Business meeting

Our February meeting started with our President Craig Mineweaser remembering Don Stern, our Treasurer who passed away quite suddenly several weeks ago.

Robbie Fanning, our Membership and Acting Treasurer described a New Member brochure she is developing.

Bill Henzel who is doing the Outreach for Rebuilding Together (formerly Christmas in April) described the work this organization has been doing for the last 12 or 14 years. Last year, the BAWA group completed 2 projects. Building an outside stairway at a house and large cabinets in a church. This is a one-day project and occurs in April every year. He was looking for volunteers for this year. The site(s) and type of work is not known at this point. Contact Bill if you want to help. He can be reached at 650/349-3062 or at wjh@gene.com.

Cheryl Bentson is still looking for volunteers to take the Hospitality for several of the months still open. She developed a checklist. You have to bring the donuts, nuts and make the coffee. If you like coffee and donuts then drop everything and volunteer now! You can reach her at 510/651-4383 or cbentson@ix.netcom.com.

Jamie Buxton our Web Master is starting a photo gallery on our web site of work by BAWA members. He can accept pictures in about any type of media. So drop that Fine Woodworking magazine and contact him at 650/365-3076 or buxton@tdl.com.

Stan Booker our Raffle/Door Prize person had Coco Bolo and Zebrawood for the raffle and several items for the door prizes. Security had to whip the line into shape to buy tickets at $1 each or the Blue Light Special of 6 for $5.

Our Program Chair, Jay Perrine described our coming meetings. You can find them in the EVENTS section of this newsletter.

Tony Fanning described our Silent Auction system. Bring something like an Unisaw for the auction and the proceeds go to the club.

Mark Rand described two gallery showings.

Craig then had our guests introduce themselves. A big welcome to Brent Tolosko, David Goldenberg and Jeremy Ashley.

Show and Tell was as usual very interesting. Jamie Buxton showed a 3-legged chair with a blue stripe up the center of the curved back. It is made from Jarrah, a dense Eucalyptus from Australia. He used four laminates to form the curved back with the laminate thicker near the bottom. He used Urea Formaldehyde glue for the laminate piece which has more resistance to cold creep. The finish is oil and a rubbed on varnish.

Linda Salter showed us her latest segmented bowl creation. It has a desert scene and has over 400 pieces. She said it was hard to keep track of the pieces and she still finds pieces in her breakfast cereal. The woods that were used were Bloodwood, Walnut, Cherry, Purpleheart and Osage Orange. A beautiful scraper made of Walnut was shown by Harold Patterson. He gave explicit instructions on how to make it. If you are interested, contact Harold. He donated the scraper for our Door Prize. An adjustable jig for routing hinge mortises in jewelry boxes was shown by Paul Reif which Bill Manix made. He said that the plans can be found in Shop Notes. It is made from Baltic Birch and is set in a vise for stability when using. An Appalachian type foot stool made from Kentucky Red Oak was shown by Carl Johnson. He used mortise and tenons and had a very clever scheme to bore holes to accept the shouldered tenons on the ends of the legs to attach the legs to the seat. The seat was made from woven Hickory bark which is impossible to find except he got some from Bryan Boggs a woodworker from Berea, KY who helped revive interest in Traditional Appalachian furniture. Dry wood is very important for chair rungs. Otherwise, they may shrink out of the leg holes at some later time. He dries them in an insulated box using two 75-watt lamps. He also has a thermometer to keep the temperature at 170 degrees. Linda said that if he was ever stopped with that box with dials in his car, they would send him immediately to the Al Quaeda prison camp in Cuba.

After a short break....

Jay Perrine introduced our speaker, Roger Heitzman, a woodworker and tool builder. Roger gave us a little background on himself. He attended Humboldt State University in the Industrial Arts section. He wanted to teach but was disillusioned when he was a student teacher. He enjoyed woodworking and he made his first chair at Humboldt out of Madrone. He later found out that this was a very unstable wood. He showed us about 100 slides of some of the things he has made. His first sale was in 1975/76 and it was cocktail table. Throughout his 27 years as a professional, he has made everything from bread boxes, small clocks, through stools to chairs and dining room tables to huge buffets. He even made a display cabinet for a doctor to display shrunken heads. He didn't mention if these were ex-patients. Linda asked if the doctor was a psychiatrist. Y'know a shrink. He expanded to doing whole kitchens. He started veneering by using sandbags as presses before he knew and eventually got a vacuum press. He got interested in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles and started working with those styles. This required sculpting the wood so in 1986 he did his first project, a desk. As a break from sanding and cutting, he started doing kinetic wind sculptures using brass, copper, stainless steel and other materials. He also built machines to suit his purposes such as a shaper, large disk sander, horizontal boring machine and carving machine. Matter of fact, he couldn't afford a band saw early on so he built one. Still uses it to this day with some modifications. The carving machine is central to his sculpted pieces. Using templates, he builds a full-scale prototype out of polyurethane foam with wood backing and using the carving machine does the piece in wood. He showed us the machines, his carving technique and his shop in Power Point. A high tech tool for a very talented, hi tech woodworker. A very enjoyable presentation leaving us salivating and dreaming of carving machines which we will get when we win the next 65 million dollar lottery.

The meeting ended with the drawing of tickets for the raffle and the door prizes. The raffle winner was Bob Redstone who won the Coca Bola. He refused all offers from members to help him carry the wood. Several members including yours truly won the door prizes of Harold's scraper, some Cherry veneer and a $10 gift certificate from Japan Woodworker.