Officers and Board Members

President: Bob Hobbs

Vice President: Kirk Smith

Secretary: Chuck Jones

Treasurer: Paul Reed

Librarian: Bill Wyche

Member: Norm Fowler

Member: Jerry Dawson

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Web Site Chuck Jones

Newsletter: Chuck Jones

Visit West Tennessee Woodturners

On Line at

www.wtnwoodturners.com

August 2013 Volume 5 Issue 8

Inside this issue:

President’s Challenge 3

Newsletter/Website Revisions 3

Calendar of Events 4

Wood Spin 5-6

Instant Gallery 7

West Tennessee WoodturnersWest Tennessee WoodturnersWest Tennessee WoodturnersWest Tennessee Woodturners

NewsletterNewsletterNewsletterNewsletter

July 18, 2013. by Jerry Dawson

Jack Couch did an excellent job of explaining his

process for turning segmented bowls for our July

2013 demonstration. His primary emphasis was

on planning and procession. His example was for

a 12” bowl with seven ¾” rings of 12 segments

each. In planning, use graph paper to draw one

side of the profile of the bowl in scale then draw

in the segment allowing at least 1/4” extra on

each side, this will determine the width of each

segment (rip your wood to this width, may be

different for each ring). To determine the length

of each segment multiply the radius (to the out-

side edge) times two times 3.1416 (circumference)

divided by the number of rings i.e. πd/12. Note,

the circumference is also approximately the length of

board that will be needed. The angle of cut is 360⁰ divided by twice the number of segments is this case

360⁰/24 or 15⁰. It is necessary to cut the angle precisely, to do this he

uses a table saw sled dedicated to each angle. It is

glued and screwed so that variations are eliminated or

at least minimized. Each ring is dry fit to ensure no

gaps and therefore no glue lines in the final product.

During glue up of the segment it is assembled on a

reliably flat surface. After drying the other side is

(Continued on page 2)

Jack Couch Demo

July 29, 2013 by Chuck Jones

Our next regular meeting will be August 10 and Robert Reeves will have

the program. Robert will be talking about making duck calls. I did not

have an opportunity to talk to Robert before writing this, but a quick

internet search reveals that duck calls and everything to do with water-

fowl hunting has been of interest to him for many years. There are numerous links to

articles about him and his hobby. This promises to be an interesting presentation and I

hope you plan to be there.

The President’s Challenge for August is a “Vase”. If you haven’t started by now it’s time

to get moving. We will probably not be have a raffle this month. I was unable to attend

Robert Reeves to Demo at August Meeting

Page 2 Volume 5 Issue 8

Demo—continued from page 1

Photography by Jerry Dawson

sanded flat to 120 grit because 80 grit will leave a visible glue ring. He uses his lathe to align and glue up the rings.

If you don't have an accurate protractor but do have a carpenter’s square you can make your cutoff sled using the measurements below.

For 15 degree angle use base of 19 19/32” with height of 5 1/4”.

For 30 degree angle us base of 22 5/8” with height of 13 1/16”.

The accuracy of the angle will depend on the accuracy of your measurements, but even then because it is based on an irrational num-

ber “tweaking” may be needed.

Overall an excellent presentation.

Page 3 Volume 5 Issue 8

Platter—Cherry Burl w/Minerals—WOP

Nick Matos

Sm.Platter—Amb. Maple—OB’s Shine Juice

Jerry Dawson

Platter—Amb. Maple—Walnut Oil, Bee’s Wax

Jerry Dawson

Winner: Nick Matos

Photography by Jerry Dawson

President’s Challenge: Platter

July 29, 2013. By Chuck Jones

Revisions to the club website and newsletter are under consideration and I would be happy to have your input on the design or any part of the

process.

First the reason for change. The website and newsletter are built with software called “Frontpage” and “MS Publisher” respectively. My copy

of both is many years out of date and Frontpage is no longer maintained or available. Both packages are tedious to work with by today’s stan-

dards. Some of the material such as the calendar of events and classified advertisements have to be hand typed twice because the two packages

are not compatible.

I am currently experimenting with the idea of combining the website and newsletter into one on-line document similar to a magazine or news-

paper. There is free software readily available and widely used for this type format. I am not totally familiar with any of those packages yet,

but I am becoming fairly comfortable with “Joomla” which is the software we used to build the magazine part of WoodturnersUnlimited.com

(the articles section, not the forum). I have already commenced to sketch some things out in a hidden directory on our live web site. If you

care to take a look at it and promise not to poke fun, go to wtnwoodturners.com/cms (simply add /cms to the main address). Please give me

your feedback on any ideas you have or problems you see with it.

Some of the advantages I see are:

• This format is designed to allow maintenance by multiple people with different levels of computer skill. For example individual club

members could be trained with relative ease to write articles and submit them for publication directly to the site (with or without over-

sight by a webmaster). It would require little more than basic word processing skills.

(Continued on page 4)

Possible Revisions to Website and Newsletter

Page 4 Volume 5 Issue 8

Calendar of Events

September 14 Regular Meeting Program: Jim Adkins—All Day Demo, Platter with Indian style design.

President’s Challenge: Japanese Bowl

October 5 Autumn Outdoor Festival Program: Joel Benson

President’s Challenge: Segmented

November 9 Regular Meeting Program: Josh Williams—Open Segmented Bowl

President’s Challenge: Square Bowl

December 14 Christmas Luncheon President’s Challenge: Ornament

August 10 Regular Meeting Program: Robert Reeves—Duck Call

President’s Challenge: Vase

September 20-22 Turning Southern Style Dalton GA

October 11-13 Pink Palace Crafts Fair Memphis

October 11-13 Ohio Valley Symposium Cincinnati OH

October 19 Fall Folklore Jamboree Milan

January 11 Regular Meeting Program:

President’s Challenge:

January 31-February 1 TAW Symposium Franklin, TN

• Articles could be written and posted anytime without waiting for the next monthly publication.

• Photograph management is vastly better. Small thumbnails can be put in articles with links to a larger copy if the user chooses. This

would allow us to have the choice of much better quality photographs (in the enlarged version) than we are able to get with the current

printed newsletter. Try this on some of the sample articles I have on the site now.

• We can have a section accessible only to members with a user-id and password. That could include a copy of the directory or anything we

wish to keep from the public snoopers.

• Virtually all articles would be archived and accessible should you want to revisit one, but they would be bumped further back as new arti-

cles are published.

Some disadvantages:

• While all articles would be easily printable at the users discretion, there would be no defined monthly newsletter available for a “one

click” print. If you print out the current newsletter this could be viewed as a setback. I would be interested in knowing how many print

the newsletters and how you would feel about not having that capability.

• To print the equivalent of the current newsletter you would have to choose and print each individual article one at a time. Some of us

oldtimers are more comfortable with printed material, but actually there is little use for it. It’s all there on the screen for you to read any

time you choose… well except maybe for bathroom visits. Even for that you can get a tablet, iPad, or whatever.

Revisions to Website and Newsletter—continued from page 3

Page 5 Volume 5 Issue 8

It appears that I can’t get away from discussing trees that provide exceptional turning wood so here we go again. This time let me gush a bit about hickory, a tree/wood that does not get the respect it deserves in woodturn-ing circles. Anyone who has turned hickory has to be im-pressed by the many positive qualities of this wood. However, woodturners get excited about pecan and believe pecan to be a quality turning wood, even if a bit difficult to work. So what does pecan have to do with hick-ory? These trees are of the same genus, carya, and are basically considered the same wood by lumber dealers -- they are sold as the same wood and may be labeled as pecan or hickory. The sorting that takes place is most of-ten based upon variations in color, rather than the genus/species of origin. Some wag made the observation that squirrels dif-fer from rats only in having bushy tails and better press agents. We might view squirrels differently if they had been named tree rats. Some wood sellers believe “pecan” is con-sidered a more upscale wood so they make up names for certain hickories, as “white pecan,” etc. The public is ex-posed to such shenanigans all the time; consider the name change of Patagonian Toothfish to Chilean Sea Bass -- under the first name the fish could not be sold, but Sea Bass became a premium menu item in fine restaurants. Back to more relevant information, but I warn the reader that the nomenclature of hickory trees is a tangled web. Many foresters separate the hickories into “true hick-

ory” and “pecan hickory.” Let’s dispense with pecan hick-ory which, in the United States, is usually said to consist of four species including the common domestic pecan. I rarely encounter a wild pecan tree and when I do, they look pretty much like the domestic pecan except for smaller nuts. In the true hickory subcategory, three species are also common in the United States. The most common hickory in this area is the mockernut, which has large leaves and large nuts. The shagbark (or scalybark) hickory is easily identified by the characteristic bark and is also val-ued because of its sweet nuts, if you have the time and patience to extract the meats. A species of special interest to me, as a woodturner, is the pignut hickory. This hickory is also easy to identify because of its small leaves, small nuts, and twisted branches. When pignut hickory spalts the wood coloration can be like nothing else in nature (see photos). Spalted pignut hickory is a very special turning wood, but you have to catch that narrow window between the time the wood develops those wonderful colors /patterns and when it becomes too soft to work. In the autumn all of our hickories display spectacu-lar gold and yellow foliage. To walk the mid Southern mixed hardwood forests in the autumn, surrounded by the yellow hickories, red/gold/black/green sweet gums, red black gums, and burgundy dogwoods -- well, that is a spe-

(Continued on page 6)

Emmett Manley

WOOD SPIN Hickory – or is it Pecan?

Spectacular pignut hickory wood

Two mockernut hickory mortars

cial treat which easily rivals the sugar maples of New Eng-land and the aspens of the Rockies. Let me get back to facts of importance to wood-turners. The hickory/pecan wood usually exhibits consider-able difference in the sapwood and heartwood colors and here is a another unusual characteristic -- the sapwood is as hard as the heartwood. In fact, spalted pignut hickory usually demonstrates sapwood harder than heartwood. Another advantage of the carya woods is the wood has no odor or taste, which makes these woods perfect for items that will be in contact with food. It also indicates that these woods are non-irritating while turning, unlike many other woods (walnut, cedar, cocobolo). The hickory woods are bendable; when wet the branches can be tied in knots or bent to shape the back of chairs. The carya woods are the hardest commercial woods in North America (only osage orange and black lo-cust are harder among all NA woods). Here is a major sur-prise -- despite their inherent hardness, hickory rots quickly once it is brought into contact with the ground, and huge hickory logs can be reduced to mulch in less than three years, Making tool handles is a traditional use for hickory and I have handled several of my gouges with this wood.

However, I warn you, turning dry hickory will beat you up so try to turn hickory when it is still somewhat green. In conclusion, hickory is not just another hard wood or even just a tough wood useful for wagon wheels, axels, pitchfork and axe handles, but a beautiful wood which of-fers many advantages for the woodturner.

… Wood Spin (Continued from page 5)

Page 6 Volume 5 Issue 8

Reprinted with permission from

Emmett Manley &

Mid-South Woodturners Guild “Turner Talk”

November 2012 Edition.

Hickory tool handles

Pignut hickory

Page 7 Volume 5 Issue 8

Instant Gallery

Photography by Jerry Dawson

Bowl—Box Elder—OB’s Shine Juice

Jerry Dawson

Small Bowl—Bradford Pear—OB’s Shine Juice

Jerry Dawson

Small Bowl—Amb. Maple—OB’s Shine Juice

Jerry Dawson

Bowl—Dogwood—Oil

Jack Couch

Bowl—Cherry—Shine Juice

Bill Wyche

Goblet—Cherry—Shine Juice

Bill Wyche

Vase—Ambrosia Maple-Lacquer

Nick Matos

Small Lighthouse—Buckeye Burl—Lacquer

Nick Matos

Lighthouse—Buckeye Burl—Lacquer

Nick Matos

Bowl—Sweet Gum—OB’s Shine Juice

Jerry Dawson

Bowl—Box Elder—OB’s Shine Juice

Jerry Dawson

Considering the smaller than usual attendance the Instant Gallery was quite large and some very fine article were on display.