cutters and lots of hand work to shape the foot contour. Because he likes the shape and plans to use it for several future projects, Matt recently bought a custom-made  one-pass cutter from a fellow suggested by Collins Roan. The dresser was finished in walnut-stained Danish oil followed by lacquer. Matt brought a pack of give-away 80-grit sandpaper.

Loyd Ackerman brought carved lidded boxes that he made using his CNC router.

Reilly Earle showed some impressive scroll-sawed drawer boxes he made from walnut, poplar, box elder, and mahogany. He soaked some parts overnight in tung oil to prevent cracking. The boxes were finished with shellac and lacquer.

Karen Browning brought some box elder bowls that she turned with assistance from Doyle McConnell. She still has give-away wood in her back yard, but the tree has been down so long that some chunks are checked and pithy.

Vince Zaccardi showed bowls he recently turned from box elder that he got from the Daniels shop. One bowl has a wax only finish. He plans to finish the other with lacquer as soon as soon as he replaces the spray tip that he dropped on the concrete floor.  

Bob Reese brought his 38^th violin and described how he made and installed the 16-point compass star on the back. He made the rosewood and cherry veneer as thin as a business card to avoid upsetting the tone. Thirty-two pieces of veneer were cut and assembled the on a flat surface to form the star. The pattern was traced onto the violin back panel and sufficient material was removed to form a shallow recess that would accommodate the inlay assembly. The gluing process using a vacuum press was described in a previous show-n-tell. Bob’s wife Rheta played a tune to demonstrate the new fiddle’s tone quality. Bob thanked Tom Cowan for inviting Ronnie Young for the seminar that got him hooked on inlays. He commented that the club has been a valuable resource to his woodworking over the years.

Jim Van Cleave brought two relief carved panels that he did almost twenty years apart. One was carved in around 1995 from a pattern book design and was only a quarter inch deep. He observed that the deeper carving of the more recent panel caused darker shadows than those in the shallower panel and better enhanced the illusion of a fully 3D carving.

Jim Jolliffe suggested wood burning as a less time consuming alternative to carving. He described how to create the illusion of shadows and depth by applying more heat to make the wood surface darker. The technique was illustrated by the Celtic knot and the man’s silhouette on two cedar panels that he made using his wood burning tools.

Richard Gulley brought an anniversary present he recently made for his wife. He used his CNC router to make many of the parts and carve the message, “You’ve Captured My Heart”.  -  -  - Aaaaaawh !!

Program:       Boxes, Boxes, Boxes !!      Presented by Ross Roepke

• Member/Master Boxmaker/Speaker Roepke was introduced by Vice President Karen Browning.
• In addition to designing and fabricating a large number of what he claims are simple boxes, Ross has also constructed over two hundred pieces of custom hand-crafted furniture to furnish several family member homes and local churches during his long woodworking career.
• Some of his boxes are especially admired by his wife and never leave the house, some are given to family members or friends, and others get sold at craft shows. Most, however, are donated to support charity fundraising events and benefit auctions, where they have sold for as much as $300.
• Ross brought several of his boxes and outlined the steps that he performs to construct a typical design. The steps include tool preparation, design selection, material selection/preparation, side cutting, pre-assembly, glue-up, lids and handles, padding, and finishing.
• He says that fine tuning his table saw is perhaps the most important single aspect of tool preparation. He uses a sharp blade and various home-built jigs to cut precisely-sized pieces with dead-on 45-degree mitered corners. He sometimes uses butt joints or dovetails on box corners. He knows of only one end-grain joint failure and that was when a woman fell and landed on one of his boxes.
• The design for a new box might inspired by an exceptional piece of wood or it might come from a notebook of designs he has compiled during a lifetime of scanning magazines for ideas.
• For this new box he might use a piece of hardwood molding that someone gave him, or he might decide to finally use that special piece of mahogany burl that has been on the shelf for a decade, just waiting for that perfect project. Ross sometimes includes book-matched front and back panels in his box design. Once the selection is made, he usually rips the thickness he needs and squares the edges using the table saw and smoothes the surfaces with his thickness planer.
• The box sides are cut from the prepared stock, a dado is cut to accept the bottom, and the parts are pre-assembled to check for proper fit.
• He first glues two opposing corners, applying two thin coats to the miter end grain with a little drying time in between. He uses one-inch ratcheting band clamps from Harbor Freight to hold the four sides in place until the glue sets. Repeating the operation for the other two corners completes the glue-up.
• The box lid can be part of the initial assembly, to be cut apart after glue-up, or it can be a separate unit, either frame and panel or a solid piece. Many times the lid is the design highlight, and the rest of the box is almost secondary. Ross often re-saws a scrap of wood that has a particularly interesting grain pattern and book-matches the pieces to make a lid panel. Other times he makes a one-piece top and leaves an edge raw for effect. The lid can be hinged with off-the-shelf hardware or made completely removable. Many of his boxes have unique hand-crafted hinges that are part of the design. Handles, handcrafted from contrasting wood, can be applied if desired.
• Headliner material scraps acquired from a local auto repair shop provide a professional look when interior padding is needed. He uses an awl to position the material before the contact cement dries.
• Ross finishes all of his boxes (and furniture pieces) using multiple coats of wipe-on Deft oil (contains both tung oil and polyurethane). He keeps the first coat wet for 15-20 minutes to allow the oil to soak in. While it is still wet, he-sands with 220-grit paper to fill the wood pores with sanding “dust” and wipes off any excess before letting the piece dry. For oak, he uses 180 grit to provide enough “dust” to fill the large pores. The second coat is wet-sanded with 400 grit, the excess wiped off, and the piece allowed to dry. Coats three and four are simply wiped on with no sanding. The finish has proven to be  durable and resistant to water spotting.
• Photographing the finished product can be a challenge because the camera records every speck of dust.