January 23, 2002

To: Dick Morano

From: Dan Smullen

Subject: Minutes from Furniture SIG meeting of 1/9/02

Attendees: We had 32 people at John Britton’s house for this meeting. Four new people were at this meeting: Nelson Cole, John Gianetti, Liz Guck and Maria Sohn – welcome everyone!

Next Meeting: Chuck Rinehart is our host for the February meeting.

Buffalo show last weekend:

Several who attended this show thought it was far smaller than the previous ones held at the Erie County Fairground in Hamburg. The promoters seem to be favoring very large venues only, and unless sales are remarkable, the chance of the show making the rounds in Western NY is low. Our group had some discussion around the idea of Rochester as a show destination rather than Buffalo or Syracuse, but the bottom line is some heavy marketing of why Rochester would be better would have to be done. Who would do that, and would it even sway the decision by the show promoters, is a very good question. Other thoughts were that this time of year isn't conducive to drawing large crowds due to potential of snowstorms; there is a contingent of woodworkers from Erie, PA who would not attend a Rochester show due to the distance also. We have an option to attend the large show in Toronto, but that takes some planning, and could not easily be done without staying overnight there.

Other items:

· · Ward Donahue showed us a neat bird's mouth router bit he got from Lee Valley. It allows for location each part of a poly-sided project so as to prevent slipping as would be expected if there were only one simple bevel on each side of the part. There is a notch and companion apex which locate beautifully.

· · Rick Diehl bought himself a new 10" Makita sliding compound miter saw and likes it so far.

· · Bruce Ames mentioned that he had a selection of bowling alley wood if anyone was looking for such stuff.

· · Robin McClellan brought some of the brown maple he spoke of last meeting. It's available in 5/4 and 4/4 at $1.30 and $1.15 per bd ft, respectively. See Robin if you want to arrange to get some of it. Robin brought a piece of it planed, but the stock is rough sawn as purchased.

· · Dick Morano showed us a Roto-Zip router he just bought. He said that it works great to trim around electrical boxes, etc. for drywall. Since Dick is fixing up his barn, it should get plenty of use!

· · Craig Smith showed us a curved door he had created for a special project. It looked easy as a finished unit, but there were some real tricks to getting the results we saw!

Program:

John had set up the required equipment to demonstrate the cutting of coves per the book that Frank Klaus's son had written. John picked a cove which would be used on typical cove feet for supporting secretary's, and other large carcasses to make them appear less bulky.

The process itself consists of setting up the table saw so that the stock is guided through it at whatever angle is specified to achieve the cove desired. Small [light] cuts are made, since only the carbide teeth are doing the cutting, and the work piece is presented to the side of the blade at an angle. Too much all at once, and the blade would be overworked, not to mention the fact that there can be no cutting by the blade substrate itself. If you were to raise the blade to a ridiculously high setting, it would soon bog down, cutting only a groove at the deepest part of the cove, with high friction and no cutting otherwise. [read HOT!] [read NOT safe!]

Several people ran a pass or two through the table saw on the test stock until the line marked on the work piece was reached. Another bunch took a few strokes with a hand plane to create the convex portion of the cove feet. The object is to make a long piece of stock with the final shape on it. Since John's planes had no motor on them, most people didn't spend too long on this part of the learning process!

The long section can then be further cut into the mitered corner sections and relieved with graceful curves as desired. This shape which is cut perpendicular to the cove, and further lightens the look of the piece of furniture to which these feet are attached.

John's demo helped us understand this technique and took a lot of the mystique out of it. I would imagine that after making a set or two, most of us would have the requisite skill to become fairly masterful. These feet look really nice on large items.

Happy woodworking!

Dan