December 2023
In December we held our annual holiday get together where members have a chance to display their work and share a meal with friends and family. This is an open meeting, meaning that members are free to invite guests be they family members or friends or anyone who might be interested in seeing the work of our members. Many members brought projects, some brought multiple projects. Add a catered feast to the display and you have a recipe for a great meeting.
November 2023
November’s meeting featured presentations by three members and took place at an alternate location, the Essex County Environmental Center’s Garibaldi Hall. Chas presented on a box he built which had a starburst pattern veneered onto a curbed top. He covered many of the techniques that he used in building the box including how he built that starburst pattern from a large number of individual wedges of veneer. Kevin presented on design techniques that he uses to make a piece his own. He explained how he can take a piece that he’s seen in a magazine or catalog and adapt it to his own style and needs. For instance he’s taken ideas from shaker furniture, added a subtle curve to the legs and a shelf so that it fits his design esthetic. Gordon finished presenting on the serpentine front dresser that he spoke on in July. One of the topics covered was how he built the fluted column that flank the piece on both sides. This was a terrific meeting and it was great to see the amount of creatativity and expertise of our members.
October 2023
Our guest speaker for October was Saulius “Saul” Toleikis, the Festool regional account manager for our area. He presented Festool’s new lineup of tools. In addition he answered any questions members had about Festool’s current lineup. Festool’s new tools were innovative and Saul’s presentation made for an interesting evening. Thanks to Saul for a great job.
September 2023
Our guest speaker for September was Gregg Perry. A craftsman who’s the consummate preservationist, his resume includes building and restoring period furniture, restoring historic buildings as well as maintaining and restoring clocks and other time pieces. He is the only American to date to complete the formal conservation and restoration training for furniture and wooden artifacts at the wold famous Ecole Boulle in Paris. His study included doing restoration work on furniture in the collection of the Lourve, one of the premier art museums in the world. He also spent a year apprenticing with Patrick Blanchard, voted the best historic carver/sculptor in France for 10 years running. An online search will return a wealth of videos of Gregg’s work, all of it extremely impressive.
August 2023
Our guest speaker for August was Eric Bunn. An expert carver and teacher, Eric owned his own carving school in Wayne for many years. He is also the teacher who is working with a number of members at the New Jersey School of Woodwork. The goal of that engagement is to teach the skills and techniques necessary to complete a Philadelphia Chippendale dressing table. The table has intricately carved ball and claw feet, the carving of which Eric demonstrated at this month’s meeting.
July 2023
July’s meeting featured presentations by two club members. Gordon presented on a serpentine front dresser that he recently completed. He shared many of the techniques he used to build the components of the piece. Tim presented on several traditional Windsor and stick chairs that he’s built. He covered the construction techniques as well as the sources of information that he used to develop his chair building skills. Tim also brought some of the chair specfic tools that he used inthe build process. Members were able to try out the tools as well as receive guidance on their proper use. The work of both members can only be described as stunning. The pieces were on display at our annual holiday get-together. If you’d like a look at some of their work, you can look at the pictures and/or video attached to the recap of our December 2022 meeting.
June 2023
June’s guest speaker, who was remote, failed to join us. Interesting to note that in the history of the club this has only happened twice. This month and February of this year, both by the same speaker. Upon realizing that we’d been stood up for a second time, we shifted to member discussion. Thanks to the members who contributed to the discussion and helped turn a disaster into an interesting evening.
May 2023
May’s meeting was a joint meeting held with the New Jersey Woodturners at their usual meeting location in Roseland. The presenter was our own Bob Sheppard. His topic was turning for furniture which he accomplished by building a three legged stool. Bob began the evening by turning the seat. Because he came with two of the legs already turned his next topic was how to duplicate a furniture part to matched an existing piece. He used an existing leg to mark the low points on the new leg, a parting tool and dividers to bring the shallow points to the correct depth and then showed how to gracefully connect the shallow points to create a matching leg. He also demonstrated how to create and fit a tenon as well as how to drill out the mortise. Bob explained how he built the shop made tool he used to taper the mortises. When the stool was asssembled, he showed how to level the legs. The meeting was complete when one of the attendees won a raffle for the stool. Thanks to Bob for an interesting and educational evening.
April 2023
April’s guest speaker was workshop dust expert Bill Pentz. An engineer and woodworker, he has spent the last 25 years researching and writing about dust in the workshop. Along the way he has built an extensive blog which is the go to source for information about the dangers of exposure to fine dust, the challenges of dust collection, requirements for efficient dust collection systems and strategies for keeping yourself healthy in the workshop. During his presentation he touched on all of those aspect in detail. The evening proved to be interesting and at times upsetting as he described the potential health impact of fine dust in the workshop. In the end he provided a lot of actionable advice that is sure to help improve the workshop environments of our members. If you’d like to learn more about Bill’s research, you can visit his website: https://billpentz.com/
March 2023
March’s guest speaker was master woodcarver Ray Kinman. A carver for over 30 years, Ray made a name for himself as a sign carver for Disney and has had a hand in dozens of well know signs in Disney’s parks. He currently does commision work and teaches at his shop in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains in Northern California. Ray presented an overview of his journey to becoming a master carver and shared an overview of his technique for creating stunning carvings. Several examples of his work are below. Here’s a link to Ray’s website where you can learn more about Ray and see other examples of his work.
February 2023
February’s guest speaker had a family emergency and was unable to join us. Once we realized that our speaker wouldn’t be joining us we did a quick pivot and focued on member work and experiences. About 20 members contributed input to the night. Despite a rocky beginning, it turned out to be a great meeting. Here’s a link to a presentation on a shop built ambient air cleaner that was presented at the meeting.
January 2023
January’s meeting was our kickoff meeting for 2023. We began the meeting with club business including elections, a review of last year meetings and our plans for 2023. We followed that with 4 member presentations. David L. presented a summary of the member survey. He also presented on shaft keys, what they are, where they’re used and how to diagnose problems when they come loose. Here are links to the member survey and the shaft keypresentations. Mark gave a demo on creating a spring joint. Abe rounded out the evening with a presentation on his star wars river table. During that presentation he shared his experiences on how to effectively build up epoxy layers to mimic the flow of a river, how to flatten a slab and a variety of options for creating legs for river tables and slab furniture. Several pictures of the table are below.
