newsletter - fvwwcfvwwc.org/documents/newsletter-2019-8.pdf · newsletter volume 25, issue 8 august...

2019 FVWWC—PO Box 1047—Batavia, IL 60510-1047 1

http://www.fwwc.org — [email protected]

NEWSLETTER Volume 25, Issue 8 August 2019

Calendar of Events July 2 Program - Page 2

Library Notes - Page 3

The Big Raffle - Page 4

Shop Tours - Page 5-7

President’s Sawdust - Page 8

Editor’s Woodfiller - Page 9,10

Show and Tell - Pages 11,12

Officers and Committees - 3

Special Interest Groups – Page 14

August 2019

Date Time Event

Aug 6

(Tues)

6:30PM

Hand Tool SIG

Scroll Saw SIG

ShopSmith SIG

Fundamentals SIG

Aug 6

(Tues)

7:30PM

General Meeting

Aug 21

(Wed)

9:00AM FVWWC Breakfast Club

Red Apple Restaurant

414 S. Schmale Rd

August 6, 2019

Program

Brian Bigelow, ShopSmith Equipment Demonstration

August 2019

Date Time Event

Aug 6

(Tues)

6:30PM

Hand Tool SIG

Scroll Saw SIG

ShopSmith SIG

Fundamentals SIG

Aug 6

(Tues)

7:30PM

General Meeting

Aug 21

(Wed)



414 S. Schmale Rd

September 2019

Date Time Event

Sept 3

(Tues)

6:30PM

Hand Tool SIG

Scroll Saw SIG

ShopSmith SIG

Fundamentals SIG

Sept 3

(Tues)

7:30PM

General Meeting

Sept 18

(Wed)



414 S. Schmale Rd



Ed Bouvier The Village Woodwright

The Finished Surface

Ed covered a number of ways to make the show surfaces of our woodworking projects special and unique. Thanks Ed for a great presentation.

Check out his website:

http://www.villagewoodwright.com/

http://www.villagewoodwright.com/



For the younger set, we have lots of toy books:

Swing by and we’ll see if we can provide you with some inspiration.

Dave Dockstader, Resource Director



Da Big Raffle

PREVIOUS RAFFLE

The 15 piece Kid's Tool Kit drawing was held at the July meeting. The winner was Cory Hauser. He wasn't present at the meeting so I delivered it to him on July 4.

PRESENT RAFFLE

I like to call the next BIG RAFFLE item enlightening or the let there be light raffle. It is some-thing we all already have or may need more of. It is a bundle of 5 different types of lighting to improve or replace the lighting in your workshop. We all have that one spot in our shop that is a little dark and could use additional lumens. Or we have fixtures that are old and not as bright or energy efficient as they could be. So if you win this raffle (you obviously have to buy a tick-et) you will be eliminating costly watts and replacing them with more efficient lumens.This light-ing improvement bundle consists of:

1. A 7500 lumen 4 foot shop light that plugs in and is linkable with other shop lights (up to 4). Hanging hardware is included.

2. A 4400 lumen LED utility light. This will screw into any standard socket and has a shroud to reflect light downward. It replaces 3-100 watt bulbs

3. A dual power LED task light that plugs in or runs on a battery. It has a flexible neck and can be moved from tool to tool as needed. It mounts by magnet or clamp.

4. If the power goes out call Com Ed and then grab this 1500 lumen camping lantern. It has a 160 hour battery life (batteries included).

5. And finally for those constant electricity failures there is a 3000 lumen LED flashlight. It is a compact unit with a very bright, white light pattern. This is one of those small flashlights with a monstrous beam. (batteries included).

You know the drill about the tickets -- $5 each or 3 for $10. Members only. To paraphrase a current credit card TV commercial: "How many lumens are in your workshop?"

Norm Musur & Bill Knudsen

Raffle and Silent Auction Committee



Current Event: Saturday, 10 August 2019 – 10:00 am Location: Bill Schwartz’s Shop 6208 Middaugh Ave. Downers Grove, IL

Lunch Following the Tour: The Fremont Bar & Grill 1115 Fairview Ave. Westmont, IL 630-297-8773 https://www.fremontbarandgrill.com

Shop Tours

https://www.fremontbarandgrill.com



Future Events We are looking for a host for the September 2019 Shop Tour. Regardless of the size of your shop we are very much interested in visiting your workspace. The value of Shop Tours is the networking among fellow woodworkers which is a great experience - everyone who attends goes away just a little more knowledgeable than when they came. Recap of July 2019 Fox Build Shop Tour On a very hot and steamy Saturday morning we toured the Fox Buil MakerSpace facility in down-town St. Charles. Fox Build is their 2

nd facility in St. Charles since they formed. Their current build-

ing dates from the 1880’s which has been re-purposed through the years. It was interesting to learn that a race from the Fox River originally flowed through the basement which was the source of pow-er for a mill in the building complex. Currently Fox Build rents office and common space on the first floor to a variety of businesses and individuals primarily in the digital industry. The MakerSpace area is on the second level. Regardless of why people use the facilities entrepreneurship, creativity and collaboration seem to be a common theme. As expected the Fox Build facility is a slightly different type of venue than a traditional wood shop. Fox Build is a collaborative workspace with some traditional woodworking machinery; however, the interest was more the capabilities they can provide the woodworker in extending projects to beyond the wood media. Some of the more interesting capabilities we saw on the tour included equipment for digital fabrica-tion:

• A Maslow large format CNC machine. A current project a member is working on is an Adiron-dack chair. The machine is accurate within 1/16

th to 1/8

th inch

• A more accurate CNC machine is their X-Carve.

• A Full Spectrum laser cutter which can cut wood, acrylic, paper, cardboard, leather, etc. (It cannot cut metal, poly-carbonate or vinyl). It can also laser engrave the above materials plus glass, stone, and tile.

• 3D Printing Other capabilities include:

• Wood and metal turning (the metal lathe is capable of chasing threads)

• Circuit board design and build. They are in the process of building a “Pick in Place” which provides the capability of auto picking very small parts for circuit boards.



• A finishing room where we saw a member’s custom wood lathe chisels (carbide insert) for which the wood handles were in the final stages of being finished as well as pens that were turned in the wood shop.

• Music as well as Textile capabilities

Additionally, Fox Build is part of a network of MakerSpace which includes Make-It-Here in Down-ers Grove, the Rockford MakerSpace, and Workshop 88 in Glen Ellyn.

Click Here for pictures of the Fox Build Shop Tour.

Shop Tours Coordinator

Bill Knudsen

[email protected]

630-215-3272

https://www.make-it-here.com/

https://www.rockfordmakerspace.com/

http://workshop88.com/

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ji9mtrumba6iazt/Fox%20Build%20Shop%20Tour%20Pictures.pdf?dl=0

mailto:[email protected]



President’s Sawdust

Tom Sharp, President FVWWC The editorial musings of your president which maybe serious, funny, technical, or philosophical, but hopefully

always entertaining.

Can you fall in love with a piece of wood?

I’m currently making a small end table to go next to my easy chair. Naturally, as part of the process, I

went to my basement and chose some boards that I thought would be appropriate for the project. The

boards I have are all rough cut, have sawdust on them, and although you can see some of the figure in the

wood, it’s difficult to really see the grain pattern it holds. So picking the right board can be difficult.

As in any project, the rough boards have to be jointed and planed. Doing so is always like an Easter egg

hunt. You never know what will be inside. Smoothing the boards and ridding the it of its surface irregu-

larities allows the true beauty of the wood to show. I’m always anxious to see the surface of an exiting

board as it comes out the planer.

One of the boards I chose one in particular stood out during the planning process. It was just sooooo

beautiful. The soft light patterns of flecks and rays danced across the board in waves. Dark strident lines

of grain ran parallel through its length. There were colors of black, dark brown, light brown, amber, gold,

and a pinkish hue. Looking at it was a form of hypnosis.

I kept coming back to the table during the project where the board lay just to pick up, to hold it. It felt so

good to rub my hand over it; to feel the striations of the grain, to rub the sharpness of the corners, or feel

its weight. Looking at each side showed that each was more beautiful than the other. I found myself go-

ing out to the shop and checking on it before I went to bed.

I started questioning whether I really wanted to use this particular piece of wood for the end table. To

use it would mean to cut it into three different pieces. Doing so would take away from its elegance, its

charm. It would be like cutting up a treasured work of art. Surely there was another way. I have other

wood. There were other boards I could use. Stacks of it are in the basement. Lots of pieces are on the

shelf in the shop. Anything would be better than cutting this board.

It didn’t take too long before I found another suitable piece. The replacement board is fine. The end

table will look really nice with it. What’s important is that I don’t have to cut the other, more-beautiful-

than-any-other board.

If you would like you can come over and see it. I’ll show it to you. Please don’t touch it though. I have a

feeling that it doesn’t like to be touched by anyone other than me.

Can you fall in love with a piece of wood? I think so.



NEJE Micro Engraving Laser

I think shop tours are always worthwhile and the Dave Burk shop tour in June in-

spired me to buy a small micro engraving laser. Dave heard about the laser at

the April Midwest Pen Turners Conference in Schaumburg. Dave ordered one,

had just received it, and opened the box for

us. It appeared to be a well made little unit

and included software on a DVD, a USB ca-

ble and a power supply cable, a number of wood and acrylic

blanks and even a wood pen to try it out on. The unit is an

NEJE DK-8-KZ 3000 milliwatt CO2 laser. It cost $108 plus $23

shipping, so all in is only $131. Sounds great doesn’t it? But

before you cancel your $8,000 Epilog Laser order, be aware

that the max engraving size is a little less than 1.5 inches

square; 36.75mm by 36.75mm to be precise. There are also

some size limitations that constrain the width of the project as well. The opening for the table is

only about 4 1/4 inches wide. Still, there are a number of small projects I can think of, including

making personal id discs for woodworking projects.

A word of caution: even though the laser is low power, it is still very bright

and I think eye protection is mandatory. A viewing shield is included, but I

went ahead and ordered a pair of safety glasses that protect in the 500 na-

nometer wavelength range. These were only $11 from Amazon and well

worth it. So, I went ahead and installed the software—pretty straight-

forward. You need to load a driver and the engraving program from NEJE.

It appears that their software only runs under MS Windows, but will work on

all of the still supported vintages of windows.

I used Photoshop Elements to resize my images and convert to grayscale.

JPEG's. Once you have an image of a size that is within the limits of the en-

graver, there are two main variables to fiddle with. The laser power and la-

ser pulse length in milliseconds. They recommend starting with about 40%

power and 20 ms pulse length. The cardboard test piece I started on was

penetrated by the laser and did generate a little smoke at those settings.

Backing off the power setting helped avoid the cutting through problem.

Next I tried a Frank Lloyd Wright art glass image on Cherry (photo right).

The upper image was engraved at 40% power and 30ms pulse length and

looked too dark and a little burned. The lower image was done at 30% pow-

er and 20ms pulse and looked much more distinct.

Lee



My next effort was to make some trial project id discs. In the process, I managed to use up all the

sample discs that came with the engraver and only one was kind of usable. This involved varying

the power and pulse settings and many attempts to center the image properly. Centering turned out

to be much harder that I thought it should be and I decided to just engrave the image first and then

cut the disc out afterward. I like the lower right Cherry image best -

25 ms pulse and 30% power. These images take about 15 minutes

each to complete, so this engraver is not well suited to any kind of

production use. Also, after about 30 minutes of engraving, the unit

shut itself down due to overheating. It was fine after a few minutes

to cool down. This is a work in progress for me and more tweaking

is required. It may be that a sharper graphic image and different

font will engrave better.

To give credit where it is due, I need to

thank my wife for taking a photo of me

carving, converting it to black and white,

and changing the image to just the outlines

(photo left). Don’t ask me how she did it.

If you are interested in getting one of these lasers, I suggest ordering it from nmclasers.com. The

laser is sourced from China, but nmclasers is located in California. In addition, I suggest you visit

www.woodpensandthings.com and download the excellent NEJE Laser Engraving presentation

made at the Pen Turners conference by Steven Margison, Margison Woodworks. Look for the IAP

Files tab. Read through the presentation before you order the engraver. It is very thorough and

unfortunately, the documentation that comes with the engraver is not as good. I downloaded the

NEJE software from woodpensand things.com also. The version shipped with the unit was out of

date. My anti-virus software would not let me download directly from NEJE’s Chinese website - no

certificate. Pen Turners will find a source referenced for a pen barrel rotary jig to enable custom en-

graving of pens. Very cool and a fun new woodworking toy.



SHOW AND TELL

July 2, 2019 Meeting

Jim Vojcek

Project: Box

Wood: Purple Heart

Finish: none

Arvid Meyer

Project: Scroll saw boxes

Wood: Various

Finish: Spray Poly

NOTE: Ok, another apology is needed this month for the show and tell photos. It appears

I had the auto focus switch turned off and did not notice. So all the photos are fuzzier than

normal.



SHOW AND TELL

July 2, 2019 Meeting

Jeff Smith

Project: 2.5 & 3D Wood Carving

Wood: Basswood

Finish: none

Dave Dockstader

Project: Laser Engraved Wedding Invitation

Wood: Walnut frame and Cherry Center

Note: 49th Wedding Anniversary Gift

John Winton

Project: Pipe Rack

Wood: Oak

Finish: Golden Pecan Stain & Poly



Special Interest Groups ShopSmith Al John SIG Chair: [email protected]

Scrollsaw Dave Dockstader SIG Chair: [email protected] Hand Tool Arnie Bandstra SIG Chair: Michael Fross [email protected]

Woodworking Fundamentals SIG

Michael Rauchmiller

[email protected]

2019 Membership Dues Dues for 2019 can be paid at the general meetings - just see Eric Springer at his table before the meeting or during break. Dues are still $30 per indi-vidual which includes the whole family. Please note that family members must reside at the same ad-dress. Our by-laws require payment of dues by February 15. Members unpaid after that time are removed from membership rolls and mailing lists.

If you are unable to pay in person, or forgot your checkbook, mail in your dues. Print out the mem-bership form from our website:

http://www.foxvalleywoodworkers.com/Documents/MemCard_11_Online.pdf

Mail it in:

FVWWC Membership Chair

PO Box 1041

Batavia, IL 60510-1041

2019

FVWWC Officers & Staff

President: Tom Sharp

[email protected]

Vice President: Dave Burk

[email protected]

Treasurer: Doug Pfaff

[email protected]

Secretary: Steve Fox

[email protected]

Programs: Dan Jarodsky

[email protected]

Membership: Eric Springer

[email protected]

Website Director John Gesiakowski

[email protected]

Resources: Dave Dockstader

[email protected]

Member-at-Large: Al John

[email protected]

Communications Lee Nye

Director: [email protected]

Raffles: Norm Musur

Bill Knudsen

Show & Tell MC: Rich Russel

Audio/Visual Tech: Dave Burk

Shop Tour Chair: Bill Knudsen













ShopSmith SIG

August 6, 2019

We anticipate Having Brian Bigelow from ShopSmith at our SIG as well as his program at the regular August meeting. Ron King will chair our meeting as I will be out of state. Now is your chance to get questions about your unit addressed and learn about the latest hardware and accessories from ShopSmith. Please make every effort to attend this session and hear direct from a factory representative. Al John [email protected]

Hand Tool SIG

August 6, 2019

The Hand Tool SIG meets, January through November, at 6:30 pm, before the regular meeting at Bethany Lutheran in Room M111 of the Ministry Center (Church annex).

Arnie Bandstra and Michael Fross

[email protected]

Scroll Saw SIG August 6, 2019 The next Scroll Saw SIG next meeting will be Tuesday, August 6, 2019, at 6:30 prior to the club meeting. As usual, the best laid plans (and schedules) of yours truly got knocked into a cocked hat again. Mark Drogos is unable to attend, so we will have Ethan, Jim, and Gary tell us all about the Midwest Scroll Saw Show. Mark is now on the hook for September. If you are inter-ested learning how to use the scroll saw you have, this group is an excellent resource for expanding your knowledge and picking up tips and patterns. Don’t forget to bring in some samples of your work for discussion.

Dave Dockstader [email protected]

Woodworking Fundamentals SIG

August 6, 2019

The fundamentals or novice woodworkers SIG will meet at 6:30pm in the main building upstairs in

the Adult Lounge. Follow the signs from the main meeting room.

Michael Rauchmiller (Rocky) [email protected]






Fox Valley Woodworkers Club

General Meetings held at:

Bethany Lutheran Church

8 S Lincoln St. - Batavia, IL

On the 1st Tuesday of each month at 7:30 pm

Doors Open at 6:30 p.m.

Visitors Always Welcome!

FVWWC Website http://www.fvwwc.org Email [email protected]

August 6, 2019

Brian Bigelow

ShopSmith Equipment Demonstration

http://www.fvwwc.org