Presidents Message
Fellow Members:
A mixed bag this month:
1) Charitable activities
Helping our community by using our woodworking skills for worthwhile charitable organizations in the Bay area has always been a tradition in BAWA. There is something very satisfying about doing this work when we have the time and skills available. Many members have contributed to a recent project that was the building and installing of 2 sets of gates at the Janet Pomeroy Center in San Francisco. The center provides day recreation and vocational opportunities for both adults and children with all levels of disabilities. Those of us who have worked down there have been very impressed with the staff who support the attendees. The Center is located near the ocean, just behind the zoo. This is often a cold, damp, foggy place that can also get very hot all in the same day. Not the best of environments for outdoor wooden structures. We made one set of gates out of Alaskan Yellow Cedar and the other out of Western Red Cedar. Both have 1.25in thick center panels made from T111 outdoor siding and are finished off with copper flashing. So we now have our own experimental site where we can compare how the 2 woods survive in this hostile environment.
2) Designer chairs
We went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) 75th anniversary exhibition recently. They have an exhibit of wooden chairs, some practical, and some, which I believe, are called "studio furniture" i.e.: to be seen, not used. The most interesting chair was a "Wood Chair designed by Cappellini" It was manufactured from bent beech natural heartwood and illustrates what strength and design can be achieved with thin strips of wood. (This is a practical chair).
See more at: www.architonic.com/pmsht/wooden-chair-mn-30-cappellini/1003788
The most fascinating was the "Favela Chair" designed and made by the brothers Fernando + Humberto Campana. Looking on Wikipedia I found that "favela" is Brazilian Portuguese word for slum and is the generally used term for a shanty town in Brazil. Which fits with the style of the chair. The chair is made entirely from sticks of wood that appear to be no more than a foot long that are glued and nailed by hand to make the one of a kind pieces. (This is also a practical chair)
See more at: roadsidescholar.com/2008/04/16/favela-chair-by-the-campana-brothers/
The exhibition is on until the end of February next year
3) Woodwork in schools!
We frequently reminisce on the lack of woodwork instruction in schools today but I read an article in the San Francisco Chronicle a few weeks ago about a new day school in Berkeley that "caters to boys' learning styles". The school is "is tailored specifically to boys' energy levels, brain development and love of taking things apart, scattering them across the floor and putting them together again. The first week of school, for example, the boys will get hammers, power saws and wood, and build their own desks"
And these are 11 year olds!
Frank R Ramsay
President
frankramsay8@aol.com
The meeting was called to order by President Frank Ramsay at 7 PM.
Announcements
Steve Rosenblum then gave a report on the results of the member survey, which will be presented in full detail in the near future. The main conclusion is that the members want more technical content from the club. They would like more talks on technical subjects, shop visits, skill-building workshops, design workshops, Sketchup training, etc. Based on zipcode information, our membership lives mostly on the west side of the Bay from San Francisco to San Jose and is almost all male and about half over 60 years old.
Frank then reported on the status of the Janet Pomeroy Center gates. They are made of Alaskan yellow cedar and western red cedar mostly donated by John Blackmore. Frank Taylor and Frank Ramsay will be installing them on Friday, August 20 and have requested that anyone wanting to help show up there at 11: 30 AM.
Per Madsen announced the subjects of the upcoming meetings, handplaning on September 16th and setting up your garage workshop on October 21st. Per also made a request for people to help out with the activities of the program committee in deciding on subjects for presentations and trying to obtain presenters. He passed out a signup sheet for that purpose.
Harold Patterson announced the Toy Workshop for September 28th at Jamie's shop and requested volunteers to help makes parts that will be kitted up for assembly at the next workshop which will take place closer to Christmas. Harold showed some of the examples of toys that will be made including racecars, dump trucks, rolling crickets, and train whistles. Many of these toys need to have wheels turned so Harold asked for volunteers to turn wheels about 2 inches in diameter and 0.75 inch thick.
Show and Tell
No Show and Tell this month
Guests
Dean Senesgalli, a newly arrived professional woodworker from Kittery, Maine announced himself as a guest. He had made custom furniture as well as being a consultant for CNC manufactured wooden objects. He spoke a bit about the issues of being a professional woodworker in Maine with heavy pressure on price ( "I can get this at the big box store for $200 in pine. Can you make it in cherry for less than that?" ).
Toby Klayman
Marketing your Arts and Crafts
Per introduced our guest speaker, Toby Klayman, who gave a very animated and interesting talk about earning a living as an artist, protecting your intellectual property via copyright, and techniques for marketing and selling your work. She provided us with voluminous handouts and examples of all the things she discussed. She briefly described her resume and talked a bit about her art. For those interested in more detail you can go to her website, klaymanart.com She also extended an open invitation to BAWA members to visit her studio in San Francisco to see her work, graphic art, as well as that of her husband, Fred, whose artistic medium is photography. She mentioned that she has given many classes on protecting artistic IP as well as having written a book on the subject. Although she has dealt with gallery owners in the past, at this stage of her career she prefers to sell directly to her large base of clients from her studio. She described many of the ways you could sell your work. For example, you could build a chair, and take a picture of it. You could then put the picture on a post card using a service like vistaprint.com where you could turn the photo into a card with your professional resume on the back for sales purposes or into a poster that could be sold for $20 per copy. She emphasized the importance of developing your own contacts and mailing lists and having small promotional give-aways for visitors.
To protect your design you need to apply to the Library of Congress using application form VA for an object or form TX for text. The fee is about $40 and the copyright is valid for about 70 years. This guarantees that you will have to be given credit for your work and will give you strong grounds to demand monetary compensation if your design is appropriated without permission. She talked about the different ways you could arrange for the use of copyrighted material. For example, you could request a large lump sum upfront or a certain amount of the product in which the copyrighted material appears, or, you could ask for a royalty on each item sold but only if you believe the company to be honest.
She mentioned that if you have a studio show you should consider holding a raffle in conjunction with the show as the raffle could very often raise a large amount of money by itself. For a studio show you need to clean the area quite well and remove any objects not for sale. You will also need a good deal of help from friends to monitor the show to prevent theft and to help with ringing up sales. She encouraged people to allow customers to buy their work on installments and left us with a copy of her installment agreement. Frank presented a certificate of thanks to Toby for her excellent presentation
Steve Rosenblum
Newsletter Editor
Steve@rosenblums.us
650-322-9560
In response to my question about avoiding and containing excess glue squeeze-out, I received a thought provoking response from Paul Bischoff. Here is what Paul had to say:
"Regarding your discussion on glue squeeze-out; My preferred method is a toothbrush and bucket of water to remove any glue squeeze-out at the time of assembly. I use the wet toothbrush to remove the bulk of the glue, and then lots of clean water and brushing over the joint to float away any residual glue. I also find that the water helps swell/tighten the joint a bit and have had good success with this method for many years. ...I sometimes use two containers of water - one for the bulk of the glue, and another that is much clearer water to do the final wash. I then use a rag to wipe away the remaining surface water.
Another thing that I would think is obvious to most, but maybe not, is when gluing and clamping a panel and leaning it up to dry, is to make sure it is leaning so that the glue squeeze out flows down along the joint and not out across the panel. In other words, the joint should always be vertical, not horizontal. Seems simple, but I have seen people scraping and chipping away at streams of dried glue across their panels, when all they needed to do was keep it vertical. Usually the simplest solutions are the best."
I agree, Paul, simple is best, and thanks for the suggestions. If there are other questions people may have about any area of woodworking, please send them to me and we will put them in the newsletter with answers as they appear. When the new website comes on line in the very near future, we hope to have a blog on it where these sorts of exchanges can be handled smoothly. Each member will have a user name and password so the blog will be restricted to club members only.
For those that have already gotten a start in Sketchup, but would like to get some experience using some of the drawing tools for woodworking I highly recommend the Swamp Road site, srww.com/google-sketchup.htm I have done the beginner tutorial and can highly recommend it. I have not yet tried the intermediate tutorial. If you try it, let me know what you think or if you have other tutorials or learning sites you can recommend.
In a recent e-letter from Fine Woodworking, I was amused/terrified by some photos they discovered about dangerous ways to misuse your table saw. If you value your body parts it behooves you to take a look at this link, finewoodworking.com/item/29720/tablesaw-safety-takes-a-back-sea
I am sure that none of our intelligent and competent members would do any of these things, but it does not hurt to be reminded of the damage that can result from unsafe practices.
Steve Rosenblum
Living Dangerously
Over 25 years ago, we bought some unfinished wooden kitchen chairs which I then stained. The other day, I used it as a step stool to reach something in the closet. (First mistake) The next thing was that I was lying on the bed looking at the ceiling (it needs paint). The chair had collapsed. The left front and back leg collapsed as a unit. Looking closer, I found that the tops of the legs are attached to the seat bottom with dowels. The dowels now had wood fibers sticking up where the dowels had failed. A well-respected pro woodworker at BAWA very strongly suggested that after all these years, the chair should be buried and a new one bought. That's not the way I think and I was determined to fix it. (Second mistake?) Problem was that both the front and back legs were not vertical but skewed in 2 directions. Fortunately, the other side was still there and I could get the angles but how? I don't have a drill press nor am I certain that the drill press table would rotate in two directions to be able to drill the holes in the seat bottom to accommodate new dowels. So I took my drill guide and screwed a ¾" square base to it. Then I screwed in 2 long screws one on the left and one on the right edge of the base. By varying the amount of screw extending down under the base, I could get angles in two directions. Now using my Digital Angle Gauge, I got the angles in two directions for each leg. I duplicated the angles on the drill guide and drilled the holes. I have been sitting on the chair. If you see me at the next meeting in a back brace, wheel chair and several casts on legs and arms, you will know that the repair failed. By the way, we bought a large step stool with a very adequate handhold. Pray for me!
Mark Rand
PS-I'm sure that was the "Neanderthal" approach. Any suggestions of a better way?
Classified ads must be from members or ex-members or their estates who are closing down their workshops. In addition a non-member may attend a regular meeting as a guest and announce personal items for sale that are directly related to member's woodworking. The details of the announcement may be covered in the meeting minutes in the monthly newsletter, subject to editorial review.
Do you have something to sell or trade? Let me know by the last weekend of the month and I'll put it into the next newsletter. Let me know if your item sells so I can delete the ad.
Steve Rosenblum
650-322-9560
212 Santa Rita Ave
Palo Alto 94301
Steve@rosenblums.us
For sale
* Jet Horizontal/Vertical Sander (EHVS-80CS). List - $1050.00, Selling Price $850.00. Less than 10 hours of use.
* Jet 14" Bandsaw 1 Hp (JWBS-14CS). List – $600.00, Selling Price $350.00. Slightly used Less than 5 hours.
* Jet 10" Contractor Saw (JWTS-10LFR). Newer Model List for $750.00. Slightly used Less than 5 hours. Selling Price $375.00
* Jet Drill Press (JDP-17MF). List – $520.00, Selling Price $300.00. Slightly used Less than 5 hours.
* Jet Dust Collector (DC-650). List - $300.00, Selling Price $200.00. Never Used, Like new.
* Delta Jointer (Model JD-160). List $200.00, Selling Price $150.00. Never Used, Like new.
Contact Paul at 415-218-4505 415-218-4505 or Rich at 650-346-4183 650-346-4183