Greetings and welcome to the June installment of John's Jaunt. Spring is here, summer is not far away, and with it all of the end of the school year kids' activities at our house. Between dance recitals, softball games and horseback riding our schedule is pretty full. Despite that, I managed to squeeze in a project for a friend. He has a sailboat with a number of wood parts that were showing there age. Since he has been kind enough to allow me to crew for him in the Lake Geneva race series, it was the least I could do to make him some replacements. Another one of those simple yet rewarding projects.
Elsewhere in this issue you will find a “meet your fellow woodworker” article. This has been done in the past but we felt it was a good time to bring it back. The first featured member is Liz Rhode. We hope many of you will be willing to share your stories in the future and help put names to the many faces and interests of Wisconsin Woodworkers Guild members.
Happy woodworking! John
Date: Wednesday, June 7, 2006
Event: Regular Guild Meeting
Topic: Clock Making - How to Select, Mound, and Maintain Mechanical Movements
Presenter: John Cooper, Product Development Manager
Klockit
POB 194
N3211 County Road H
Lake Geneva, WI 53147-0194
(262) 348-4907
JCooper@PrimeXInc.com
Location: Faith United Church of Christ
Time: 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Fee: None. First time guests are welcome.
Comments: Klockit has been supplying a wide variety of parts and products for clock makers for over 30 years. You may have seen their catalog.
John will bring a mock up of the case for a typical “grandfather's” clock. He will then describe the differing mechanical movements that can be placed in such a case (the movements with weights and springs, not the battery and quartz); the differing methods for mounting the movements; and the concerns for proper long-term maintenance of a fine mechanical movement.
Each attendee will receive a complete handout. Klockit will also provide discount cards for each attendee.
We will survey the membership at the end of the presentation to determine interest, content, and venue for a possible follow-on hands-on workshop concerning some aspect of clock-making.
Date: Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Event: Regular Guild Meeting
Topic: Show & Tell
Presenter: WWG Members
Location: Faith United Church of Christ, General-Purpose Room
4240 North 78th Street, Milwaukee
(414) 463-6500
Time: 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Fee: None. First time guests are welcome.
Comments: We will invite as many of our members as possible to share something during this meeting - a technique, a special tool, or a completed project.
Date Wednesday, August 2, 2006
Event Regular Guild Meeting
Topic Oil Finishes
Presenter Len Chesney, Sales Representative
Velvit Products Company Division
Dynamic Development Corporation
2434 Progress Court
Neenah, WI 54956
(920) 722-8355
Sales@VelvitProducts.com
Location Faith United Church of Christ, General-Purpose Room
4240 North 78th Street, Milwaukee
(414) 463-6500
Time 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Fee None. First time guests are welcome.
Comments: We were introduced to Velvit Oil during our February meeting as a product well-suited for turners. We have since learned Velvit provides a variety of products for both the industrial and general markets. Over half of their shipments are to the log home manufacturers.
Len will bring a number of samples with him and discuss their use. He will demonstrate how certain woodworking flaws can be rectified in the finishing process. He has personal experience using the products with an Aldo Leopold bench that sits outside on his porch.
Attendees: John Johnson, Dick Yezek, Liz Rohde, Leila Crandall Frink, Mary Anderson, and Jerry Tackes
Membership: 152
Treasure: $12,344.65
Ripsaw: Hank Yun to do layout for June issue
Holiday Party: Liz had contact with Meyers which has increased the dinner price by $1. She was also told that there would be a $1 charge each for extra entree. Extra room would be available for toys if the room was not booked by others. Liz and Mary are to visit Meyers just before the party to finalize the room layout. The minimum number for the room is 35. Based on the current situation the target dinner price is expected to be $20 per person.
Liz is to cancel Church Library for Tuesdays because the workshop committee does not meet to use the room.
Both raffle licenses have arrived and have been filed by Jerry Tackes.
The PO box fee is $72 per year and due April 1. The box is titled to a past member and an attempt will be made to change the ownership to the Guild. The fee has been paid.
Jerry Tackes will put together a list of woodworking Dvd’s to be considered for future purchase.
Jerry Tackes to prepare a ripsaw article entitled “Know Your Fellow Woodworker” featuring Liz Rohde.
Jerry Tackes will prepare a list of woodworking tips to be used as fill-in as needed for the ripsaw.
Brian Halligan is to set up a Yahoo Group so that Guild members can post questions and answers. This group will be limited to Guild members with possible e-mail notification. Brian will co-ordinate the details and get specific Guild members participation approval.
Jim Wesp of Kettle Moraine Hardwoods, a long time friend of the guild, visited us in May to help us work through the selection process of some of the major domestic hardwoods. How did Kettle Moraine Hardwoods come about? Jim’s dad worked for the telephone company and retired early. A long time tinkerer, he always liked having his sawmill on 5 acres in Colgate. Bob, Jim’s younger brother, was in high school and got interested in dairy farming. That lead to full time farming. In the mid-80’s, Bob took advantage of a government buy-out program for dairy farmers and sold out. Having worked with his dad all along, he now joined full time. They knew about Olsen lumber on Hwy 41, which they purchased. After about 2 years, they changed the approach from selling semi-loads to catering to small users with some industrial. They built the store facility and their dad still found himself working 50 – 60 hours a week, not something he wanted. Jim had started a business out of school in 1976 and ran that for 13 years. Jim joined KMH in 1989. They began manufacturing hardwood flooring and in 1996, opened the south side store, mostly for distribution. They began producing log-style mantles (three sawn faces, one rustic). They only recently got into imported woods.
Jim provided a handout with his Top Ten Species (plus 1) for woodworkers. The list is comprised of domestic hardwoods most favored by woodworkers primarily for their workability. For some species he made generalizations, like Ash, which really has eight or nine variations, under one heading. Oak, on the other hand, he broke out because they vary more between types. The numbers he published for specific gravity (ratio of density compared to water), weight (actually density) and shrinkage are more for comparison, not necessarily absolute numbers. The densities published are kiln dried moisture content numbers. Shrinkage numbers are from green to dry. In addition to the handout, some commentary by top ten species was as follows:
Ash – Jim feels is one of the most underrated woods in this part of the country. The price differential between 1” and 2” thick boards is not as bad as other woods, 34% on average compared to say about 70% for red oak. This is proportional to its ease in drying – it can be dried more quickly with less waste. He encourages us to consider it if we are using a lot of 2” thick boards.
Aspen – Really a utility-grade wood whose greatest asset it the price – it’s cheap. The wood likes to get fuzzy and tends to twist in the drying process. Once dry, however, it is stable.
Birch – This is not the paper birch. There is a renewed interest in red Birch. Jim can’t see where this came from other than someone came up with the name. Birch’s popularity has run in streaks through the years.
Cherry – In 1989 red oak and cherry were about the same price. Now cherry is 2x red oak. Wild cherry and black cherry are the same wood.
Hickory – KMH manufactures hardwood with rustic character where they leave in the pattern and color. No wood is better for this than hickory. Hickory has made a total transformation. Not as popular as oaks, but it is growing. KMH won’t dry anything over 5/4 due to waste. It is very difficult to dry due to “drying degrade”, the industry term for cracking, checking and more movement (an “airplane prop without machining”, as he called it). They then either have to sell it that way or “upgrade it” which means expensive machining.
Maple – Trees in this part of the country don’t have a lot of sapwood, which makes for an adventure in finding saleable wood. Color-selected maple is about 2x the cost as the other stuff.
Red Oak – “The best wood of the ages”, per Jim. It must have had a great P.R. person hundreds of years ago. Jim sometimes feels it is overdone but KMH sells more red oak than then next 2 to 3 species combined.
White Oak – May not get enough press. This wood is a better value in this part of WI. From a “drying degrade” perspective,
no wood checks more readily than oak. If you pay attention to seasonal cutting of certain species, you don’t want white oak in your yard in May. You can saw 10,000 BF of oak and tomorrow it will be checked, it dries so fast, and it won’t recover from that. All of theirs is sawn during the winter months to give it air time before it checks. Quarter sawn oaks are visually attractive due to the medullary rays. Quarter sawn wood is more stable because shrinkage tends to occur radially and wood sawn this way has minimal radial exposure. Sawn more this way now for figure vs. stability.
Yellow Poplar – grows in the South, like southern IN, eastern TN, AL, AR and not around here. KMH imports it due to demand. This can stain to look like walnut (reference our talk from Spectrum Interiors’ Ken Brengel who mentioned opposite colors make brown and covering poplar’s green areas with red turns them brown).
Butternut is being affected by a blight, they don’t see it much. May go the way of chestnut. Schools where kids are learning woodworking like butternut because it works easily. With flooring you need to be careful in new construction. A house just painted and drywalled is a moist house and not ideal conditions for hardwood floors. As the tongue-and-grooved floor takes on water, the tongue gets thicker and the groove gets narrower. Some people will bring wood in their shop for 1 – 2 weeks to let it acclimate. Jim suggested we not let wood sit in the shop like that if our shop does not have moisture control. Their kiln-dried wood is taken to 6 – 8% moisture content (M.C.). This is a function of being in Wisconsin. The Forest Products Lab has a chart (published, among other places, in Hoadley’s “Understanding Wood”) showing different average M.C.’s across the country. If you bought kiln-dried wood down south, the drying process would most likely have been stopped much higher because the average M.C. is higher down south. KMH runs into moisture issues mostly in flooring.
KMH made a business decision not to offer air-dried wood. They do not want to carry that extra inventory and don’t want to risk cross-contaminating the stock. If he sensed more of a demand, they would consider carrying it.
An open discussion on air-dried vs. kiln-dried woods yielded the following: Kiln-dried and air-dried woods don’t react the same. Air-dried woods don’t seem to splinter as much. Not done properly, kiln-dried wood can case harden which leads to movement during sawing or milling. Air drying can be inconsistent and getting it less than 12% is not easy. You can dry wood in microwave ovens and Jim has heard of a commercial microwave oven kiln. Some people prefer the color of air dried woods, particularly walnut.
People are drawn to some specific colors in each wood. For instance, the white of birch and maple is the sapwood, what most people look for in those woods. Cherry and walnut are opposite, people want the dark-colored heart wood. Jim said finding cherry with a lot of heartwood is an adventure. If the timber inventory is a lot of smaller trees, there will be a lot of sapwood vs. with a timber inventory of larger trees.
Quarter sawn production is not what a sawyer generally is thinking when he has to figure out how to get the most wood the best way. Standard for quarter sawn is 45degrees – 90 degrees. Oaks show flecks between 80 and 90 degrees. The best fleck is close to 90degrees. Maple may not show flecks except within a few degrees of 90. KMH does not stock quarter sawn woods specifically other than oak.
KMH still uses a circular saw mill, but has band re-saws. They found it is more efficient to buy from mills that band saw. They serve mostly industry off their circular mill when ” kerfs are less% waste.
Where KMH gets wood is dependent on where it grows plentifully. Walnut is brought in both green and sawn. IN, IA, MS are heavy walnut producers and it does grow in WI, just not enough. It is not worth hauling woods long distances for lumber due to the waste. Veneer mills, on the other hand, will ship logs in a longer way due to that process’ less waste. Catalpa grows in our area but cannot seed itself in our area. Jim thinks catalpa trees were populated by the Fuller Brush man, who supposedly gave out seeds. The wood is rot-resistant and used for fence posts.
The colored ends you see on wood is strictly to control the drying by not letting the moisture escape the ends too much quicker than the sides. The color does not designate a species or grade and, while one mill might use one color, there are other mills that probably use that color as well. From a growing perspective, the faster a tree’s crown is created, the better the clarity of wood. The tree will shoot up for light and any branches that are low to the ground will fall of early in the tree’s life, leaving a clear trunk. The difference between softwood and hardwood? Needles and leaves. By definition only, softwoods are coniferous and hardwoods are deciduous.
Meet Liz Rohde aka “Baba” by her grandkids. Liz and husband Frank live in a log home in rural Wisconsin near Kewaskum. They have three children, Mary –who serves as our membership chairperson, Frank Michael, and Lydia. Liz serves the Guild as Treasurer and Holiday Coordinator as well part time beverage server and anywhere else there is a need.
Liz was born in Germany where her father was a cabinet and furniture maker as well as a forester in the Black Forest. After her parents immigrated to the US, specifically Chicago, her father took a job as a cabinet maker. During school vacations she joined her dad at work. Here she was given busy tasks, which has resulted in the love of woodworking. There is plenty of sawdust in her blood. During those early years two other passions developed, a love of log homes and horses.
Liz worked for 22 years as a nurse and gave up that career to become a CNC machinist and programmer. You guessed it especially the lathe. After retiring and on a drive in the country she spotted THE LOG HOUSE and told Frank that she must have it. Although the house was not very old it was badly constructed. Liz took on the job of rebuilding and doing the job right. She is still at it, and in fact she is now in the process of building all the kitchen cabinets from scratch. Liz does all the woodworking while Frank uses his skills as a tool and die maker to handle the non-wood tasks. As far as her other non-woodworking passions she now has four horses and is taking riding lessons.
Her wood skills are varied and include turning -- she has even taught turning classes at our local woodworking stores. Her hollow Victorian ornaments are quite the challenge and are in great demand. I’m told admirers usually go home with a treasure. A Bow Front table, a product of one of the guild workshops, is a very special piece of furniture in her home. The future holds a china cabinet built from white oak salvaged barn wood. Maybe next year?
There is a saying “If you want something done, ask a busy person” Does that fit Liz or what? Life is especially wonderful when you can enjoy your passions.
Congratulations to Bill Godfrey who won the digital caliper last month. The June raffle is a Black & Decker 5" random orbit sander. The sander includes a dust bag and sand paper to get you going on your summer projects.
This request was forwarded to us by Dick Butula
The Ranch, a community service organization, located in Menomonee Falls, has received some funds from Children’s Variety Clubs of Wisconsin. These funds were given to build a miniature train as a kiddie ride. The Ranch hosts thousands of people each year for corporate and civic group picnics, school field trips, youth group outings, and community festivals. Their 100-acre campus offers horseback riding, hay wagon rides, nature trails, and an 18-hole wheelchair-accessible miniature golf course. The kiddie train would be an addition to that offering. They have found a few websites* that offer plans on-line for building the train. The engine fits over a garden tractor, and the cars are simple platforms with bench seats. Now all they need is someone with talent to build the train. The grant from the Variety Club will cover most of the materials and perhaps enough for a modest gift of appreciation to whoever might volunteer to take on this project. They are inquiring whether any of the Woodworkers Guild members would be willing to make this project.
Ed. Note: This could be something that several of the members could work on together. If anyone is interested, they should contact Richard S. Lowe. He may be reached at (262) 251-8670, ext. 310 or on his cell at (920) 988-4774 or e-mail at ceo@ranchwi.org *http://www.scrollsaw.com/diesel_train.htm http://www.trains.com home.asp