The Professional Woodworker’s Guild of Upper New Jersey will have a demonstration of Hilti tools on Wednesday, February 15.

The CRAFTS of NJ spring tool auction will be on April 14.

CJWA club member Stuart Moore will be demonstrating SuperMax sanders at the Woodworking Show in Somerset on the weekend of Feb. 24-26. He is making an offer to take orders at dealer cost plus shipping for SuperMax sanders to paid CJWA club members only. And we know who you are.

Bob Rozaieski and Wilbur Pan, who co-authored an article in the April 2011 Popular Woodworking, “Western and Japanese Planes – Separated at Birth?” are back at it again. This time they will compare the traditional Japanese maebiki (invented around 1590) and a western frame saw modeled from drawings in Andre Roubo’s L’Art du Menuisier (The Art of the Joiner). These two saws could not be more dissimilar in appearance. Yet, they perform similar functions in the preparation of stock. Our two resident experts will unfold the mysteries behind these fascinating tools and provide us with what promises to be an entertaining demonstration of their use. 

We will also have presentations from Simon Stark, who will tell us about his Arts and Crafts table, and two shop tours from Al Falia and John Aniano.

 

The way that these builds are structured is that each small group of people meet on a regular basis at the leader’s shop to go over each step of the project, and then go home to their shop to work on the project.  Each project is designed to take a relatively short period of time, and it doesn’t take a huge amount of experience to complete a project.

How effective are these classes? Here’s an example of what can be learned and accomplished. This Arts and Crafts table was made by Linda Keleigh. Jerry Fishlin was the leader of this Group Build project. This was the first woodworking project Linda has ever made.

As in past years, members are asked to bring either a main dish, a side dish or a dessert to feed 6-8 people. CJWA will provide beverages and paper products. Please contact Marc Gartner @ marcleslieg@gmail.com to indicate what food you are bringing to avoid a situation where we have all desserts. Not that there’s a problem with all desserts, of course.

UPDATE: We will also have a presentation by the always entertaining and delightful Steve Altman, who will be talking about a set of six boxes that he has recently made, along with tips on what to think about when making batches and duplicates of a project, and making your own veneers.

Add in updates from the CJWA build projects, and you’ll get a great cross sections of the things that CJWA members have been up to as we head into the fall and winter months, which has traditionally meant more shop time.

Hope to see you there!

CJWA’s own David Dorey and Bill Duffield will demonstrate traditional woodworking techniques at the SAPFM booth. Our good friends Chuck Bender of Acanthus Workshop and Geoff Noden of Adjust-a-Bench/Inlay Razor will be there as well.

More information can be found at the Lie-Nielsen website.

For the October meeting, we are very pleased to have Geoff Noden, of Adjust-A-Bench fame, talk about two aspects of woodworking that scare the daylights out of most woodworkers: chairmaking, and curves. Geoff designed this award-winning chair for the Philadelphia Furniture show, and will be talking about how he went about making it.

We will also continue our brainstorming for upcoming topics, hear a report from CJWA members who went to the Woodworking in America conference, and much more. See you there!

CJWA meetings are back from their summer vacation, and as you might expect, we have a packed agenda from having time off over the summer.  We are going to kick off the CJWA group build projects, recap the Ernie Conover seminar back in July, and discuss potential topics for further meetings.  Matt Kestenbaum will be presenting the Shop of the Month, and David Dorey will show his hall table that he recently finished. Frank Vucolo will show photos of period furniture that he saw at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Marc Gaertner is heading up our birdhouse kit booth at the Fall Forestry Festival 2011 on Saturday, October 1, 10 am to 3 pm at the Forest Resource Education Center in Jackson.  We are looking for volunteers to help sell birdhouse kits and to help the kids build them.  This is a big fundraiser for our club, and as club members who have participated in this project in the past will undoubtedly say, it’s a great way to spend the day.  Marc will be giving more details about this at the meeting.