June Meeting Notes

The topic at the June Meeting was table saw jigs. Mark Voigt was our presenter. Thank you Mark for hauling all those jigs from your shop! The meeting focus was on the L Fence and Tenon jig built in the Bob Van Dyke class held last October. Mark demonstrated cleaning up a live edge, tapering a leg, and pattern cutting a shape using the L Fence. Mark used the tenon jig to cut a tenon and bevel a panel. He also brought several other table jigs including a 22.5 degree sled, an 8 degree sled, and a spline cutting jig.

Jim Preusser brought in a spline cutting jig. Don Peterson showed a Katz-Moses dovetail jig usd to guide your saw when hand cutting dovetails.

Charlie Meyer brought in a jig used as a carriage to cut sliding dovetails in a turned column for a tilt-top table. The table is a design by Mario Rodriguez. The table construction and jig are thoroughly covered in a magazine article Charlie shared with us. The jig holds and indexes the leg to route the sliding dovetails for the legs.

May Meeting Notes

Wood-Mizer Demo at St. John’s

Video

April Meeting Notes
by Shawn Jarvis

1) Show-n-Tell:

Charlie Gunderson brought in a maple table with inlay and explained how he had created the “inlay.” He first cut the curve he wanted in the top and lower piece, then, rather than bending the wood for the inlay, he simply cut narrow strips and forced the sides together, using lots of Titebond II and clamping.

Mark Voigt’s show-n-tell was a desk organizer he is considering for the next “The Joy of Woodworking” class. It is made of walnut and Mark described how he made the pieces for the pulls at the top of the sections.

2) Short summary of meeting:

The theme of the April meeting was “hand tools”. Members got a chance to see and use various tools commonly used in everyday woodworking projects.

Don Peterson brought in all manner of chisels, including a current set of Stanley 750 chisels and a vintage set of 750s to compare. Don also had a set of bench chisels from Lee Valley that use their proprietary PMV-11 steel. Additionally, Don had a set of vintage Buck chisels, a set of Lie Nielsen bench chisels, a set of Japanese chisels, as well as mortice chisels, a swan neck chisel, and a set of small width Blue Spruce chisels. Don collects some of the vintage chisels listed.

With that variety it was easy to compare several currently available chisels for quality and feel. Much time was spent talking about sharpening. Don described his method and demonstrated with a piece of basswood how to tell if they are sharp.

Kurt Zniewski assembled various bevel down hand planes including vintage Stanley and current Lie Nielsen brands. He also had several wooden planes including a jointer, jack, and smoothing plane. Members were able to try the planes and discuss the models Kurt had as well as talk about their own planes.

Rollie Johnson showed planes that are called bevel-up planes because the plane is mounted in the body with the bevel up instead of down as in traditional Stanley type planes. Rollie has a good collection of Lee Valley bevel up planes. Members were able to discuss and compare the two types of planes. The bevel up planes offer flexibility in changing the bevel angle to accomplish different tasks: a high bevel angle plane, for example, works more like a scraper, allowing work on figured or difficult woods.

Shawn Jarvis and Tim DuBois brought all sorts of handsaws, including a coping saw, a fret saw, a veneer saw, several back saws, a dovetail saw, and Japanese saws. Members got a chance to saw sample boards with them. The big hit of the evening was Tim DuBois’ dovetail saw he has had in a drawer for years, but he’s going to start using it now! Many people decided they wanted to buy a Japanese saw as their next purchase.

It was a very interactive meeting with members moving in 15-minute intervals between the various stations. It was a great opportunity to talk with people we might not always get a one-on-one with. The presenters got a chance to learn about the hand tools members use and lots of ideas got exchanged about hand tool use.

Thanks to the presenters and participants who made this a fun and engaging evening.