October Meeting: plans for the upcoming year, and WIA report

We had one new member at the October meeting.  The first part of the meeting was given to discussing plans for the club’s activities for the upcoming year.  Committees were formed for the birdhouse project (thanks, Dave White!) and for the CJWA booth at the Woodworking Show in Somerset (thanks, Frank Vucolo!) on February 19-21, 2010.  Our new website (you’re looking at it now) and our email list were reviewed.

Wilbur Pan reported on the goings on at the Woodworking in America Hand Tools Conference in Valley Forge, PA the weekend of Oct. 3.  Many CJWA members were at the conference throughout the 3 days.  There were many seminars and hands on sessions designed to teach hand tool techniques, a busy marketplace area where hand tool makers had their products to try out, and the Hand Tool Olympics, where participants could test their speed and skill with hand tools.

Birdhouse and bird feeders at the Jackson Township Fall Forestry Festival

On Saturday, October 3, CJWA again participated in the annual New Jersey Fall Forestry Festival in Jackson Township, where we sold birdhouse and bird feeder kits, and helped kids build the kits at the site. CJWA sold and helped kids build over 60 birdhouse and bird feeder kits, and clearly everyone had a lot of fun doing so, even if the day was cut a little short by a heavy late afternoon rain shower.

Thanks to Jeff Brown for spearheading this effort, and to all the members that participated! The birdhouse project certainly has been a successful CJWA event for the past few years running.

October meeting

Our next meeting will be at 7 PM on October 14.  We will be having a brief business meeting where we would like to get the members’ input on our plans for the upcoming year, and a presentation about the Woodworking in America conferences held in the Chicago and Philadelphia areas this year.

Marking gauge tips from Joel Moskowitz

At the September meeting, Joel Moskowitz from Tools for Working Wood spoke about marking gauges.  Although there are many types of marking gauges on the market, he prefers pin gauges over cutting gauges.

Pin gauges differ from cutting gauges in the shape of the part that does the actual marking. Pin gauges have, well, pins that are relatively sharp.  Cutting gauges make parks in the workpiece with a knife edge.

Joel feels that the marks left with pins are easier to deal with than the marks left with a knife edge.  Because the pins are not knife sharp, they leave a shallower line that can be easily removed with planing or sanding later on in the project.

One criticism of pin gauges is that it is hard to make a clean line with a pin, compared to a gauge that makes a knife cut. Joel demonstrated a good technique for using a pin gauge effectively.  Instead of holding the gauge so that the pin is perpendicular to the surface of the wood, which will cause a lot of scratching and chatter as you try to make your mark, rotate the gauge so that the pin trails behind as you move the gauge, so that it makes an acute angle with the surface of the wood.  This also gives you a lot of control in how deep a marking line is left by altering the pressure on the gauge. 

New source for hardwood lumber

Log Power, a flooring manufacturer in Allentown, NJ, announced at the September meeting that they will be carrying hardwood lumber for sale to woodworkers.  CJWA members will get a discount, although the details still have not been finalized.