May 2004

Newsletter May 2004 Vol. 9 No. 5

Meeting Information: Saturday, May 22 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

Brad Stave: Surface Decoration

$15 fee for this meeting:

This will include lunch and a hands-on-workshop using various tools!

At Levi Mize Woodcraftsman's Shop

Over 30 people attended the April meeting at our new venue. Thanks to Levi Mize for making his shop available, we now have room to expand for better demonstrations and to properly display all of the new pieces of work we have done each month. We welcome two new members, Alan Irwin and Paul Acker; this brings our total to 37. For a relatively small group we are very active with lots happening as illustrated in the photos below. A big thanks to our Program Chair Joel Oksner for putting together the grinder, stand and sharpening jigs that now sit near Levi's lathe.

John Bailey collected, and Al Geller and Jim Rinde arranged the pieces now displayed in the Thousand Oaks Library during May. In July our work will be on display at the Camarillo Library. From August 4-15 we will be at the Ventura County Fair with a display, plus entries to be judged, and will again have a lathe with live demonstrations in the booth we share with the Channel Islands Woodcarvers. Sam Turner will have more information about the Fair at the May meeting.

The list of members (7 so far) who are willing to act as mentors was handed out at the meeting and several of our less experienced members have already participated in the program. Contact one of the officers or send an email to mentor@channelislandswoodturners.org if you have questions.

President Jim Rinde reported that the Avocado Bowls we made for Mission Produce were very well received and they would like more if we want to continue this project (see the last two month's newsletters for details). Bring the new bowls to Jim and he will save them until we have a batch ready to go.

We held our April meeting at Levi Mize's shop in Camarillo. I want to thank Levi on behalf of the Channel Islands Woodturners for allowing us to meet in his shop. It was a great place to meet with plenty of room for the 30+ people in attendance.

The monthly challenge was a "Talking Stick" and we had about six sticks show up. Thanks to David Frank's web search on talking sticks the challenge become something more than the lathe exercise I had planned. If I remember right 4 of the sticks had feathers, two were from green wood and three were off center turnings. Very innovative work. Next month the challenge is a Lidded Box. If anyone wants to web search lidded boxes I hope there aren't any hidden meaning with them. A lidded box with feathers? Also thanks to Russ Babbitt for his demonstration on how to turn a box.

Since I will be on vacation in May, I will remind you now that the monthly challenge for June will be a hollow form turning. Also you can see some fine examples of this form, by Ron Lindsay, in the Thousand Oaks library display during the month of May.

Lastly, I also want to thank Warren Brown for taking the lead on the writing of the article on the Avocado Bowl Project. The article is written and nearly ready to be sent to the editor of the AAW Journal. ---- Jim Rinde

Jim has also circulated an email to our members with information about posting photos of your work on the AAW web site's forum/gallery. You will need to re-register as an AAW member to post to this updated gallery and chat forum.

Joel reports on the topic for the May 22nd meeting: Brad Stave is president of the Antelope Valley Woodturners Association and will demonstrate what can be done to decorate the surfaces of our turning work. Brad will explain painting, wood burning, piercing and texturing techniques. This will be a hands-on demonstration with workstations set up so we can all try the different techniques. So that we can all practice as many decoration techniques as possible, we should each bring some projects: they can be rejects or "keepers" you want to enhance but bring something. We will be providing lunch at Levi's shop. Plan to attend, this sounds like a great program! Note there is a $15 special fee to cover costs of the all day event and lunch.

Jim leading the meeting at Levi's Shop

The grinder stand that Joel built.

May Display at Thousand Oaks Libray

Spalted (maple?) bowl by Levi Mize: 8"dia.

Show N Tell table

Show N Tell table

The "Talking Sticks" made for April's challenge

Top of page More photos of the Show N Tell are at the end of this newsletter.

Club member, Russ Babbitt, Jr., was the featured demonstrator for April's meeting. The photos tell the story of his expertise with making precision boxes of all sizes and shapes: