Our guest speaker for April, Joyce Lee, spoke about TXRX Labs, a Houston based makerspace organization dedicated to creativity in all the arts and crafts. TXRX provides resources and facilities for artists and crafters to pursue their endeavors.

With 230 separate pieces of various woods, Steve Wavro used a Bruce Worthington design to create the Spring Gathering intarsia.  The exception to Steve’s use of natural wood color is the light blue acrylic paint and the dark blue wood dye on poplar. 

Speaking about making square holes for square pegs, Ron Kirchoff explained how he crafted his Arts and Crafts style clock of African mahogany and ebony.  Ron finished with General Finish Armor Shield.

Using steaming techniques, a compass, pieces of Mother of Pearl and cherry wood, Pat Carlson crafted a lazy Susan then finished with Minwax.

Hard to work with is how Lon Kelley explained working with chunks of parallel strand laminated beam wood for the lathed bowls intended for the WWCH auction in October.  Lon started out making three bowls and because of problems wound up with one and a half.

Using CNC¹ equipment and only three bit changes Ron Matherly made a set of stackable wine/cheese holders all from the same piece of poplar.

From some unknown wood used to ship steel plates on and some crotch walnut, Tom Paulley crafted two boxes from a Doug Stowe design.  Tom finished with Watco.

After recovering from Harvey, Richard Hash rewarded himself with a lathe for Christmas and turned three bowls of spalted ash, Osage orange, and a piece of firewood.

Ken Moughalu explained the challenge of converting strips of walnut and maple into a 3D cutting board.  The breakfast tray was his own design with no assistance from YouTube and will make a nice gift for his mother.

Proving that vinyl records haven’t vanished, Charles Bennett made five record stands from one piece of mahogany, sold four for $15 each and kept one for himself. The long one is made of alder.

Referencing a YouTube video Fred Sandoval explained how he made a unique tool for sharpening small carving knives thus creating consistent angles on the blades.

David Janowitz also showed slides of table tops he is making for friends and neighbors, and for himself, a workbench top and some miter and table saw throat plates.

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Photos:  Gary Rowen except David Janowitz slides

¹CNC: Computer Numerical Control