The September meeting started with announcements. Stan Booker announced that he was just a few dollars short of being able to give away the two Maple boards. He encouraged everyone to buy tickets. The door prizes for the night include an Ipe board, a block of genuine ebony, more glue and a six pack of cold Anchor Steam beer.

Eric McCrystal described the upcoming Woodcraft Show scheduled for this coming weekend. There will be 21 vendors, 4 woodworking clubs and several demonstrations of the Saw Stop table saw. Fred Reicher is coordinating BAWA's participation.

The Saw Dust Shop in Sunnyvale is holding its show on October 6. The San Mateo Woodworking show is scheduled for November 9-11. However, its main sponsor, Delta/Dewalt has withdrawn. Stay tuned.

A new woodworking show, Woodworkers Consumer Expo, may hold a meeting in the Bay Area next April.

Upcoming BAWA meetings include a hand plane seminar by Neil White in October to be held at Woodcraft in San Carlos and the Box Contest will be held in November.

There is still space available to attend Yeung Chan's seminar on Nov 3 & 4. Contact Per Madsen at permads@comcast.net or 415 928-4509. You must commit immediately.

Mark Ferraro is closing his woodshop and is selling off all of his tools. He is giving BAWA members first crack. He is donating a partially finished doll house and finishes to the Silent Auction.

Show &Tell was next. Arnold Champagne showed pictures of the octagonal display case he made for the College of the Redwoods show being held at the Mendocino Gallery until November. He also showed pictures of a veneered table made by one of his students. The marquetry inlay work was exemplary.

John Blackmore is making a dining room table and he showed us a prototype of one end of the base. He had planned to make only the base prototype out of Alaskan Yellow Cedar, but it is turning out so well, he plans to prototype the whole table our of the cedar before making the second table out of quarter sawn Maple.

There were Tech Talks as follows:

Claude Godcharles gave us a demonstration of power carving with the Arbor Tech power carving wheel attached to an inexpensive electric grinder. The carving wheel is a solid circular blade with tungsten carbide tips. It has a plastic guard covering the wheel that can be adjusted to vary the depth of cut. Claude showed us two trays he had made from slabs of green wood. One tray later warped and curled, producing an interesting, but difficult to use piece.

Claude also showed us a curved spoke shave he had made in a blacksmithing class. While it functioned well, he could not work as quickly with it as he could with the Arbor Tech cutting wheel. When using the wheel the sawdust was flying. Good thing Claude was wearing eye and ear protection.

George Bosworth did a follow-up on one of his previous Tech Talks in which he described two techniques for cutting thin strips of wood on the table saw. Remembering that it is dangerous to cut thin strip to the right of the saw blade because the wood is impinged against the table saw fence and may kick back towards the operator, George showed us the jig he had made to cut to the left of the saw blade. This jig uses a set screw to fine tune the width of cut. Since his last talk, George came across an article in Shop Notes describing how to make a similar, but more elaborate jig. So he made one. It worked just fine, so he modified it to incorporate his set screw design, only to make it work even better. He donated the Shop Notes jig to BAWA for the Silent Auction.

The Main Presentation was by Joe Brown, owner of Joe Brown Distinctive Woodworking our host this evening.

Joe's college education led him into anthropology and psychology, followed by a degree in design. But the education didn't distract him from his true passion --- woodworking, learned from his father and from stints working in a woodshop during college. In 1978 he designed and started up a woodshop for his employer, a high-end general contractor. He ran this shop for four years then set up Joe Brown Distinctive Woodworking in San Carlos. Now 25 years later, he has invited BAWA to visit.

The focus of the business is high-end, custom residential woodworking products, including cabinetry, shelving, doors, molding and even a recreated British Pub. He works in a variety of woods and will always sacrifice quantity for quality. The business contracts out all finishing work. They use outside installers. Business is almost exclusively by referral. They use software by Cabinetware.

One project last year involved making all the cabinets, doors, trim, bathrooms and laundry in a 2600 square foot townhouse. The wood was figured Sycamore. It took the shop four months to complete the project.

A more recent project was to recreate a genuine British Pub in the basement of a large home. It took two months to do the woodworking, but only after having completed weeks of research, some of it in pubs no doubt.

The product system is based upon the European 32mm standard. Joe had first seen these wood processing systems in the early 1980s while attending the AWFS in Atlanta. The future was clear to him. Standardized production design and techniques were compatible with hardware and would lead to greater efficiency, more versatility and better value for the customer. He was hooked.

Next came the woodshop demonstration.

BAWA members Mark Bouquet and Claude Godcharles work for Joe Brown at Distinctive Woodworking. After having had the opportunity as BAWA members to visit many woodworking businesses, Mark and Claude realized something could be done better. The machines could be turned on and used to produce a piece of cabinetry. Many of us amateurs had never seen this done; we'd only imagined the process and admired the machinery.

In the first step, Mark took a sheet of Maple ¾ ply, placed it on the vertical panel saw, set the parameters and proceeded to cut the top, bottom, sides and back for a small wall cabinet. Three minutes tops.

Next came the dado cut in the top, bottom and sides to accept the back panel, all quickly accomplished on a table saw. Yes, they do have a Saw Stop.

Edgebanders do edge band and quickly, too; and then, back to the panel saw to trim the ends.

Completed side panels then went to the hole boring machine. 8mm dowel holes were drilled on another boring machine. These holes were drilled on the top and bottom edges of the side and on the ends of the top and bottom panels. 8 mm dowels were inserted with the dowel gun.

And have you ever seen a dowel shooter? Claude, load em up, shoot em out. Pre glued dowels, blue no less, in a circular magazine; pull the trigger, out comes a dowel right into that 8mm hole.

Now just slap those sides into the top and bottom and you've got a case; but first, put in the back.

Take it all to the giant hydraulic press. Slap the trigger and it goes together, square. It took 60 seconds for the glue to set up.

Since we were using pre-finished wood, the cabinet is done; except for the door. But, I forgot, we made the door on the vertical panel saw and edge bander, too. Just have to drill the holes for the Blum hinges. No sweat. There is a hole-boring machine for that job, too. All done.

The lesson to be learned: It is possible to produce quality cabinetry, on sophisticated equipment, and quickly, too. But what do you do with this cabinet. Of course, you donate it to the door prize raffle pool. So on to the meeting finale and door prizes.

Door Prize Raffle:

Remember, the special door prize raffle item tonight was the 6-pack of Anchor Steam. Five tickets were drawn by our speaker, Joe Brown. The first ticket went to CJ Riser. She shrieked and headed for the prizes. What prize would she choose? She chose The Cabinet of course. Frank Ramsey won the Maple boards. Sorry Frank, you had to be there. We convey our thanks to Joe Brown, Mark Bouquet and Claude Godcharles for an excellent and informative visit. Glad to see quality triumph.