Siouxland Woodworkers meeting

Oct 15, 2009

The meeting was held at Alan Pedersen's shop in Riverside.  Members immediately found cinnamon rolls and a very large roaster of delicious chili.  Alan also had Palmers candy spread around the room.  Between him and David Attrill, the rest of us are looking pretty bad.

Terry called the meeting to order and asked for members to share new items that they were working on or completed.

Dave Attrill made what appeared to be a cookie jar that he turned out of cedar.  It had a lid and a saucer and looked very nice.  He commented that he was learning from Ron and Red and had used a trick he learned from Ron to laminate the wood.  By it’s looks, it appears he is now lost to the turners!

Ron Eriksen showed a goblet that he turned out of a blank he got from a member of the club.  It was very finite and is the case with all of Ron's work, was a beautiful piece.  He also had turned some bowls of different sizes and shapes for the Christmas tree.  One particular bowl had turned “cherries” complete with finial stems.

Chuck Dorn had a request from family and made some trivets that were mitered and held a piece of tile tightly in the middle.  The tile protruded a short amount so the hot item would make contact with it only.  On one, he used tile that matched the tile in the family members home.

Terry and Don spoke about some urns they have recently made for Precocious Angles.  Four were sent to the woman who called and said she liked them very much.  She is hoping for more as she is more need of them than caskets.  She has been receiving those from Prison Industries.  Bill Noony found an article about the organization that is local and they will be meeting Monday evening.  Terry and Don plan to attend.  Ron said he would turn a few urns when time allows – the capacity is only enough to hold approximately 2 tbl of ash.

Allan Pedersen spoke about air sprayers.  He showed three different types with one being a standard siphon type sprayer, another being gravity fed and the third having it’s own air system.  He also demonstrated an air-brush.  He commented that using lacquer,  you are able to start again once completed because it dries so quickly.  He said cleaning was fairly easy by using paint thinner/mineral spirits and taking few parts apart for detail cleaning.  A conversation between him and Craig Greis turned to air compressor requirements and it was said that a 20 gallon 5 horse could do the job, but it would work hard and you may have to wait for it to return to the full capacity.  It was an interesting topic.

Needing a stair rail that is curved – Gene demonstrated how the rail cut into eighth inch strips can be glued and placed against a number of brackets mounted to ¾ plywood and utilizing hand screws can be completed.  It was interesting to note that Gene clamped them dry first in order to accurately get the clamps in working position so when glue is used, no time is wasted in setting hand screws.  When the work started, three people glued the strips using small paint rollers with little time to spare (one side only) and they were each placed into the clamping position.  When all were in place, the clamps were again tightened on the rail to set for 24 hours.  It was a very interesting operation and many people seemed to take note and learned something.

Brian Weisler informed the club that our Christmas tree project is getting underway and that this year, the benefactor of the “Avenue of Trees” is Habitat for Humanity.  More will be discussed at the next meeting, but there is little time to spare.  Fortunately, Ron is going to get the ornaments started with 30 small turned items with finials and the bowls.

As always, Alan's shop is immaculately clean and gives our club a welcome environment.  The eats were good too – Thank you Alan.