March 2007

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Our February meeting started with Stan Booker our Raffle and Door Prizemeister describing the door prizes: push sticks donated by Frank Taylor, an Acacia turning block, carpenters pencils, electrical tape and 80" band saw blades.

Next, Tony Fanning announced that the next BAWA meeting will be held on March 15 at the new Sequoia High School Wood Shop. There will be an exploratory meeting on February 21 at 1:00 pm at the shop for BAWA members who may be interested in volunteering to help out with the wood program at Sequoia High.

Tony also said that this year, BAWA will be working with the Peninsula chapter of Rebuilding Together. The projects will be announced later.

Mark Rand is once again pleaded on bended knee for everyone to pay their dues. Also he needs Woodcraft receipts from BAWA members so that he can claim the club's 3% rebate for the July to December period.

Per Madsen said that the April BAWA meeting will be held at Woodcraft in San Carlos. We will receive demonstrations of several Festool tools.

Bruce Woods is working with a woman near San Rafael who will be liquidating the wood shop of her deceased husband. He will have a list of tools and materials at the next meeting.

Arnold Champagne has selected woods and veneers for sale during the break.

Harold Patterson our Toy Wokshop Guru announced that the first Toy Workshop of the year will be held at Per Madsen's shop on February 17. Members will be making crickets and block sets.

Stan Booker met a woodshop teacher from Encinal High School in Alameda who can use unwanted tools. He is looking for Delta 14" bandsaw guides. He will prepare a list of other needed tools and supplies.

The Pleasanton Wood Show was brought up. It was the feeling of the membership that we didn't want to participate.


We had a wealth of Tech and Tool Talks for the evening.

Tech Talk: Neal White on spokeshaves. Neal brought in a selection of tools from his spokeshave collection. He passed out copies of an article titled "TeachShave, or How to Make a Spokeshave."

Ancient drawings, some from as long ago as 6000 years, show representations of spokeshave like cutting tools. Basically, there are two types of spokeshaves: bevel up and bevel down. Wooden body spokeshaves typically have bevel up blades. Hock Blades produces these blades today. Metal spokeshaves such as the Stanley #51 have bevel down blades. Low angle blades are good for use on straight grain and softwoods. Higher angle blades perform better with figured and hard woods.

Spokeshaves can have flat or rounded sole plates. Flat soles are well suited for shaving flat wood surfaces and outside or convex curves. Rounded soles are designed to shave concave surfaces. The Millers Falls #21 is an example of an older round sole shave.

Quality spokeshaves are available from Veritas, Lee Nielsen and Harris Tools.


Tech Talk: George Bosworth on Ripping Thin Strips Safely

Thin wood strips can be cut on the tablesaw two ways: Wood left or wood right. George passed out a diagram representing the two methods.

In the wood left mode, the block of wood is run past the blade so that the thin strip is to the right of the blade and against the fence. This method is dangerous because the thin strip can shoot backwards unless is pushed forward which is tricky because the push block must be narrow to avoid hitting the blade.

The wood right mode is safer because the cut off strip is to the left of the blade and therefore not subject to backwards ejection. The wider block of wood which rests between the blade and fence is firmly controlled with a push block.

George's handout referenced three articles describing how to cut thin wood strip by either the left or right modes. Jigs are described in the articles. A copy is in the library.


Tech Talk: Eric McCrystal demonstrating of the Festool Domino mortising machine. The Domino looks at first glance like an elegant biscuit joiner. However, it soon became apparent that it is much more. The Domino cuts mortises in four sizes: 5 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm and 10 mm. The cutting depth can be varied from 30 mm to 50 mm. Festool supplies the loose fitting tenons. The Domino, similar to all Festools, comes in its own Sustainer box. Several accessories are available and include a trim stop and cross stop. A separate Systainer box contains the four cutter bits and an assortment of tenons. The base price of the Domino is $700 and it becomes available on April 1, 2007.


Show & Tell

Gene Wag presented a bowl made by joining two halves of segmented turnings. The bowl is made of Maple and Bloodwood. He used a polyurethane finish.

A big welcome for a new member, John Poole from Belmont.

After a satisfying break where Fred Reicher's home baked cookies were demolished, we had our Main Presentation.

Donald Fortescue is an Associate Professor and Chairman, Furniture Design Program, California College of the Arts in San Francisco. With beautiful slides, Donald described his career and work. Donald began as a research botanist, sometimes masquerading as the Big Bad Wolf at Disneyland in Japan. He soon discovered that he liked to make things, especially from wood. He attended the Canberra School of Art and specialized in fine woodworking and sculpture. Their program was a sister program to the famous Parnham program. He started his own furniture design and fabrication business in Australia. Australia, he noted, is as geographically large as the United States, but with a population of only 18 million people. Some of his early work included bent lamination chairs with woven nylon webbing for seat bottoms and backs, lamps made with wood frames and hand crafted paper, a spa cover made of woven wood slats, a large outdoor wooden table and matching chairs and bedside tables made by laser cutting square holes throughout the solid wood table top. He also made all the sanctuary furniture and pews for a Catholic church in Australia.

After eight years in woodworking, Donald enrolled in a Masters Program for sculpture in Adelaide. He received a government grant to go on a sabbatical to New York City for three months. It was a thrilling time for him. So many fine museums, so much sculpture. Soon thereafter he was invited to join the California College of the Arts and relocated to San Francisco from Australia.

In 2001 he had a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and won the SFMoMA's Experimental Design Award. One of his more recent exhibitions featured large hollow turning titled "Empty Vessels". Each vessel weighs about 80 pounds and is constructed by gluing up laminations of Finish Birch, then turning the object on a large lathe. The finished vessels resemble tears.

In 2003 Donald had a showing titled "Permutations" at the John Elder Gallery in NYC. These cones, of various heights, share a common waist height and when arranged against a wall, the shapes form a spire scape view. Included in this show was a large wooden wheel with a wedge section cut out. It was made by joining triangular wood sections, thick at the center, thin at the edge.

In 2005, Donald attended Anderson Ranch and developed two complementary pieces called "Under the Bridge". The two viewing cabinets, modeled after a surveyor's box, represent two bridges: the Sydney Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge. Each box contains a looped video showing the circulating water under the respective bridge.

We thank Donald for a fascinating evening. Truly he has melded fine woodworking with sculpture.

The Silent Auction items sold were some buffing wheels donated by Mark and some veneer pieces from Arnie Champagne. Richard Winslow's father's historic tool box was not sold.

The lucky winners hauled their door prizes home and the rest of us decided to enroll at CAAC.


John Blackmore & Mark Rand