November 23, 2001

 

To:                        Dick Morano

 

From:                        Dan Smullen

 

Subject:                        Minutes from Furniture SIG meeting of 11/7

 

Attendees:          There were a whopping 32 people at this November meeting, held at Craig Smith’s house!  A good crowd, in more ways than one.  Tom Zenowski, Byron Rubin, Bruce Alles and Troy Skinner were new to the SIG, and Bob Emerson has joined our meeting 2 – 3 times.  Welcome to all of the new folks!

 

Next Meeting:            Mike Heiler will host the December meeting. Mike gave us a map to his shop, but in case anyone needs directions, it is on Route 250, north of Route 104 in Webster.  Just north of 104, take a left on Railroad Ave [at Michel’s Glass], and proceed behind Michel’s Glass to Homes by Design in the parking lot behind Michel’s. This meeting will be at the shop only.

 

Battery Banter:

 

Ward Donahue had some Panasonic drill batteries that went bad after only 1 year.  For replacements under warranty, or when unusual failures occur even after the warranty period ends, he found that Harmco at 428 State St. downtown was helpful.  It took a while, but he got a reasonable resolution.  Harmco’s phone is 546-1650.

 

Several comments around deep freezing your batteries were made. Apparently if a battery is left for 2-3 days in a deep freezer, it will regain a lot of performance, despite being at death’s door prior to the treatment.  At the price of batteries, I’m willing to try it.

 

Grizzly Grand Opening wasn’t so grand:          Several SIG members went recently to Grizzly’s new facility in Muncie, PA.  The Williamsport store is now closed, and the event was supposed to offer lots of bargains, etc.  When our guys arrived there at 8:10 AM, most of the bargain items were already sold!  What was left was a collection of stuff that was incomplete, damaged, or otherwise uninteresting, selling for only $20 - $70 below retail.  When items were selected for purchase from the general stock, there were wicked long waits to check out, since the lines overwhelmed the few cashiers, and the logistics was also poorly thought out.  Maybe it’s better to wander down there on a “normal” day – our group has gotten some good deals, but the mobs removed that possibility.

 

Other items:

 

·     Dick Morano recently placed an order with Harbor Freight and got a free attaché case as well.  The offer may still be on if you ask.

·     Dan Holmes bought a bench slave he made from the plans distributed last time.  It inspired me to make mine soon.  The thing is rugged and really easy to use.

·     Dave Ingalls showed us a battery rack he had made to hold several 1.5 V sizes as well as 9V -  a good idea to keep them accessible and used in order of “age”.

·     Some discussion around woodworking CAD programs was raised – remember that the club has Drawing Board LT available for us to borrow and load on our computers.  It is very easy to use [2D only].  Most of us probably don’t need 3D anyway, since it is usually more complex to learn, not to mention much more expensive to buy.

·     RWS will have a booth at the Western NY Woodworking Show in Clarence on January 2nd - 4th. Volunteers willing to cover the booth will receive free admission to the event.  Call Bob Follmer if interested.

·     The January meeting at Woodcraft won’t work.  It was decided that we would move the meeting to January 9th this one time, and John Britton will be our host.

·     Some of the members were asking about the Air-Mate devices as opposed to the alternatives that can be worn for dust protection.  The consensus was that the Air-Mate was by far the best choice, albeit an expensive one.  If you are interested in getting one of the units, contact Dick Morano.  If we get at least 10-12 people, Ward Donahue can check into getting a group discount.

 

Program notes

 

Craig showed us the $800 barrel organ kit arrives from Australia. He had shown us the finished unit last month. All parts are laser cut and fit together like a glove. 

We spent an interesting evening looking at some of Craig’s music machinery. These take a lot of time to either make or restore, and Craig is more than willing to invest the time required.  I think the most interesting one was the 16mm video “jukebox” which uses a complicated system to play short segments of film which accompany the songs themselves.  For those who might want to make a whole shop air filtration system, Craig still has a few of the large FARR filters which can be built into your system.

 

Happy woodworking!

 

Dan