Great Lakes Chapter spring 2010 meeting summary.

GREAT LAKES CHAPTER APRIL 24-25th MEETING REPORT
We had another excellent meeting with 28 members in attendance. The theme for the presentations was sharpening, with members demonstrating their individual techniques.
Steve Lash brought in his Cartouche award as well as the founders plaque. Congratulation to Steve on receiving the awards and for all the time and effort he put into bringing SAPFM into existence and making it so successful.
After coffee and cake, and members greeting each other, Bruce Beck gave a report about the conference in Williamsburg.
Trevor Smith, one of our newest members, who teaches sharpening at Woodcraft, gave an excellent presentation on the use of diamond and ceramic stone. He had a #4 1/2 smoothing plane iron that he sharpened and honed, producing excellent results. Trevor also showed the use of waterstones .
After honing the plane iron, he surfaced the edge of a board to a mirror finish.
Ed Stuckey brought in his Tormek and demonstrated the sharpening of carving tools. Ed also uses the Koch system for honing, to produce an extremely sharp edge.
Bill Vetter brought in his Wooksharp sharpening system that use a series of paper grits on plastic plattens. You progressively go from a coarse grit to a finer one and finally hone the blade on a felt covered platen and compound to achieve a very sharp edge. There are adapters for grinding carving tools which was very unique. It was a very interesting and informative presentation.
Mike Holden gave an excellent presentation on how to sharpen scrapers. He went through the steps of milling the edges of the scraper, then to honing the edge using waterstones. Next, he used a lubricated burnish tool to put a very fine hook on the edge. He then demonstrated how to use the scraper.
Chris Tenney gave a demonstration on how to make and use scratch stock. Chris talked about the history of why scratch stock was used. He made some molding profiles from band saw blade stock, and then showed how to mount it into a holder in order to scrape the profile into the wood. Chris gave an excellent presentation.
Rich Eschebach brought in his Philadelphia Tall Case Clock hood. This is as far as he has progressed in the construction of the clock. The hood has many carved elements, which are attributed to the Gavan carver. Rich got chance to go to the chipstone house in Milwaukee to measure the clock.
He went through all the steps to demonstrate how the hood was built. Hopefully he will be done in time for our next meeting, so he can show the rest of the construction.
We then had a photo presentation of Bob Compton?s, Bruce Beck?s, Mike Holden?s, and Chet Kloss?s furniture that they have built. Everyone always enjoys seeing other members work.
We were supposed to have hands on time for sharpening, so a few members got to try some techniques for a limited time. It would have been longer but we ran out of time.
After Saturdays meeting about 18 members and their spouses got together at a local restaurant for a very enjoyable evening of food and conversation.
On Sunday, Erik Blom, invited everyone to his shop. Erik gave a tour of his house and some of the pieces he has built. We then toured his shop which he built as a separate building. What a treat. This is a shop where some serious woodworking can be done. Erik also has a barn full of wood, including, cherry, walnut, maple, bass wood, poplar, and other species. It was like going to a lumber yard.
A couple of members gave presentations. Jim Crammond, who had just purchase a toothing plane, showed how to sharpen and use the plane. Very interesting demo. Erik has a desk made in the 1850?s and wanted to re-veneer two of the smaller front drawers. Ed Stuckey demonstrated how to hammer veneer the drawer faces.
I would like to thank Eric for opening up his home for a very enjoyable morning.
The weekend?s meeting was very successful and I would like to thank all the presenters for their time and effort in giving excellent and instructional demonstrations. We all learned something that we can take with us to use in constructing future pieces of furniture.

Ed Stuckey

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