Craig opened the meeting with an apology about the length of the business part of the meeting shorting the break and our main speaker the past few meetings. Announcements will be cut down and can now be found in the ANNOUNCEMENTS & THIS MONTH'S MEETING in the newsletter. Further details are in the President's Message. Remember -- Any announcements for the newsletter must be sent to Mark Rand by the last day of the month. Craig also mentioned that we need a person to handle refreshments. Volunteer for the job or at least volunteer to handle one or two meetings. Otherwise, there will be no refreshments. The raffle is still a huge Walnut board. Buy the tickets from Stan Booker. $1 each or 6 for $5. There were door prizes too. Craig also reminded everyone that April is BOX CONTEST month. A box is something with walls, a bottom and a lid. There are many categories such as Most Original, Most Modern, Most Unusual etc. This will be a fun contest and he urged everyone to participate regardless of skill level. He also thanked Jamie Buxton, Tony Fanning, Paul Reif and others who worked so hard in making the Peter Wronsky tool auction a big success and for the clean up afterward. He then read a note from Marilyn Wronsky thanking all for such a great job. Craig then read a note from Wendy McCormack that her father, a long time BAWA member had passed away. Arnie Champagne announced his new schedule of classes. They can be found in the CLASSIFIEDS. Stan Booker announced that Dr. John Kassey passed away. He has been a past presenter on Shaker furniture. He was one of Stan's professors at SFSU in 1968. He published a book in 1980 called The Book of Shaker Furniture.

Show & Tell

Bill Henzel showed a Cherry Arts & Crafts style cocktail table. He did mortise and tenon joints with final sanding to 1200. The top had a Miniwax Polyurethane finish, the rest was Polyurethane with Tung Oil.

Bruce Woods showed a Shaker candle stand table made from Central Valley Walnut. The legs were dovetailed in. The table edges were rounded with a block plane. He liked the figure in the wood and since the color of the various pieces did not match, he stained the whole table. Bartley Gel Varnish was the finish.

Larry Berger showed a bench made from Cedar tree pieces. The wood was milled in Oakland. Since he doesn't like to waste wood, everything was used with the back still having the bark on the outside and the back was angled. The bottom of the seat also has bark.

Brad Heinzen showed a guitar that he made. It had a Sitka Spruce face, Mahogany neck and Rosewood back. He applied a light coat of French Polish with less on the face. He then played the guitar for us.

Mark Ferrarro showed us his version of a steam bending apparatus that he said was a very safe arrangement. He got the plans from Mike Dunbar. He will write it up and there will be copies in the library shortly.

Mart Bouquet showed a set of Onsrud upcut spiral and straight cutting router bits.

Main Presentation

Peter Wheeler was our guest speaker. His topic was Designing and Producing Furniture in Multiples.

Peter received his formal woodworking training in England culminating with a Master's Degree from the Royal College of Art. He was trained as an industrial designer. He has taught at the university level at several universities in England. Currently he has a studio with his wife, Mary Little, in San Francisco and teaches at the California College of Arts.

Peter opened his presentation with a description of three projects he designed with David Goodwin while teaching at the Royal College of Art. His first was a stacking chair, the second a tip-up seating system designed for a soccer stadium and the third, a system of toilet stalls still manufactured in the UK and USA. He still sees the tip-up seats, some here in San Francisco, where the seats are installed in bus stop waiting areas. He learned a lesson from the toilet stall project -- always receive a royalty on the units sold.

His projects have been varied. He and his wife, Mary Little, designed a unit for a film editing suite composed of two seats with attached table. He did a sofa commission for a collector on the East Coast. The sofa was upholstered on a stainless steel frame. He was approached to design a cafeteria chair for a bank by an architect. He built a prototype cardboard and plastic pipe model. He then proceeded to make a production model that had a veneered back on a solid core. The bank did not proceed with the idea, so he hawked it around. A process he exclaimed to be inefficient. Nevertheless, an Italian company liked the idea and he collaborated with them to produce the chair.

The Italian version of the chair has a wood frame, leather back and seat. He worked with the company's artisans to produce the first prototype. The design director for the company was critical and asked for more upholstery. The two parties could not agree and the project died.

Later he was approached by a Spanish company to make a chair with molded wood side panels. From sketches, he made a full sized prototype model and sent the package off to Spain. He did not hear from anyone for over a year. Then he got a phone call, the company was bringing the prototype to London so they could discuss getting it into production. Arm rests were added to the chair and molds for the formed wood were engineered. It went into production.

In an upholstered chair project with yet another Spanish company, he collaborated with Jane Dillon to design a sectional chair system to replace an aging product line for the company. He went through a four step design and model building process:

Miniature prototype plastic models were constructed

Foam models were made

Business cards were bent to explore shapes

A 1/10th scale model was made of foam

The package was sent to Spain where the company's artisans produced the first full-sized prototype models that were then taken to and shown at a trade fair. The sofas and chairs were very well received. Peter had the opportunity to observe how the show's attendees interacted with the furniture. Changes were made: the chairs were placed at 90 degrees to each other, a round table was attached between the chairs. Arms were added. A linking mechanism was engineered to join the components. Polyester foam was wrapped over the foam core for comfort. This furniture system is still in production 12 years later.

Peter designed a leather chair for a company named Parabel. Its designers had left Chile to move to Spain. The new general manager approached Peter with an idea for a new furniture system having a low, curved back. Again, Peter followed his preferred design process. He made a small scale cardboard mockup. Then, he proceeded to a full size mockup. Satisfied, the team produced an upholstered prototype sofa. The position of the sofa back was judged to be critical, so a jig was made to allow the sofa back to be tested in various configurations. The sofa has a molded beech wood frame. Rigid foam is placed on the frame. Soft foam is then injected over the more rigid foam. Because of the complex shape of the sofa, it was proving to be difficult to make an upholstery pattern. Peter's wife, Mary, had the elegant solution. Imagine an inside-out T-shirt. It worked. The system consists of a 2-seat loveseat, a 3-seat sofa and a 1-seat chair. The molded, low back is held to the pieces with a metal strap. This furniture system is in active production.

Peter's message was clear. To ensure comfort it is important to make models right from the beginning of the design process. He makes few, if any sketches. The models should be rough. It helps to motivate everyone to move to the next, more elegant versions. He admires the crafts people and artisans with whom he works. They bring great skill and insight to the design process. He likes working directly with the customer because it challenges him to move in new directions.

The meeting ended as lucky winners of the door prizes hauled away some Bubinga pieces, a BAWA logo cap, an Acacia piece suitable for turning and a 2-bag combo.