Demonstration:

Don Saucier will demonstrate the preparation of shop drawings for projects.

Directions:
From Madisonville: west 5 miles on Hwy 22 to Hwy 1085; north 0.5 mile to Brewster Ave; turn right, 300 yds to Whispering Timbers, turn right; turn right at Pine Avenue (first corner); 124 is first house on left.
From Covington: I-12 west to exit 57; 0.5 mile north to Hwy 1085; 3.8 miles southwest to Brewster Ave; turn left, 300 yds to Whispering Timbers.

• Joe Perret presided over the meeting held at Gordon McFarland's shop October 23, 2007. Thirteen members attended.

• Acting Treasurer Harland Johnson reported a bank balance of $3498.87.

• A motion from the floor proposing a $500 gift of appreciation to the Maritime Museum was passed unanimously.
  Likewise, a motion to dedicate $200 for additions to our library was also passed without objection.

• Perret led a discussion of possible Guild officer candidates for 2008. Brian Rowan, currently Vice President, volunteered to be Treasurer. Harland Johnson agreed to continue another year as Secretary. Henry Simon, who was not present, was nominated as President, but he later declined, so Joe Perret will continue as President for 2008. The position of Vice President is still to be filled.

• In a discussion of ways to improve the Boat Show activities, it was suggested that one way to eliminate the bottleneck at the large "parts bin" at the front of the line, would be to have a supply of various parts at each work station (or at each pair of stations). This would allow the kids to be deciding on their design while the woodworker is putting the pontoons on the hull. It was tentatively agreed that we should try this approach for the first day and revert to the old procedure if it didn't work.

• Perret asked for volunteers to give rides to meetings for those members who do not drive.

• Harland Johnson showed a new multi-purpose tool called a Trim-Gauge, consisting of two partially offset 1"x4" "rulers" (and containing two spirit levels) that can be used as a depth gauge for such activities as setting trim, establishing reveals, and adjusting tool settings (e.g. router depths, table saw heights). It costs about $25, and is also available in 6" and 8" lengths. A video demo is available at the manufacturer's website.

• Eric Carter showed a Grex 23 gauge 1-3/8" Headless Pinner, a tool that was named the Best New Tool by Popular Woodworking. More info at the Grex website. He also showed a one-piece wooden scoop that gave the woodturners in the group an opportunity to explain how it was likely made.

Gordon McFarland's wonderfully equipped shop, located on an 11-acre site about 15 miles north of I-12 on LA1082, provided a perfect setting for his description of the ins and outs of veneering, and its related specialties, marquetry and parquetry.

Veneering is the process of applying a very thin layer of (usually) rare and/or expensive wood to an inexpensive substrate. In marquetry, thin pieces of different kinds of wood are used to create pictures and designs, as exemplified by the lids of the two boxes in the above left. These lids make use of bloodwood, holly, and wenge. In parquetry, the designs are geometric, typically squares as shown in the chessboard at the top of this page, or diamonds as shown on the tabletop in the photo above right.

Although veneer is available commerically in large amounts, a craftsman like McFarland needs only small amounts, which are available in hundreds of exotic woods, from specialty suppliers such as Carlton McLendon Rare Woods and Veneers in Atlanta, Certainly Wood in New York, or B&B Rare Woods in Colorado. McLendon showed many of the samples he has in his stock, including Santos Rosewood, Kingwood, Zebra, Walnut, and Holly, and also showed how one can lay out two pieces like the open pages of a book ("bookmatching") to produce beautiful symmetric designs (above right).

Cutting these thin sheets of veneer to produce precise, repeatable widths, with clean, straight edges, is a challenge that McFarland has obviously mastered through much practice. In the photo above left, he has fastened a straight length of 3/4"x3/4" wood on the left to make a stop for the veneer to butt up against. A brass rule attached to another piece of wood on the right is the cutting guide. In this photo he is using a pair of 1/4" thick insert blocks to establish the width of the piece he is planning to cut, and he drives in some push pins through holes in the brass rule to hold it and the veneer in place. Then he removes the stop block and the insert blocks and is ready to cut along the edge of the brass rule. You must use a veneer saw, not a knife, to cut the veneer, especially if you're cutting along the grain. In the photo above right, he is using the saw for a freehand cut (i.e. the cutting guide is not pinned to the veneer, so it is only hand pressure that keeps the cutting guide in place -- which as he illustrated, is not an easy task, and can caused grief if the rule moves at all). He has several sets of insert blocks for making thin strips (called filleti) such as 1/16", 1/8" and 5/16".

McFarland uses hide glue or white glue to fasten the veneer to a good substrate, which for him is typically 3/4" cabinet grade plywood. Usually the glue is applied to the convex side (veneer tends to curl), except in bookmatching, where one glued side is obviously going to be concave. Adjacent pieces of veneer are temporarily held in place with veneer tape, and then the entire assembly is taken to the vacuum press. McFarland gve a quick demo of the power of the vacuum press, by placing a semi-rigid plastic container in the vacuum bag (above left). After the air was removed with his vacuum pump, the container was flattened. A vacuum press can exert up to 1700 psi of pressure, whch is why veneer will bond so well without ripples or bumps on the surface. Of course the entire process is much more complicated than McFarland had time to demonstrate. You can get an idea of some of the in depth details from Joe Woodworker.com

Finally, McFarland showed us a photo of his dream project: he is trying to create a marquetry image similar to one of Georgia O'Keefe's Jack-in-the-Pulpit paintings, using a variety of exotic woods to create the desired colors.

Thanks, Gordon, for an enjoyable evening! You obviously have fun working with these special woods and techniques, and we look forward to a very special "Show and Tell" session at a future meeting when you unveil your O'Keefe flower.