It's been almost 18 months since we feasted on Gerald and Linda's jambalaya, so bring your folding chair and $3 and enjoy!

Demonstration:

Gibson will will demonstrate some of his toymaking ideas.

Directions:
From Mandeville take Hwy 22 west to the Deloaks sign at Roger Storme Road, 1 mile past the Beau Chene Marina entrance. Bear right on Roger Storme Road. Go north 0.1 mile to Deloaks Road. Turn left. Go 0.2 miles to Deloaks Drive. Turn right. Go 0.4 miles north to Magnolia Ridge Drive. Turn left. Go 0.1 mile to 66 Magnolia Ridge Drive.

• Joe Perret presided over the meeting held at Dick Gahn's shop February 26, 2008. Fourteen members attended. In the absence of the Secretary, Perret documented the demonstrations by camera. Inaccuracies in the writeup are solely the fault of the Secretary, who will unfortunately be away on business for the next meeting as well.

• Dick Gahn described the thank-you party hosted by the Maritime Museum; Woody Glover, Eric Carter, and Don Saucier told about their experience with the "This Old House" TV crew in New Orleans. Both of these items were covered in last month's newsletter.

• Perret announced a change in the date for the bird-house construction event at the District 12 Fire Station. It will be on Saturday May 17.

• Eric Carter showed a step stool made for his daughter. It incorporates some of the techniques he showed last month for inlaid floors.

• Perret showed three exotic (and expensive) wood pieces he brought back from his recent trip to Hawaii -- Koa (actually from Hawaii), Monkey Pod (Central and South America), and Waterfall Bubinga (Africa). Rockler recently announced the acquisition of an 8-foot diameter log of elaborately figured Bubinga, which is often used in musical instruments, valued at over $200,000. They will be selling slabs in their catalog in the next few months, so you can outdo Perret by bringing a piece to a future meeting. Hopefully he will be showing us a project that makes use of his unique purchases!

• Paul Robin showed two of his latest turned bowls.

Lloyd Guillot demonstrated a technique for making oval "bowls," as outlined in an old issue of Woodsmith. Two of his bowls are shown above left. These are all made from layers of two or more wood blanks about 15-1/2" x 7" of various types and thicknesses (1/4" and 3/8", with a bottom layer 1-3/16" thick), with the total thickness not to exceed about 3" because of the limitations of the router bit depth. Above right shows a bottom layer of maple, planed, sanded and glued to an upper layer of walnut for contrast. Guillot has also used cypress and padauk for different textures and color.

After choosing and laminating the selected wood pieces, Guillot made a template from a piece of 3/4" x 18-3/4" x 7" MDF. The desired inside dimension of the bowl is cut out, the piece is sanded, and screw holes are drilled in each corner to allow the template to be mounted on the wood blanks, as shown above left.

The next step is to rout the inside of the bowl. Guillot made an 11" square acrylic baseplate for his router to make it easier to view the work, and selected a special bowl bit with a shank-mounted bearing to be used with the template. This bit produces the desired inside bottom curvature at the bottom of the bowl. A collet extension may have to be used for deeper bowls.

After the inside routing is complete, the template is removed, and a rough outline of the outside of the bowl is marked on the routed piece, using a marking gauge and pencil. The bowl is then cutout with a bandsaw, the top edges are rounded with a 1/8" roundover bit, and the bottom with a 1/2" roundover bit. Sanding, inside and out, is the next step, followed by finishing. Guillot used mineral oil because the bowls were intended to be food containers, but obviously any desired finish can be applied.

The finished products were quite elegant, especially with the contrasting woods. The same template can be used to make circular and divided bowls, which Guillot says is his next project.

Thanks for sharing your nice work Lloyd!.

Santa Claus was good to several woodturning members, but the first one to show off his new Jet 16" x 42" Electronic Variable Speed Lathe was Dick Gahn, who has not wasted any time churning out great projects.

In the above sequence Gahn is roughing out, then sanding a "weed pot" on his virtually vibration-free machine.

The stability of the machine is exemplified by his ability to drill out the center of the pot with amazing accuracy as shown above left. On the right are some of the fruits of his recent labors.

Next, Gahn showed how to create interesting and intricate design patterns using chatter tools. Above left, he creates a pattern on the end of a 2" diameter cylindrical workpiece. With the aid of marking pencils, he then added color as shown on the right.

Above left are examples of the intricacies of his chatter work, and on the right is a closeup of a large piece, once agin demonstrating the range of capability of the Jet 14" lathe.

With his new toy already broken in, Dick will undoubtedly have new tricks to show us in the near future. A very jealous thanks to you Dick!

Guild dues ($10 per year -- ridiculously low) may be given to any of the executive at the next meeting or mailed to the secretary at 124 Pine Avenue, Madisonville, LA 70447. We have not had an opportunity yet to transfer the records to the new Treasurer, Brian Rowan.