ATLANTIC SHORE WOODTURNERS
NEWSLETTER
September 2005
Meetings 2nd Tuesday of each month.
The next meeting will be September 13 7:30 PM.
Meetings are now
held at the small church on the corner of County Line Road & Ridge Avenue
Social hour @
2005 Officers and
Contacts
|
President |
Mark Anderson |
732.477.0156 |
|
Vice President |
Ed Aras |
732.741.5940 |
|
Treasurer |
Buren Gilpin |
732.223.9861 |
|
Librarian |
Bruce Perlmutter |
732.530.5762 |
|
Secretary |
John Puckhaber |
732.920.1915 |
|
Newsletter |
John Puckhaber |
732.920.1915 |
A New Club
Year!
September brings us to the start of a new club season with
our meeting on the 13th. Hope
to see you all there. The meetings are
the same time & place as before: the
little church basement at
In order to make the club better and more interesting (read that as growing the membership and keeping what we have), we have changed the way we plan the meeting programs and arrange for demonstrations. We now have a program committee instead of a single person so no one is overburdened with the work. The additional members will also serve as backups. As always, we
welcome ideas from all the members. Please contact any committee member with any and all ideas. After a poll of members at the June meeting brought a lot of good ideas, which were all forwarded to the new group, and are outlined below.
The
Program Committee
Mark Anderson 732.477.0156
Ed Aras 732.741.5940
Buren Gilpin 732.223.9861
Russell Bertlesen 732.367.2862
Walt Rissmeyer 732.364.0707
(Alternate)
Program
Suggestions
· Finishing techniques demo
· Tool sharpening
· Turning a lidded box
· A female demonstrator (such as Trude) for small objects
· Duplicating techniques (2+ exact
· turnings)
· A new and interesting section of each meeting such as “identifying woods”
· Turning contests for members
· Meeting “turnathons”
· Turning characteristics of various woods
· Youth Outreach program
· Retiree demo program (member demos at various retirement communities)
· Silent auctions of tools/equipment
September Meeting
Program
A member turnathon is planned with hopefully, three lathes running. A technique or skill will be shown, then anyone is invited to try it out.
Local (and not so
local) News
Our club is participating in this year’s Rotary Club Sailfest in
The NJ Woodturners Club, based in North Plainfield, will
host a demonstration of “deep hollow turning of seed pods” by Jack de Vos of
The Adirondack Woodturners Assn will present their 2005 Totally Turning Symposium October 15 & 16,
2005. Mark attended last year and said
it was terrific (Mark & I are already registered for this year). For further information, list of
demonstrators and subjects, registration and fees, etc., go to www.totallyturning.com. The Quality Inn in
American Association
of Woodworkers
As a Reminder: Our local club is actually a chapter of the AAW. All members should also be members of the AAW. Their dues are $40 per year which includes their magazine “American Woodturner” four times a year. Some of our club benefits are an insurance policy which is fully funded by the AAW, and a source of activities and information about turning worldwide.
The Woodworking
Show:
Time to think ahead and plan for this year’s purchases: The Woodworking Show will be held December 16
– 18 at the NJ Expo Center in
Avoiding Wood
Checking and Splitting
By Buren Gilpin
When working with domestic woods, any checking is often obvious and we simply stay away from those areas. And, we all know how easily oak splits when you try to drive a nail in it without pre-drilling.
With some of the exotics, however, the checking and the tendency to split is less obvious. I have had boards that seem OK to the naked eye, but find that when I cut them or start turning, there is a check in the end of the wood that was not visible. Not only is the checking almost invisible, but the sealer used by the importer masks any checking.
In a similar vein, splitting can be a problem when drilling out pen blanks from the small blanks we all purchase. I have found that some woods, particularly exotics, have a tendency to split when the drill bit breaks out at the bottom.
It turns out that a number of the exotics have very little interlocking grain that helps control checking and splitting. Some examples I am familiar with (read: have had a bad experience) are ebony, bloodwood, kingwood, and pink ivory. Wenge is another wood that seems prone to checking, although in those cases the checking has been quite obvious. I’m sure there are other woods as well.
How to deal with this? When working with a blank, especially one just purchased or has been sitting for a long time (even if the end grain has been sealed), cut a small slice off the end (cutting across the end grain) and see if the cutoff piece falls apart or breaks too easily. If it does keep working up the blank until you get a solid section.
When drilling out a thin exotic blank for a pen, make the blank a little longer than needed (actually, this is good advice for any wood). Then drill to the depth needed for the pen barrel. That means you will NOT have drilled all the way through. Then go back to the saw and cut the blank to the proper length, exposing a fully drilled hole.
Another related problem that occurs with local woods is called ring shakes or wind shakes. This occurs when a tree has been subjected to a lot of wind or has come crashing down from wind or cutting. In this case the wood separates along the growth lines and is not visible until the trunk or branch is cut into and sometimes not visible until you start turning. When you see this, it is best to let it be – OK to burn it but don’t try to turn it.
BCG Feb 2005
Further notes to Buren’s last year’s demo on wood finishing:
During my demo on finishing back a few months ago, we talked about using a hook and loop (Velcro) sanding disk attached to a drill. I have used primarily the 2” diameter and found that size offers a lot of flexibility for large and small items. Some time back I had purchased a 1” disk but had not used it. I recently began using it on the bottoms of various pieces. I mount the disk on the drill press so it is stationary and hold the piece being sanded. I have not bought 1” sandpaper – I have found that the 2” disks wear out primarily at the edges. So I either cut the worn 2” disks into approximately 1” diameter. Or, sometimes I simply put the 2” sandpaper on the 1” disk directly. It does really work well for cleaning up the bottoms after parting from the lathe.
BCG Feb 2005
Editor’s note: The newsletter is always looking for articles, information or anything else useful, informative or interesting from the members. Send the stuff to me at johnpuckhaber@comcast.net.
The Club’s New
Lathe
We now have a new (really Buren’s slightly used and in perfect condition) Jet 1236 lathe. It uses the same size attachments as our Jet minis, so we have them already. The lathe is located in the meeting room of the church school’s basement and is locked when we are not present so the little kiddies or anyone else wont get hurt.
Notes from the
Editor
The revised membership roster is ready and will be sent to each member separately from this newsletter. Hard copies will also be available at the September meeting.
There will be a new section of the newsletter for members wishing to buy or sell any turning or woodworking “stuff.” It will appear anytime there is something to include. Please let me know by phone (732.920.1915) or by e-mail (johnpuckhaber@comcast.net).
The Website
Our website: www.atlanticshorewoodturners.com Is now active with a public portion available to all who visit the site, and a ‘members only’ section, which can be accessed by a member’s username and password. The public portion contains club information, activities, and a gallery of members’ works. The members only section will contain membership rosters, meeting minutes, and other internal club information. Additionally, this section will contain a link to Roland, our webmaster, for submission of articles, gallery photos, and other stuff. Join us at the meetings and pick up the password.
Meeting
Specifics
Meetings are the second
Tuesday of each month except for July and August. They are held at the little
Meeting
Directions
Directions: From Route 9, go east on