Guest Presenter: Jim Phillips of Inshore Sculpture

To help celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary George Graves crafted these plaques.  George’s scrapbooking daughter helped out also.

Chuck Lickwar showed club members some simple toys of his own design that he crafted for WWCH’s toy making program. Chuck challenged everyone to make at least ten toys.

With help from a CNC machine David Glasco crafted a US flag box for his son, who is in the Service in Afghanistan and another for a buddy of his son. 

Bob Wink says he enjoys Arts and Crafts style furniture and it shows with his works framed in quartersawn white oak.  Bob explained the process of using water soluble dye for traditional A&C furniture.

For a show in the Woodlands, TX, next week, Norm Nichols showed off several small crosses affixed to maple and a hunter’s plaque of ambrosia maple, a Sue Mey design.  Norm finished in polyurethane.

Lynn Cummings showed club members several little boxes and puzzle coasters of different woods made on his CNC machine.  Answering questions about CNC, Lynn explained that his router motor is liquid cooled to handle the load better.

From an old Wildwood pattern Lee Knekow scroll sawed this bowl of Baltic Birch and Philippine Mahogany.  Lee explained how he made everything come together just right. Definitely not a soup bowl.

Because it is hard and brittle sharp tools are the key to working with ipe, says Peter Doe about his tiled outdoor tables.  To make sliding dovetails joints Peter had to do quite a bit of “fiddling” to set up his router table to get it just right.  Peter said that because of the interlocking ipe grain you have to be careful of tear-out and that ipe splinters are sharp and brittle and will penetrate deeper – that would be a big ouch!  Ipe sawdust is a very fine irritant also.  Read about how Peter glued and finished his tables.

Hoping to sell for “big” bucks at the November craft show in Missouri City, John Lastrapes crafted these soap holders of aromatic cedar and mahogany. John wanted a project that had a minimum amount of cuts.  Maybe John should sell expensive designer soap and offer the holders for free??

Loren Gideon explained how he set up and used his router to make his oval shaped bowl of poplar.

Mike Hardy took an epoxy resin piece of art from an art market crafter and integrated it into a table that he made of cherry.  It is the first of a series working with the artist. Mike finished with three coats of Waterlox and plans to sell it at an art show. 

Peter Doe's description on gluing and finishing of his outdoor tiled tables:

The edging for the tops was glued using System 3 general purpose epoxy (I got mine from Woodcraft). Because the edging is made from multiple parts glued to curved surfaces, I needed gap-filling capability, so I used wood flour as a filler. This thickens the epoxy to where it does not run, even when first mixed up. Paint on an unthickened coat first, then immediately go over it with the filled version and assemble the parts. Because it is epoxy, no clamping is needed (indeed, is undesirable because it tends to give too thin a glue line). I set everything on a sheet of wax paper for the assembly. 

Warning #1- in Houston temperatures, the stuff will start to cure before you are finished unless you are quick. A good dry assembly test is essential to make sure everything fits. 

Warning #2 - The wood flour is an insulator. It traps the heat in the epoxy and drastically reduces the cure time. This caught me out the first time I did it. You have to work fast. 

All the other wood to wood gluing (sliding dovetails) was with Titebond type III. 

The glass tile was set using thinset Portland cement. That was to guarantee outdoor freeze thaw resistance. I worked with small amounts at a time and did each top in multiple sessions. It was then grouted like regular tile and sealed. The marine plywood under the thinset was sealed first with LevelQuick acrylic primer - not sure if that was strictly necessary.  

The finish started with a coat of System 3 clear coat epoxy. This is very thin when first mixed and I painted it on with a foam brush. It did get a bit thick before I could finish, and I had to do some scraping to level it out before I started on the varnish. That was followed by three coats of System 3 marine spar varnish. The epoxy makes the wood waterproof. The varnish protects the epoxy from UV.

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Photos:  Gary Rowen;  Photos of Paul Carr's playground addition by Paul Carr; Description on gluing and finishing of Peter Doe's outdoor tables by Peter Doe