Chuck Bender, from the Acanthus Workshop, was our featured speaker. He gave an excellent demonstration on string inlay techniques. He showed how to prepare wood strings for inlay, how to make patterned inlay strips such as herringbone patterns, and effective techniques for cutting the grooves for the inlay. He finished up his demonstration by using molten sulfur as an inlay material. This was a technique used by Pennsylvania German furnituremakers as a means to add decoration to furniture pieces. As you can see in the picture, he was quickly able to do a sulfur inlay of our club’s initials with some basic carving tools and a hot plate. Thanks to Chuck for an excellent presentation, and for most likely supplying additional atmosphere for services at the church the following Sunday.
In other business, we had five new visitors to our November meeting. Frank Vucolo gave an update on his progress in planning for our booth at the upcoming Woodworking Show in Somerset the weekend of Feb. 19-21. Currently, the plans are to have projects for convention-goers to look at, as well as a schedule of hands on demos throughout the weekend. Thanks to Frank for taking this on, and for the great start to the planning!
Log Power was kind enough to bring a number of samples of wood from their store for a wood species identification contest, and generously donated a $100 certificate as a prize. John Aniano was the winner by correctly identifying more species than anyone else. Congratulations, John!
Saturday, December 12, 2009 at 10:35PM 
If quantity of food is any indication, our annual Holiday Potluck was a huge success. William Duffield (far right) was gracious enough to volunteer to coordinate the numerous dishes that were brought to the Potluck, and still managed to make a delicious batch of his famous Baked Lima Beans.