John Peasely, club vice president opened the meeting serving as President pro tempore as Joe Mannke is out of town.
John presented a check representing $750.00 from the club with additional funds individually contributed by club members to Advantage Lumber to aid in the Brazilian Workers food charity which provides food baskets to their workers.
Advantage Lumber responded in part by explaining the purpose of the food baskets:
We noticed that our mill workers tended to be family people, and as such would often come to work hungry on Monday mornings, as the family had run out of food over the weekend. It was thought that a gift food basket given around the traditional Holidays would ease the situation. Further, it was said that the gift food basket contains staple items and could feed a family for about a month with such foods as rice and beans. Currently, the approximately one hundred workers receive lunch at the work site on workdays, and still they found the workers a bit listless on Monday mornings, and thus a breakfast was started on this day to put the hunger at bay. The contributions are well appreciated.
John proceeded to allow tonight’s five guests to introduce themselves, hopefully some will stay to become members. Additionally, an impromptu auction was held by Mike Swart to benefit the club and allow someone to use the trees he had cut down. Following truth in advertising rules, the logs said to be cedar are actually juniper and the maple is sweet gum (Myakka Maple). Mike showed some boards he had milled, and they looked pretty good. In an effort to get bids as auctioneer, Mike promised he would not quit his day job, and Denny can rest assured.
In other business, John Peasely informed the general membership of John Philips’ retirement from the office of Treasurer, and the board appointment of Randy Cooper as acting Treasurer until general elections later this year. Thanks for stepping up Randy. There is a lot of unseen and un-thanked work involved in running the club and seeing to the finances is up there both in time required and responsibility. Randy is a professional engineer and has served as Treasurer for other organizations, and has a vote of support from the Board.
John reminded members of upcoming meetings and plugged Tony’s shirt embroidery with a special sale ongoing for shirts unlikely to be repeated soon. Also, members were reminded of the logo contest and asked to get their entries in early.
Show and Tell
Larry Simmons showed a work in progress on dovetails for a carry tool box after Fine Woodworking Magazine. This is the same wood Larry had previously asked for someone to identify without success, but he can say the wood worms liked it. Despite using a Leigh dovetail jig, his dovetails did not end up as planned. Can anyone help him with registration marks or give a hint on this jig?
Mike Dummett continued his recycling themed woodworking with a plant stand in OSB in a praying Mantis look, with a hundred coats of polyurethane, but then again who is counting. His plant stand uses no glue he proudly states.
Terry Bair demonstrated a ping pong ball launcher that shoots eight balls at once, sort of like a shorter version of 52 pick-up. Terry says never trust a wood dowel to be round nor straight, meaning halfway through, he modified the dowels after they had been fastened in place.
Ed Fraser lamented the use of Rustoleum laminate spray that he used on a repair. The spray paint color was a near perfect match, but his problem came from sanding the surface after it has sat for a while. He contacted Rustoleum, who replaced his product but said the product cures from the outside in and once he sanded it, a new surface was exposed that again needed the several days curing time. Ed said the instructions said nothing about that and adds another straw to the camel’s back to just throw the instructions away. In another note, Ed talked about replacing his fluorescent tubes with LEDs and about how much additional light there was. Other members chimed in agreement, but there was no concensus regarding removing the ballast or keeping it. Since LEDs reportedly last up to 50,000 hours stay tuned for further developments on this issue.
John Philips had three rosewood bowls he made. One cracked and he intends to fill the cracks with epoxy, perhaps with a mineral coloring agent. One was finished only with wax, no word if his bees gave up their wax for this bowl or not. One had added handles of ebony added to the sides. John did not say if they were glued on or set in a mortise. As a further aside, John spent another ten minutes talking about his past service to the club, showing newspaper clippings, talking about the toys made for children, decoys used for shooting contests and other fine work. John said he is one of the few who received a certificate of thanks from the club for all of his work. At the end, John had a standing ovation for several minutes in thanks for all his hard work.
Tonight’s feature presentation was by Larry Simmons.
Larry, along with Mike Swart and Ed Columbo visited the flywheelers, who have a park they built in 1997. They sawed trees to build their buildings and only open their park on three weekends a year. Their main interest, besides having fun is operating various steam engines which is not to say they are full of hot air. They have antique construction equipment, a large horizontal engine, and a collection of things ranging from the wild to the insane. Larry narrated parts of the video and says he spent 36 hours editing it. I offered Larry a chance to write up anything else he wanted to add to the video, and his text follows below.
Above Text provided by Andrew DiLorenzo, Secretary
Larry Simmons presented a video of 3 trips he made with other club members to The Florida Flywheeler Park near Frost Proof Florida. Florida Flywheeler Club describes itself as an antique engine club, but they are so much more. The park is 240 acres. It has a complete village of eclectic buildings filled with old tractors, music boxes, old lawn mowers, even old wedding dresses.
But that’s not all, there is a tractor pull track, a field where antique earth moving equipment push dirt around, and about 100 acres of flee market venders selling anything you can imagine. While not strictly a woodworking adventure there were several related displays, like a steam powered saw mill and a whole building devoted to wooden toys. It’s a huge place that you just can’t see in one visit. Several members expressed interest in going on one of the next three weekends a year it is open to the public.
If you were unable to attend and would like to see the video, here is a link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uOFhTfd_Gz8q2UFwsCeDHku8ul6Gbe3G
Text by webmaster Larry Simmons