Mark's Musings
Mark Bronkalla
Volunteers and committee chairs:
The Woodworker’s Guild is a member driven organization. We rely entirely
on the volunteers for the committees and board members to get things done.
We do not have any sort of a permanent paid “staff”. Committee functions
can either be ongoing long term such as refreshments or typesetting and layout
for the newsletter or they may be “episodic” such as helping with the woodworker’s
show or getting logs for Log Fest. The committee chairs and board members
need a pool of people to draw from for these tasks.
For new members or members who have not served on a committee, we will
generally look to you for specific short-term tasks. Think of it as a trial
run. Lets see how much you want to do and are able to complete within a
given time. We are very wary of overloading new committee members as that
usually results in the work landing back on the chairperson’s lap! So when
volunteering to help out, don’t be afraid to be specific about what you
want to do. On the committees, we are looking for “do-ers” not just “idea
guys”. This is not to say your ideas are not welcome, but just the converse.
If it looks like a good idea, you will be asked to help make it a reality
and improve the guild experience.
Committees
Publicity and Wood Worker’s Show (Exhibit):
Don Berger is stepping down after 4 years of doing the publicity work.
We have an urgent need for a replacement. This very important function handles
organizing the shows and getting our name out in the community. For the
coming year only the Wood Working Show is on the list, so it will be a relatively
easy year to get started. This is an urgent need, as the show is coming
up February 20-22 and we need to have the contacts set up and our position
locked in. Don is still around to help teach you what to do and provide
the contact continuity with the show.
Another part of publicity is contacting newspapers, newsletters and schools.
We need to get the word out that we exist and to help attract more members.
Remember, more members leads to more money, which leads to more big name
presenters or other activities.
Publications:
We need a Publications Director who also serves as Publications Committee
Chairperson. Si Farmer is stepping down from thirteen years of leading this
group. He has built it up to a nice 5-6 person staff and will be staying
on as one of the staff members.
Refreshments:
Three people are needed on a rotating basis. Duties include purchase of
soda, ice, cups and pouring the break soda. The mid meeting break is a great
time to socialize over a cup of soda. The soda sales are an important source
of guild income. Think of it as paying for about 40% of our monthly rent or
enabling us to bring in another guest speaker! With a small team of folks
no single person is over-burdened.
Next Month’s Meeting:
Dick Yezek will be presiding, as I must be out of town that night. November
is the month to elect the board and sign up for committee work. It is also
time to renew your membership and sign up for the holiday party. Bring
your checkbook and pen.
Workshops:
We will be having more workshops this year including a few meetings that
will offer more hands-on demonstrations. Workshops will be oriented for
both beginner (Woodworking Basics series) as well as advanced topics. We
are still looking for people to run individual workshops or give a talk
and demonstration for a meeting. Based on member feedback, we will put more
emphasis on demonstrations than in the last few years.
In the Shop:
This has been a busy month in the shop for me. General clean up, sharpening,
rearranging etc. usually happens at the start of my “woodworking season”.
Late summer / early fall is when I also do some of the revamp items such
as wiring, plumbing air lines, etc.
This year I built an air cleaner from an old furnace blower. It is mounted
on the ceiling between my table saw and work bench. The overall box is 18-20”
on a side and has triple air filters with 2 on the inlet and 1 on the outlet
side. Total cost was about $75 including a used blower, filters, switches
and timer. The case was made of oak veneer plywood scraps and other pieces
from my scrap / shorts bin. It does make a noticeable difference.
Tables:
The next project is still ongoing. It is a set of four nightstands roughly
based on an article from the December 1990 issue of American Woodworker.
Two will go in the master bedroom and the other two are for the kids rooms.
On a small item such as this, the setup is a significant part of the construction
time. Building two takes only a bout 20% longer than building one and I
figure that getting all four done will only take about twice as long as
building two.
With short run production like this, I think of fixturing parts differently
and go for highly repeatable operations. The goal in this case was to have
4 sets of interchangeable parts. I came close, but during the dry assembly
there was still some custom fitting. The tenons needed a little touch up.
I got a Lee Valley shoulder plane for our wedding anniversary (gotta love
a woman who buys tools for gifts), and it worked great for this task. Once
fitted, I numbered and lettered the sets of pieces prior to disassembly
for staining and glue up.
The legs and aprons are attached with mortise and tenon joints. Depending
on my mood, I will often cut the mortises either with a bench top mortiser
or with a dado blade on the table saw. With sixteen three and a half inch
long mortises to cut in ash, the mortiser was not my first choice. The relatively
short mortise is not ideal for the table saw, even with a 6” dado blade.
Last winter, I had modified the side table of my table saw to hold my big
router and made a fence for it. I had not used it yet for a project. This
was the opportunity. I put a ?” straight bit in the router, clamped the fence
in position and made a test cut. It looked great. I fine-tuned the fence
position, double checked the face orientation of the legs and cut the first
16 mortises (one per leg). Each leg had the 2 inner faces marked so that
the tapered legs would all face inward.
Now I had to move the fence so that the adjoining face could be done. I
did not have any leg scraps left for running the test cut. I reset the fence
and gingerly pushed the leg into the bit to just make enough of a cut to
allow measuring. I walked over to get the calipers, came back and measured
the leg (darn close) and something smelled like it was burning. I looked
down at the table and the pile of shavings from the last cut was smoldering!
I brushed it to the floor and stomped it out. I guess it always pays to do
a clean up check after milling operations. The table bases and tops are assembled,
now I just need to do the drawers and drawer guides.
We can make it better! One of the reasons I started making furniture was
the desire to have nice looking furniture that is well made and will stand
up to having daily use. Too often, factory furniture is poorly made and
doweled together with an emphasis on appearance rather than underlying structure
and quality. This point hit home again last weekend. We were rearranging
some furniture in the house. The goal was to move a sleeper sofa to a less
used location as it was sagging a bit and initially blamed the cushions and
mattress sagging as the issue. The sofa was made for a local furniture store
chain by Overnight Sofa.
When picking it up for the move, I found that the horizontal rail that
runs across the lower front of the sofa was loose. I figured, “I can fix
this”. The strange part was that as I wiggled it, there was a strange scratching
noise, as if there were some staples pulled loose. The sofa has a skirt
that covers the lower edge. Lifting the skirt up there was an odd piece
of metal sticking through the main covering fabric. I started lifting the
fabric off, pulling staples and found that the frame was cracked at one
of the dowel holes, but could not figure out what the metal piece was for.
I still needed better access and had together strip the fabric form the side
of the sofa or cut some of it away (under the skirt) to get access to the
cracked piece. I pulled up the fabric and was amazed to see that the metal
piece was thin mending plate / gang nail strip and two of these had been
placed across the crack along with about 40 upholstery staples. The staples
ran the full length of the crack (top to bottom of the piece of wood), indicating
that they were installed merely to hold the piece together until the fabric
could be slapped on. I pulled out all the pieces with a needle nose pliers
and nippers. I then reassembled it with thickened epoxy and it is now fixed.
Looking over the other nearby joints on the sofa, there were a number of
poor fit-ups and extensive use of large staples and wavy corrugated fasteners.
The original “repair” either had to be done at the factory or at the store,
but would have required removing much of the covering of the sofa to put
the staples in place.
One of the pleasures of making your own furniture is that you know what
the underlying workmanship is and that you can be proud of it. Good furniture
can last for generations. In many cases you can build furniture of a quality
level that you could not otherwise afford.
Board Briefs
Jeffrey M. Nebel
President:
Vice-president:
Secretary:
Treasurer:
Programs/Workshops:
Exhibits:
Publications:
New Business:
Program
Reflections
Mark Duginske
Si Farmer
Mark Duginske was the featured speaker at our last Membership Meeting.
This was not the first visit that we have had from Mark, but he displayed
another facet of his personality. Previously he taught us how to tune up athebandsaw
and table saw. He is a consummate woodworker, a trait that has been in his
family line for some time.
This time, however, he showed us that a woodworker need not stop with
making sawdust, or joints or wood products. Instead, one can use their love
and knowledge of woodworking to develop jigs and fixtures that have a wide
application in the field of woodworking — even some of them that might return
a monetary gift to you.
Those of us that peruse the woodworking catalogs, or hit the woodworkers
shows are aware of the many items that have been introduced through the insight,
knowledge, and entrepreneurial efforts of Mark Duginske. 
Mark holds patents on the Deluxe Miter Guide, Tru-Fit Miter Bar System,
Miter Guide Add-On System, Angle Heads, DP Extension Kit, the Flip-Stop, Fast-Stop,
Microadjuster, MiterMatic Angle Setters, MiterMatic “B”, Ecostop, Band Saw
Fence for resawing, Drill Press Fence, Miter Saw Stop System, Minitrack, Tru-Fit
Adjustable Miter Track, Standard Track, Microbase, and last but not least,
Cool Blocks, his proverbial money-maker. (I might have missed a few of the
items that Mark put on the market.) In addition, Mark has modified many products
on the market to make them more usable.
In the science lab in college, when we were required to perform experiments
in duplicate, we used to say, “If one cannot be accurate, one should strive
for reproducibility”. Well, Mark has perfected jigs and fixtures that allow
the woodworker to be both accurate and reproducible, a for the most part,
more productive per unit time.
Many of Mark’s items are made from extruded aluminum. He went through
the manufacturing process for us. I guess we could make extruded aluminum
ourselves if we had a 900° oven, the proper templates and a high pressure
hydraulic ram, and a 100 foot table onto which to pull the exrusion. Of course,
we would need to line the table with sheets of graphite to prevent the aluminum
from adhering, and finally after the material was cut into 22 foot lengths,
we would have to anodize it. So, I think I’ll just buy my stuff from woodworking
stores/catalogs that are supplied by Mark.
His first foray into the ‘commercial’ woodworking arena was the marketing
of the ‘cool blocks’. He said that such blocks were needed because of the
advent of the 1/16 inch bandsaw blades that were damaged by the metal blocks.
He said that this was his ‘biggie’, and that he hoped subsequent items would
also be a winner, — but none reached the success of the original item of cool
blocks.
Mark described the composition of the cool blocks, the efforts to get
them on the market, the pit-falls of including others in your efforts to get
your ideas to market. His suggestion was, “design something that is fast and
simple”. The second suggestion that he had was don’t tell anyone about your
idea. (Lest they try to steal it.) One’s first action should be to obtain
a Provisional Patent at a cost of $75 which is good for a year. Next, retain
a Patent Attorney to get your idea into ‘legalese’. It may take you a couple
of years to get your patent, but once you get it you have protection for your
item for the next 20 years. The down side of this is that one must publish
one’s claims when the patent is issued. This gives your competition the chance
to ‘design a similar idea, skirting around your patent’. Mark said that such
was the case of Delta removing the patent number from the cool blocks-type
packaging and then substituting a ‘knock-off’ product from Taiwan or some
similar place. If you wish to view the whole patent process, refer to a recent
Shop Notes article.
After the break, Mark demonstrated his jig for sharpening the blade
of a plane, with a high angle and double bevel, that acted somewhat like
a scraper and somewhat like a plane. One could only perfect the double bevel
with a jig of some sort, and Mark developed such a jig.
Mark’s presentation wasn’t a commercial. He didn’t sell anything. His
presentation was to illustrate the opportunity of woodworkers, who have a
‘fast and simple idea’ about some aspect of woodworking, to capitalize on
it personally, and serve one’s fellow woodworkers in the process.
Log Fest
Mark Bronkalla
Imagine if you will a picture perfect early fall day with sun and light
breezes. The smell of fresh sawdust in the air, 40 or so guild members gathered
together oohing and aahing over some very spectacular lumber. So much lumber
to sell that we almost ran out of places to put it (well over 2500 board feet).
In the shed, on the shed, covering the lawn, on trailers, etc.
John McAlpin leading several hours of discussions on lumber, the lumber
business, grading, selling and then
auctioning off the lumber. Hints and tips galore on the uses of the woods
Picking up a generous supply of wood for well below wholesale prices
George Henderson’s family graciously provided the host site for Logfest.
Having at times 20-40 wood-crazed woodworkers running around, surely made
life extra interesting.
Saturday’s cutting started at 9 am and continued until about 2:30.pm.
Soda, coffee, cookies and doughnuts provided nourishment during the morning.
There were six large logs cut, Ash, Red Oak, and Silver Maple. There was
a constant stream of boards coming off the mill to be brushed clean, numbered,
and stacked for display. Pizza was brought in for lunch and the Yezek sandwich
makers who were also busy, if not well advertised. Personally, I went for
the liver sausage and swiss cheese sandwich rather than pizza.
The auction ran from about 2:30 until 5 pm. Lumber sales were organized
by log and then lots within a log. John and I would set up which lots of boards
were to be sold. This usually ran from 4 - 6 boards. The goal was to allow
buyers to get sets of boards matched in figure and color from a given log.
They were also kept in sequence so that they could be book matched as well.
Many times, there were 2-3 inch thick planks (nearly always quarter sawn)
that were mixed in with the best lot. This provides the chance to have quarter
sawn leg stock to match for table construction. Buying lots of wood from
a
single log is important for woods such as cherry as you can then be assured
that as the wood changes color as it ages, the entire piece of furniture will
change together. In a few cases entire logs were sold as a given lot. The
bids were for the lot were recorded, the buyers number put on the boards by
the kids. The lumber stacked for transport and to make room for the next lots.
We had almost everyone helping move stack and restack lumber. Those that
were not interested in a given lot of boards were moving other boards. This
kept the pace up so that John was almost continuously auctioning, and also
provided a chance to preview and inspect a bit more closely some of the
stacked lumber. The pace did slow down a bit over time – the green lumber
is heavy!
Nearly all of the wood was able to be carried home that day. Some purchased
more than their car, van or truck could carry. Either other members helped
out with the overstock, or a few will be returning to pick up the balance
of their load.
There is a pile of big cherry bowl turning blanks that will be brought
to upcoming meetings for sale. These are both short (1-3 foot) log halves
and “interesting chunks” with branches, knots, burls, etc. Final numbers have
yet to be
tallied, but it looks like the guild will turn a nice profit on the proceeds.
Special thanks for Logfest go to:
Ken Bahr, chairman and chief gofer; Ron Hinderman and Bill Smeaton,log procurement
and hauling team; George Henderson and his wife, host and hostess; John McAlpin,
- auctioneer; and Ken Rausch, cashier and auction tally.
Log cutting services were purchased from Robert (Bobby) Rosploch in
Caledonia and his team. They did a great job for a very good price. If you
need logs cut definitely give him a call.
Hopefully this is the first of a new series of annual Log Fests. If
you liked it let us know. We already have leads on ash, maple and butternut
for next time.
Raffle Column
Alan Clapp
Congratulations to the October raffle winners: Ron Hinderman, John Johnson,
Bob Poull, Eugene Theiler and Jack Whitstone.
The November raffle prizes have been donated by Woodline USA. The 24-piece
1/4” shank boxed set includes straight, dovetail, roundover, rabbeting, cove,
roundnose, chamfer and laminate bits. There will be four handle toggle hold
down clamps given away too. Woodline USA is offering Guild members a 10%
Discount and free UPS shipping on any order. Just mention that you are a
WWG member when you place your order. Woodline offers a wide variety of quality
carbide tipped router bits and shaper cutters including a new Sam Maloof signature
series of router bits.
Look for Woodline’s new interactive web site and new products at the Woodworkers
Show February 20 - 22 here in Milwaukee.
Woodline USA can be reached at 800-472-6950, www.woodbits.com, 111 Wheeler
Street,
LaVergne, TN 37086.
CLASSIFIED
For Sale
Dust Collector, Small Cyclone Type, with 1 hp Dayton Model 4C108 Blower
with controls. $350 (new price)
Dale Lagerman
Delta 16" bandsaw with extra blades and accessories. $275 Brian Halligan