Greetings

I’m thankful for Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday you can sink your teeth into – figuratively and literally. Folk seem to be wanting to change the name of everything theses days, even doing away with things we love and hold dear – even Thanksgiving! If it were up to me to change the name of Thanksgiving, I’d change it to Thanksliving, and change its duration to 365 days. I consider myself and my family to be blessed of God and I want to live like it every day..

Now let’s get started with Splinters!

October Meeting

When it comes to Show & Tell, all our members are above average. Be sure to check the online newsletter for pictures.

Program – Geoff Roehm and assistant Christian Carroll are determined to bring music to the masses. The program “Building a Box Dulcimer” was a great step in accomplishing that goal.

 November Meeting

We will have our next meeting on Tuesday, November 16^th from 6:30-8:30.  Fred Heltsley will present “Mass Production of the FCC-22 Harp Kit”. The program will cover the design and assembly of a low-cost but functional 3-octave harp.

A Tool/Craft Sale is scheduled for November 20^th at the Decherd Nazarene Church gymnasium. Bring your surplus tools and any handmade items you wish to sell. We will set up on Friday the 19^th afternoon – evening. Setup time will be discussed at the November meeting.

October Show & Tell

Here are the items that were shown in last month’s Zoom/Live meeting. See pictures in the online version.

Paul Jalbert presented the results of our support of Tim’s Ford Heritage Days Saturday and Sunday October 9th and 10th.  He noted that Chuck Taylor and Vince Zaccardi demonstrated turning tops and honey dippers, respectively. Jim Jolliffe allowed visitors to carve their own 2-3” tall cottonwood bark pumpkins and take them home.  Paul had a large sweet gum log with a rope pattern that allowed multiple carvers at a time with great results.  The log, when finished, will be donated to Tim’s Ford State Park.  Paul has an “artist’s log” of all who carve.  When a piece is complete, the “artist’s log” is attached to the carving as a record.  He noted that he has supported the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Tim’s Ford with seven large carving activities over the past 10 years.  He counted up the artist’s signatures over the multiple efforts and was pleased to announced that he surpassed 1,000 carvers logging the respective “artist’s log” this past weekend!  Outstanding results, Paul!!! Here’s all the Heritage Days pics.

Jim Jolliffe showed a 16” gnome carved from basswood (Pic1, Pic2, Pic3) finished with a base coat of rattle-can lacquer, acrylic paint and finish coats of rattle-can lacquer.  The large hood, beard and robe (with hands in the robe’s pockets) eliminated the need to carve eyes, ears, a mouth and hands which made the carving pretty quick and easy!

Dennis Finney showed two beautiful pepper mills and multiple pens he turned .  All were finished with Mohawk sanding sealer and lacquer.

Mickey Knowles showed a variety of inlay and segmented salt shakers and pepper mills.  He described the inlay process and some lessons learned.  The description included raw stock that he used to inlay the turning blanks.  All but one of the shakers/mills were finished sanding sealer and lacquer. The other was finished with MinWax Polyurethane which was very easy to apply and worked well.   Mickey also showed a large mimosa bowl he turned and finished with teak oil.

Matt Brothers and Pete Cokenmueller showed a birdseye maple blanket chest they had built together.  This was the third chest they had built.  Matt previously made a walnut chest for his daughter and Pete made a cherry one for his oldest daughter.  This chest was for Pete’s younger daughter.  The chest had dovetail joinery on the drawers and chest which were made with a Leigh Dovetail Jig versus the hand-cut dovetails on the previous two.  The drawers and blanket compartment were all cedar lined.  The top was plywood with 1” solid birdseye maple banding and birdseye maple veneer based on lessons learned from the walnut chest top that warped as it aged.  Helical head joiners and planers were used with no tear-out of the birdseye maple.  They finished the chest with nitrocellulose lacquer.

Steve Tracy showed a two-foot, or slightly larger, coniferous tree made from pallet wood.  Steve rips the boughs to 2-1/2” and then “steps” the boughs every 2-1/2” beginning from 5” long to 7.5”, 10” and so on.  He says they sell great and can be used for Christmas and any other holiday.  The largest tree he’s made is 10 feet tall!  No finish is applied as each buyer has their own finish opportunities and decorating schemes.  He noted one client attached mug hooks to her tall tree that is on her front porch year-round.  She decorates it for multiple holidays including Thanksgiving, Christmas and St Patrick’s Day!

Internet Links of Interest

*Fine Woodworking has a simple tip for aligning pins, tails, and drawer bottom groove in hand cut dovetails.

*From Woodcraft magazine – A free PDF article on maintaining your router. I think maintenance is too often overlooked in our shop.

Carver’s Corner

The Splinter Carvers continue to meet first and third Saturdays of the month from 8:30 am to 10:30 am (whether Jim’s there or not).  The shop is located at 201 Jolliffe Acres Ln, Tullahoma. Tools and wood are available at the meetings, just bring yourself and try you

r hand at carving!

Jim Jolliffe joined the Leiper’s Fork Carvers at Franklin TN on Saturday Oct 30th to carve pumpkins for a real estate company to raffle and give away.  Kay Huey, Vic Hood, Tim Wright and Jim carved 12 or so pumpkins.  Pic1, Pic2, Pic3, Pic4, Pic5

Sweeping Up

I found several funnies from Pinterest this month. I’ll share a few of them:

Watch out for SPLINTERS!

Submissions to the newsletter are more than welcomed. Send funnies, tips, or other content that may be of interest and you may see it in a future edition of SPLINTERS.

Newsletter Information

Splinters is a publication of the Tennessee Valley Woodworkers. For submissions, email editor, Richard Gulley (rgulley@utsi.edu .)

Membership Information

If you change your phone number, email address, etc.; please notify Chuck Taylor, membership chairman (931-728-7086 or taylor_cw@charter.net). This will allow the membership listing on the web site to reflect current and up-to-date information of all our club members.