2024-2025 National Speakers/Workshops

NATIONAL WORKSHOP - Larissa Huff Furniture Making - 9/27/2024  Description
NATIONAL WORKSHOP - "Basket Illusions and Embellishment Techniques" Ray Puffer - 11/23/2024
NATIONAL WORKSHOP: Ben Strano - Incorporating Digital Tools into your Woodworking - 1/25/2025
NATIONAL WORKSHOP - Vic Tesolin - 2/22/2025
NATIONAL WORKSHOP: Chip Carving - An Introduction - Dennis Wilson - 3/22/2025
NATIONAL WORKSHOP - Don Williams - 4/26/2025NATIONAL WORKSHOP - John Cameron - 5/17/2025

National Meeting - Larissa Huff,  September 27, 2024

Larissa is a wood­worker and teacher who makes custom furni­ture and other func­tional wooden objects in Philadel­phia. When she is not design­ing and build­ing custom furni­ture in her own work­shop, she’s on the road teach­ing and making at shops and schools around the country. In 2021, she was as an artist-in-resi­dence at Arrow­mont School of Art & Crafts and in 2022, she completed a fellow­ship at the Center for Furni­ture Crafts­man­ship. You can find arti­cles she has authored in Fine Wood­work­ing and Wood­craft Maga­zine and her work has been on display in exhibitions at the Messler Gallery and Wayne Art Center. Even her days out of the shop are wrapped up in artful wood­work­ing, as she works part-time at the Wharton Esherick Museum.

National Workshop - Larissa Huff,  September 28, 2024

Let’s take a trip outside of the world of square joinery and pre-fabricated pulls! On the heels of the Fundamentals for Furniture Makers class she is teaching at the Wendell Castle Workshop, Larissa will join us to talk about how she works through furniture design ideas and uses boxes as vehicles to test new techniques, design components, and new materials before applying them to larger scale furniture. Larissa will walk us through her process of making Spiral Sprout boxes which were born from her want to learn more about coopering and woodbending. Attendees will get to try their hand at hot-pipe woodbending to create pulls and cutting miters at angles that aren't 45 degrees. These fundamental skills have found their way into much of Larissa’s furniture work and can be a building block for your future projects too!

National Meeting - Scrolling and 3D Puzzle making Friday, October 25, 2024

Barbara Raymond-LaPrease is a member, secretary, newsletter editor, webmaster, and special events coordinator for the Woodworkers of Central New York (WWCNY), the woodworking club based in Baldwinsville, NY but encompassing a wide coverage area that includes 275-325 members per year. The club won the AAW’s inaugural award for Communications Excellence in 2024. Barbara started scrolling around 1997 around the time Dale Whistler visited the Syracuse club to demonstrate scrolling. Her first scrollsaw needed to be clamped to a workbench to prevent it from bouncing and used only pinned blades. Her husband, Charlie, bought her a Delta 16” VS saw for Christmas that year and the rest is history! Several years later, she added a 26” RBI to her saw collection so she’d have the throat depth for large puzzles. In 2008, her husband bought her an Excalibur after they tried it at a Canadian show. She also owns two operating antique scroll saws, the 147-year-old Challenge model from Seneca Falls Manufacturing and the 120-year-old No 387 Star model from Millers Falls. Barbara doesn’t necessarily specialize in any one type of scrolled art. One day it could be jewelry like earrings or necklaces whereas the next day she could be cutting detailed ornaments, pictures, boxes, or puzzles. Sometimes she combines her various talents, adding beaded accents to scrolled pieces. Recently she began to add scrolled elements to some of Charlie’s turned platters. Barbara creates whatever she feels like with most items given as gifts, donated for raffles or special events, or donated for club charitable sales. Since Barbara created WWCNY’s Crafts for Charity program in 2006, the club donated about $65,000 to local children-based charities.

NATIONAL WORKSHOP Barbara Raymond-LaPrease - Scrolling and 3D Puzzle making  Saturday, October 26, 2024

The scroll saw is a wonderful, but underutilized, tool housed in most woodworking shops. Why underutilized? Its owners are very often not well versed in its use. This demonstration will resolve your concerns and provide a starting point for attendees to better utilize their saws. Initially, Barbara will discuss and demonstrate the basics of scrolling – equipment, blades, applying patterns, locating patterns, etc. – along with a plethora of tips and tricks she’s collected over her 25 years of scrolling. After you are equipped with the basics, anyone can use the scroll saw to create a diversity of items including toys and an assortment of puzzles. To highlight how easy it is to create puzzles, Barbara will also discuss and demonstrate how to create 3D interlocking puzzles.

National Meeting - “My journey in woodworking and my search for precision,” Ray Puffer Friday, November 22, 2024

In my presentation, “My journey in woodworking and my search for precision,” I will trace my 60+ years of woodworking from my childhood helping to build our family home, to my production of precision pieces for sale and personal enjoyment. Ray Puffer has been an avid woodworker for more than 60 years, and he has produced a broad variety of pieces ranging from custom designed grandfather clocks and furniture, to antique reproductions, guitars and banjos, and award winning artistic and functional turnings. His turnings have been featured in American Woodturner magazine. Ray is a member of the Northeast Woodworkers Association, the Adirondack Woodturners Association, the Segmented Woodturners Association, and the American Association of Woodturners. Ray is a frequent demonstrator at regional woodturning clubs and international symposia, and he teaches woodturning to individuals in his home shop. Ray is a Registered Professional Engineer. He served a career as an Army officer, followed by a second career teaching engineering and leading industrial automation research programs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY. He exhibits and sells his work in regional art galleries and shows. His work may be seen at: www.RP-Woodturner.com.

2024-2025 Local Workshops 

Sharpening Bee Saturday, September 21, 2024

This hands-on workshop provides a good opportunity to learn how to sharpen your woodworking tools.
 We all need sharp tools, and this hands-on workshop provides a good opportunity to learn how to sharpen them. It will be a great introduction to RWS for non-members (who should join) and remind our current members the value and benefits of membership. Previous years' events were very popular, fun, and successful in recruiting some new members. The Sharpening Bee will be run similarly to last year where volunteer RWS members demonstrated how they sharpen their tools. If you have a woodworking tool and it needs sharpening, we should be able to help you.  
Here is a list of some items that often need sharpening.
• Chisels • Planes
• Card Scrapers • Turning tools
• Carving tools • Drawknives
• Twist drill bits • Knives

Shaker boxes Saturday, November 9, 2024

In this 2 day workshop (Nov 9 and Nov 16) you will build three different size boxes.
What is a Shaker Oval Box? How do you make one? Shaker Oval Boxes have been called by some the “Tupperware of the 1800’s”. In the kitchen they held food items, such as salt, flour, sugar, baking soda, herbs, and spices. In the sisters’ workrooms they held sewing notions and in the brothers’ workrooms they held fasteners, such as nails, screws, as well as dry paint pigments and other items. Today they are often used as decorations, a single box or a stack of graduated boxes. While they make a great gift, they can also serve as a gift box for a present, storage of a treasure, for a young child’s first “tooth-fairy tooth”, a sentimental lock of hair, or a piece of jewelry. The list goes on and on.
In this two-day class, you will learn how to prepare the bands, cut the “swallowtails”, how to make ready the bands for bending, bending the bands and securing them. Once forms are placed in the bands and the bands are dry, you will learn how to size the bottom and lids and attach them to the bands. Final finish on the boxes will be done by the participants at their leisure. Tools and materials along with information and tip sheets will be provided.
The first session will be spent carving and bending the bands. The second session will have the participants complete the boxes by adding the bottoms and lids. Three different size boxes will be made, #1, #2, and #3.

Make an Awl - All you need to know Saturday, November 16, 2024

This hands-on workshop will assist you in making an awl of your own.
An awl is a very useful tool in the workshop and around the house. This hands-on workshop will assist you in making one of your own. This is a pretty simple project, even for the non-turner. We will help you through all the steps. One step that is particularly useful is grinding the shaft to a point, heat treating, tempering, and installing it into the handle. Turning the handle can be done in a variety of different ways with simple turning tools. This is an opportunity to use some of your special wood with crazy grain and colors. Numerous examples will be provided.

Guitar Inlay Workshop - November 19, 2024

No description available 

Big Power Tools in the Modern Shop Saturday, December 7, 2024

This workshop is designed for those folks who wish to refresh, enhance, or maximize their usage of power tools.
This workshop is designed for those folks who wish to refresh, enhance, or maximize their usage of power tools. Anyone looking for a refresher on safely and getting the most out of their tools will benefit. Folks considering machine upgrades may also find the discussions helpful. Commonly used jigs and fixtures will be demonstrated and discussed. Proper setups and adjustments of machinery will be demonstrated. Participants will participate in a “4-square” machining process. This is the fundamental first step in high-quality woodworking. During the day we will primarily focus on the table saw, jointer, planer, and band saw. Some discussions will include related items like shop lighting and dust collection. Please bring eye and hearing protection. Participation is limited to 12 members. Participants are encouraged to bring their own snacks and lunch to the session. This workshop is for you if you are:
- Looking for tips and techniques when using power tools
- Interested in reviewing the correct setup and usage of power tools
- Thinking of upgrading your power tools
- Wants to be more comfortable with power tools
- Wants to share your power tools jigs and fixtures with other participants