Craig started off our February meeting by reading a Thank You note from Abigail Wagg for the club's donation to Rebuilding Together in Don's memory.

Mike Cooper and Harold Patterson showed a name tag that could be made for us in lieu of the ones we have now. Since it's a hassle to find your name tag in the box at the meeting, a suggestion was made to have members make their own out of wood. Craig suggested that this could be done as a contest possibly scheduled for July. More information at future meetings.

Craig also reminded members that Jay Perrine can get shirts with our names either long sleeve in denim or Khaki with short sleeves. He also has caps with our logo.

Harold Patterson described the Toy Workshop that occurred on February 7th at Per Madsen's shop. Duncan McCormack, Gene Wagg, Jerry Robinson, Don Naples, Steve Gonzales, Paul Reif with his son Matthew, John Blackmore, Peter Wronsky, Per Madsen and Harold participated. Blocks and boxes to hold them were being made from Oak. Donut breaks and a hearty lunch at a Chinese restaurant which had Ostrich (cooked) spurred the group to complete 25 sets of blocks with 90 units in each box. They ended up with 850 blocks and cut 1,000 pieces of wood. The next Toy Workshop will be on March 13th again at Per Madsen's shop in San Francisco. Articulated pull toys will be made. Call Harold for more information.

Fred Reicher described the next month's meeting. BRING CHAIRS if you want to sit.

Stan Booker described the raffle which still had the Walnut with a Carob board added from Warren Wise and a piece of Coca Bola donated by Mike Cooper. A number of items were also available for the door prizes and a couple of jigs generously donated by our speaker for the evening, Jim Vice.

Mike Cooper announced a CD from Fine Woodworking for the library which was immediately checked out by Harold Patterson.

Paul Reif explained the Mentor program he is chairing where members who want to learn a technique can pair up with a more experienced woodworker. More details will follow.

A sign up sheet was passed around for volunteers for the Answer Person program which will start up shortly.

Since Bruce Bell was not at the meeting, Craig described the Open Shop program which will be held every other month. Some activity or demonstration will also be going on at the shop tour.

Neal White will chair the Education program where he will expand our Resource list of schools, classes, wood working stores etc. We might consider starting week end classes.

Tony Fanning subbing for Robbie again asked for volunteers to handle the refreshments for the April, May, June quarter.

At this point, Craig asked for visitors or new members to introduce themselves. John Watkins from Foster City makes furniture and is also a wood turner. He is a refugee from one of Arnie's classes. Larry Berger from Livermore saw our booth at the Wood Show. He is a professional and has a studio and a web site www.intothewoodsstudio.com

Arnie Champagne announced he had some openings. His list of classes can be found in the Classified section on our web site. NOTE: Arnie will be going to the Sacramento Woodworking Show to represent BAWA. If any one is interested in helping him with the booth for a couple of hours, call him at 1-415-282-1704. He will have his bench there.

Jim Vice our speaker this evening explained that he does wood working classes either at Woodcraft, Dublin or in Pleasanton. The Pleasanton class is 3 hours a week for 8 weeks.

Main Presentation

Fred Reicher introduced Jim Vice who was our speaker for the evening. Jim is a machinist by profession and the semi-retired owner of Vi-Tec Manufacturing, a family-run precision machining business in Livermore. He is also an experienced woodworker and has taught for many years. He now teaches in Pleasanton and at Woodcraft-Dublin. He decided to develop precision jigs and fixtures for woodworkers trying to take into account all the problems and pitfalls for every item he developed. He then went on to describe and demonstrate the seven items that he had brought ranging from Zero Tolerance Throat Plates to a Dadowiz, a precision dado jig. Jim was very informative and obviously put a lot of thought into the items he made.

Show and Tell

Paul Reif showed a vase made out of Norfolk Pine. Obie Gilkerson helped him in hollowing it out. He coated it with Liberon Oil.

Carl Johnson brought a mock up of a dining room table for a commission. It will be 42"x60" with leaves to bring it to 100". Not to destroy the grain pattern when a leaf is inserted, he had the leaves at each end and stored underneath so the grain pattern can be continuous. He promised to bring the full size table to the next meeting.

Dave Heim showed a clock made of White Oak. He wanted a certain diameter clock face which did not seem to be available. He found www.clockdials.com which can provide 50,000 increments with a number of different substrates.

The meeting ended with many lucky winners of the door prizes and Larry Hoffman won the Carob board in the raffle.

There followed a rush to buy Jim's various jigs and fixtures and many left with lighter wallets.