SPLINTERS

ISSUE 7 JULY 6. 1986

JUNE MEETING. REALLY A SHARP PROGRAM!

Our June meeting program was another jewel. Put together and led by Phil Bishop, the topic was sharpening— chisels, scrapers, and gouges. Phil and Tom Cowan recently attended a sharpening seminar in Atlanta and passed on to the club some of the more pertinent points presented at the seminar. In addition to the demonstrations , Phil found plans for a sharpening jig in Wood magazine and made a version for us to see. He demonstrated the Jig and passed out plans. Since quite a few members weren’t present, I’ve included the plans as part of this newsletter. I can tell you from observing Phil use the jig, it can be a very useful addition to a shop particularly to rough grind or re—shape a tool. Phil showed how a rough ground tool can be made into a “super honed machine” by attacking it with a progressively finer water stone. The result was truly amazing. There’s no doubt that a tool that sharp is safer and does the job much faster than those in my shop!! Phil also demonstrated two commercially available chisel holders for sharpening and a motor driven wet stone. All worked well and would be very useful in specific applications. Let me encourage any member to take the time to get with Phil and get all your questions answered on tool sharpening. Your projects will show the results of a good tool sharpening program.

JULY MEETING - ON THE GREEN

As a change of pace the July 15th meeting will be a club picnic! It will start at 6:30 at the picnic area at the DREMEC building. For those who aren’t familiar with the picnic area, it’s east of the main building, on the same side of the street and is marked by picnic pavilion. This will be a picnic pot luck! The club will provide hamburgers and hot dogs along with all the makings to get a tasty charcoaled hamburger or hot dog inside us. Also provided will be lemonade and iced tea.

Now for the pot luck part. Each member (other than those already asked to bring a certain item) is asked to bring a picnic covered dish. Baked beans, slaw, potato salad, or desert are all the type of covered dish we’re asking our members to bring. If each member can bring one of these there should be lots for everyone.

At the June meeting a list was passed to get an idea of how many hot dogs and hamburgers to buy. If you weren’t able to sign up, but you do plan to attend, please call Henry Davis at 967—3471.

If the weather finally breaks and we get rain on the picnic date, we’ll set up inside the DREMEC building and have an indoor picnic (without a campfire!!). Tom Cowan assured us that the loading dock can be made available for chef Phil to cook his world renowned charcoal fired burgers.

SPOTLIGHT

Our spotlight this month is on Susan Church, our Publicity Chairman. Susan and her husband Tom live in Belvidere where they both enjoy wood projects and Susan works on other types of crafts. Susan’s woodworking experiences began as a partner in the projects tackled by she and her husband Tom. Working with Tom on cabinets, furniture, re—building projects and finally building their own home, Susan became very familiar with the tools and techniques used in fine woodworking. As a result, when she had a difficult time finding just the perfect frame for her needlepoint, and she could only locate one at at an antique dealer, she built one. After experimenting with various woods, Susan settled on walnut mainly because it’s the wood used by old world craftsmen to make similar “Crossbar” frames. For those of us who aren’t familiar with the frames, Susan explains that they were a common frame before mitered corners came into wide use. The design allowed the craftsman to use only dados for construction and spend most of the time carving the leaves which decorate each corner.

Like many of us Susan has accumulated specific tools to do the specialty work on her cross-bar frames. She looks forward to using these on other craft related projects and sometime would like get into serious woodcarving. Susan uses a Moto-tool technique for the leaves on her frames and has agreed to demonstrate it at a future meeting. Thanks Susan!!

REMINDER – PICNIC POT LUCK

MEETING ON JULY 15^TH AT 6:30 AT DREMEC. BRING A PICNIC COVERED DISH!