CJWA Summer Picnic, Saturday, Aug. 16

As mentioned at the June meeting, the summer picnic will be on Saturday August 16 with a rain date of Sunday the 17th. Again this year, Bill and Becky Woodard will be hosting at there home starting at 2PM. The address is 13 Roberts Road, Millstone Township NJ 08535. This is a family event with children welcome and always a fun day. The club will provide hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, non alcoholic drinks, paper goods ect. As we have done in the past, if everyone coming can bring a side dish or desert there will be more then enough for everyone. If you have some folding chairs please bring them, so we are sure to have enough. Please send me a reply if you can attend and how many people, as well as what you are bringing so we can have a better idea of how much food to buy. We are also going to do a small tool sale / swap meet for anyone interested. We have talked about doing this again at one of the regular club meetings, but never could find the time. In addition, we are going to bring out an invention from the past, built by David White the Chisel-Om-Meter. Basically if you want to participate you just need to bring a well sharpened 1/2 inch chisel and this Patend Pending contraption will determine who has the sharpest chisel.

June Meeting: CJWA member exhibition, and summer plans

The June CJWA meeting will be held on Wednesday, June 11, at 7:00 PM. Before we break for the summer, we will be holding our annual member exhibition. Members are welcome to bring in a project that you have made over the past year, big or small, to show to the club. We will also start taking photographs for our members gallery.

We will also be discussing some of our summer activities, including a workshop at the Philadelphia Furniture Workshop the weekend of July 12-13, and the CJWA summer picnic on August 16. In addition, there will be a business meeting June 12 at 7:00 PM, in conference room #2 at the Lawrenceville branch of the Mercer County Library, 2751 Brunswick Pike (local Rte 1), in Lawrenceville. All members are welcome to provide their input.

May meeting: Steve Altman on a secret project

The May CJWA meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 14, at 7:00 pm. Our featured presenter will be Steve Altman. He will be talking about a secret project that he’s been working on. This may sound like it’s a very vague description, but anyone who has ever heard Steve give a woodworking presentation will attest to the fact that this promises to be a very entertaining and educational talk.

In addition, Robert Drudy will be giving us a shop tour, and there will be updates on the Wharton Escherich Museum tour on May 17th. If you’re interested in the museum tour, please bring payment for the tour to the meeting. Spaces are limited, and priority will be given to those who pay in advance.

Wharton Esherick Museum Tour, May 17

CJWA is proud to announce a very special event. John Aniano has arranged for us to have a guided tour of the Wharton Esherick Museum on Saturday, May 17th at 12:45PM. Wharton Esherick has been called the link between the Arts and Crafts Movement and the resurgent interest in furniture making following World War II, the dean of American craftsmen and the foundation of the current Studio Furniture Movement. He is one of the most important American woodworkers, and the chance to have a guided tour of his work is one not to be missed by any woodworker.

The cost of the tour is $10 for CJWA members, $13 for nonmembers. The tour is limited to 40 people. Contact John Aniano 609-758-2422 or jbaniano@optonline.net to sign up. The Wharton Esherick Museum is located at 1520 Horseshoe Trail, Malvern, PA, just west of Valley Forge Park. Directions can be found here, and a map is here.

For those who want, there is a carpool from the Jackson Outlets parking lot on Rt. 537 at Exit 16 off of Rt. 195. Please call John if you want to carpool so he can coordinate. We will meet at the parking lot at 11:15AM sharp on Saturday, May 17th to assemble to drive to the museum, which is a 72 mile drive, and should take about an hour and 15 minutes. Our tour runs from 1:00 PM to 3:30PM.  After the tour, we can drive back to a restaurant in the Hamilton, NJ area for dinner at around 5:00 PM.

April Meeting: Round Robin

The April CJWA meeting will be at 7:00pm, Wednesday, April 9 and will be a Round Robin session. For those who don’t remember the format, after the usual business session of the meeting, there will be stations set up at the meeting for various ongoing demonstrations. We plan to have stations covering the following topics:

• Shellac as an easy to apply finish, with Matt Greco
• Reading lumber, with Matt Kestenbaum
• Sharpening, with Wilbur Pan
• Sawing to a line, with Bob Rozaieski and Simon Stark
• An “Ask the Experts” station, with Steve Altman and Marc Gaertner

Bring your questions, and maybe even a tool that you want sharpened or a saw that you want to practice with. This is a great way for woodworkers to learn a lot about basic skills needed for woodworking. Hope to see you there!