CJWA member holiday projects

The Annual CJWA Holiday Potluck wasn’t all about an enormous quantity of food.  It was also a chance for CJWA members to share their holiday projects with the rest of the club.  And as you might expect, there were quite a variety of projects, all excellent.

Doug Poray brought an Irish mailer that he made.  It’s a child’s riding toy, powered by pulling the handle back and forth.  To make the drive mechanism, Doug had to heat and bend the rear axle rod using a MAPP torch.

Roger Ackerman turned this egg shaped box.  It was made from cherry, and the fit of the two pieces was impressively precise.

Dave Peregmon made a toy train set that came with its own carrying case.  This toy is made from soft maple, and Dave calls it “Choo Choo To Go”.

Bob Emmons built an occasional table out of some incredibly figured tiger maple.  The finish really showed off the figure of the tiger maple very well.

Matt Greco built a cabinet for his planes based on a plan from Fine Woodworking.  The planes are secured by leather straps.  Matt has more planes than are in this picture.

Larry Lichtenstein made this beautiful landscape carving using a variety of knives and chisels.  The carving is made from basswood, with a Watco oil and pigmented wax finish.  The pigmented wax enhances the 3-D aspect of the carving.

Even though William Duffield was busy organizing and coordinating the Holiday Potluck Dinner, he still had time to make an ice cream scoop.  This is built from a kit available at Woodcraft.  William turned the handle, and “weaponized” the scoop end by grinding down the edge to give it a sharper profile so that it could slice through the most frozen of ice cream with little effort.

 

Finally, Marc Gaertner showed a ball and scoop toy and a bank with a secret compartment that he made.  Both toys are great for younger kids, even in this age of video games.

Thanks to Steve Strickland for the photos.

Happy Holidays from CJWA!

December Meeting: Holiday Potluck

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.

If you would like William’s famous Baked Lima Bean recipe, you’ll find it on the Members Area of our website. Of course, to get to that area, you’ll have to be a member. Membership renewals will be due in January, so don’t forget to renew!

December Meeting: Holiday Potluck and Holiday Project Show and Tell

Our next meeting will be at 7 PM on December 9.  We will again be having our annual Holiday Potluck dinner. William Duffield has graciously volunteered to organize the dinner.  Thanks, William!  If you are a CJWA member, you should have received an email regarding the planning for the potluck.  If you didn’t get this email, then you aren’t signed up for the CJWA email list.  To sign up, simply enter your email address in the “Subscribe to the CJWA email list” in the box to the right.  To get a copy of Bill’s email announcement if you missed it, let the club know on the Contact CJWA page.

This is the season for holiday presents, and one of the advantages to being woodworkers is that we can make presents instead of fighting off the crowds on Black Friday.  We also would love to have any CJWA members who are making gifts for the holidays to bring them for a show and tell.

Finally, in preparation for the upcoming year, officer elections will be held in January. Anyone who wishes to run for one of the officer positions is invited to talk to any of the current officers for information.

November Meeting: String inlay with Chuck Bender

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!

Speaker topic survey results

Here are the results from the speaker topic survey that was taken at the last meeting.  This list is in order of popularity, with the topics that got the most votes at the top.

• Advanced router techniques
• Sketchup demonstration
• Decorative carving
• Joinery
• Field trip to local woodworking business
• Glues and their applications
• Marquetry demo
• Using dyes
• Japanese woodworking tools
• Veneering
• Cabinet building and selecting cabinet hardware
• Design approaches to projects
• Hands on project
• Power tool maintenance
• Portable Sawmill demonstration
• Green finishes
• New tool survey
• Tool Swap

We will certainly keep this list in mind when selecting speakers for upcoming meetings.  Thanks for your input!

As always, suggestions are welcome on the Contact CJWA page.