WAVERLEY WOODWORKERS INC.

Clubrooms: 2 Windsor Ave.,

Mount Waverley, Vic 3149

Telephone: 9807 9648

Website: www.waverleywoodworkers.org.au (Note: New website)

E-mail: phug8047@bigpond.net.au

NEWSLETTER FEBRUARY,2005

Volume 12 Office bearers 2004/2003 Issue 1

PRESIDENT’S REPORT

Well did everybody see what we got for Christmas? Yes, another table saw, this time a “Holz Profi”. At nearly $5000. we need to look after this one SO if anybody modifies, ‘improves’ or otherwise mucks around with it expect to be lynched.

At this stage we need to make new/modify some jigs for commonly cut specials so be patient as well as careful while this occurs.

If you haven’t used it yet make sure you get a run down on the machine from the Duty Officer. In particular the operation of the fence needs explanation. As part of the February meeting we will demonstrate as much as we can on the saw’s safe operation.

Now of course we have our previous table saw to sell. The committee has determined that we would like to offer it to any interested club member before we try to sell it to the public. So, if anybody would like to make an offer around $1700 could you please contact either Tom Phillips or myself?

Time payment might be considered.

(President’s Report continued on page 3)

Discounts Available from the following:

The following companies offer discounts to members of the Waverley Woodworkers . Note: Discounts are only available on presentation of your current membership card.

Australian Wood Panels, 40-42 Winterton Rd., Clayton 9543 5033

Baileys Toolbank. Unit 4 Rowen Crt., Box Hill 9897 1911

Blackwoods, 9-19 Lionel Rd., Mount Waverley (ask for Cyril) 9518 2222

Carba-Tec. Mountain Highway, Bayswater, opposite the end of

Stud Road 9427 8444

Note: New address

Dixon’s Hardware. 304 Stephensons Rd., Mount Waverley 9888 1813

Flatman’s Timber & Hardware. High Street Road. Syndal 9802 9211

A. Lewis & Co. 302 Jasper Rd., Ormond 9578 6218

Malvern Paint & Timber Finishes. 1933 Malvern Rd., Malvern East 9885 2883

Magnetic Abrasives. 286 Neerim Rd., Carnegie 9571 6811

Mathews Timbers. 125 Rooks Rd., Vermont 9874 1666

Moorabbin Timber. 230 Wickham Rd., Moorabbin 9553 0155

Plyboard Distributors. 192 Princess Highway, Dandenong

This company has advised that it will no longer offer discounts, “as their

prices are already cheap”

Sachy’s Industries, 43 Browning Drive, Glen Waverley 9803 2370

Shiver me Timbers, 217 Kororoit Creek Rd. Williamstown 9397 5993

Woodworking Warehouse. 11 Citrus St. Braeside 9587 3999

If you know of any other source for discounts for members, then please give me a ring on 9560 5752 with the details.

Similarly, if you have difficulty obtaining a discount from any of the above, please give me a ring.

COPYRIGHT: Except where otherwise stated, other woodworking clubs may use items from our Newsletter. We do ask that such be without alterations, and that the source be acknowledged.

Maintenance Book and Maintenance in General

Have you seen it or have We lost it?!! We are about to start another one as we need to be able to record faults, accidents, upgrades, wish lists etc.. When we do start it again please use it to record you wishes, problems or whatever as this means the committee must consider whatever is written there at the next committee meeting.

If something appears wrong with a machine please bring it to the attention of the Duty Officer, don’t unwittingly set a trap for the next user. Obviously if you think that a machine isn’t working properly and that all it needs is a modification then DON’T do it without checking with the Duty Officer because you may be using it for an unintended (dangerous?) use or something else might be wrong. Sometimes they reckon 2 heads are better than one.

Geoff Allen

CLUB NIGHT 9 FEBRUARY 2005 at 7:30 pm

A dazzling display of the delights of our new table saw will occur so that we can all say that we know all that there is to know about its use.

We might even show off the lathe as well. This will be followed by a demonstration by Cameron of how our web page is set up, what you need to do to get around it etc.

We are hopeful that Cameron will have time soon to even include some past editions of the newsletter on the website so that if you have access to the internet you will be able to go back to find information rather than have to shuffle through your papers for the missing newsletter.

JUST TURNING

Monday 6 December – 7 members present

Bob Lorensene brought along some Irish Strawberry timber (Arbutus unedo) for somebody to attack, as well as 2 keyring style toothpick/needle cases made from Native Pear and Macassar Ebony. Bob also had a WA Sheoak box which turned out to cut on a bandsaw then carefully reassembled. I had made some miniatures because I didn’t have time to make anything else. Harold Pinto, Peter Stacey and Al Sengotta forgot to bring anything. Ray Austin’s pair of ducks made mostly from Red Gum were delightful. Bob Morrison showed us another of his pot pourri containers this time Huon Pine with a perhaps Blackwood perforated lid, finished with uBeaut’s “EEE’ and “Glow”.

Monday 13 December – 10 members present

Ray Austin came with a commendation and Ron Jones and Bill David claimed to have brought each other. Peter Stacey is now into making Mont Blanc pens, he showed us one from Cherry. Peter also showed us the way the purple in Purpleheart intensified as a result of exposure to sunlight. He is also racking his brains to find a way of using the 12 propelling pencils he purchased from Vic Wood for $8.

Bob Lorensene has been busy again now making 2 fountain pens from Purpleheart and American Walnut as well as a Jam Stand made from Rose Gum. Alex Morey had of course to make his 2 pens from segmented timber. He has also turned 2 lamp stands made using ‘Inside out Turning’. The lamp stands were made from Pine, Myrtle and Beli.

Helene Longton had made a concealed clock from Myrtle and Goldie Wood. Harold Pinto showed us a Red Gum pot pourri finished with EEE and Shellawax and a weed pot made from Osage Orange. John Dixon brought along his trusty skew chisel sharpening jig. I had spent some time turning Bob Lorensene’s Irish Strawberry sample from last week into a platter and also brought an old platter from home that I had made from Qld. Yellow Walnut and Ebony for comparison. As well I had made some pens as emergency presents form Myrtle, Red Gum, Whitewood and Cherry.

Geoff Allen

Please Note: the closing date for input to the March, 2005 Newsletter is 18 February, 2005

TIMBER AND GARAGE SALE

February 26 & 27, 2005

10:00 am to 5:00 pm

5 Lockyers Road, Lara, VIC

Timber both dressed and rough sawn in many lots from single planks to half a cubic metre of sawn logs.

Small turning blanks to single boards 700 mm X 3.000 metres X 50 mm Blackwood, Blackbean, Oak, Sequoia, Elm and many more varieties.

All well below wholesale prices.

A multitude of useful second hand goods including tools.

See Melways 222.G3

WORD POWER

“Digression”

The farmer had just returned from a drive in his horse and cart. His dog which had been running alongside threw himself down on the grass, his sides heaving with his heavy panting. “It is not the road that tires him,” explained the farmer, “but his zigzagging. We have ridden for about five miles, but the dog has covered twenty five miles. There wasn’t a cat he didn’t chase, not a dog he didn’t bark at, not a driveway he didn’t investigate.”

WOODWORKING TIPS from

“FINE WOODWORKING”

(Published with the express permission of Taunton Press, publishers of “Fine Woodworking”. Such permission is restricted to Waverley Woodworkers Inc,)

Over the next few months we will publish a number of articles on the subject – “A Primer on Sanding”. Due to the size of some articles it will be necessary to spread them over two or more newsletters.

The articles will be under the following headings:

Making Sense of Sandpaper – by Strother Purdy.

Knowing how it works is the first step in choosing the right abrasive.

Steel Wool vs Abrasive pads – by Jeff Jewitt

Even with the advent of synthetics, there is still a place for old-fashioned steel wool.

Survey of 3in. by 21in. Belt Sanders by Lon Schieining

They all turn wood to dust, but some are more comfortable, others are quieter, and one has a really long cord.

Article 1 – Making Sense of Sandpaper – by Strother Purdy

Part 1 – Knowing how it works is the first step in choosing the right abrasive.

Years ago at a garage sale, I purchased a pile of no-name sandpaper for just pennies a sheet. I got it home. I sanded with it, but nothing came off the wood. Sanding harder, the grit came off the paper. It didn’t even burn very well in my wood stove.

Sanding is necessary drudge work, improved only by spending less time doing it. As I learned, you can’t go right buying cheap stuff, but it’s still easy to go wrong with the best sandpaper that’s available. Not long ago for example, I tried to take the finish off some Maple flooring. Even though I was armed with premium-grade, 50-grit, aluminium-oxide belts, the work took far too long. It wasn’t that the belts were bad, I was simply using the wrong abrasive for the job. A 36-grit ceramic belt would have cut my sanding time substantially.

The key to choosing the right sandpaper is knowing how the many different kinds of sandpaper work.

Each component, not just the grit, contributes to the sandpapers performance, determining how quickly it works, how long it lasts and how smooth the results will be. If you know how the different components work together, you’ll be able to choose your sandpaper wisely, and use it efficiently. Then you won’t waste time sanding or end up burning the stuff in your wood stove.

Sandpaper is a cutting tool

What sandpaper does to wood is really no different from what a saw, a plane or a chisel does. They all have sharp points or edges that cut wood fibres. Sandpaper’s cutting is simply on a much smaller scale. The only substantial difference between sandpaper and other cutting tools is that sandpaper can’t be sharpened.

Sandpaper is made of abrasive minerals, adhesive and a cloth, paper or polyester backing. The abrasive minerals are bonded to the backing by two coats of adhesive; first the make coat bonds them to the backing; then the size coat locks them in position.

Look at sandpaper up close, and you’ll see that the sharp tips of the abrasive grains look like small, irregularly shape sawteeth. The grains are supported by a cloth or paper backing and two adhesive bonds, much the way that sawteeth are supported by the sawblade. As sandpaper is pushed across wood, the abrasive grains dig into the surface ands cut out minute shavings, which are called swarf in industry jargon. To the naked eye, these shavings look like fine dust. Magnified, they look the shavings produced by saws or other cutting tools.

Even the spaces between the abrasive grains serve an important role. They work the way gullets on sawblades do, giving the shavings a place to go. This is why sandpaper designed for wood has what’s called an open coat, where only 40% to 70% of the backing is covered with abrasive. The spaces in open coat are hard to see in fine grits but are very obvious in coarse grades. Closed coated sandpaper, where the backing is entirely covered with abrasive, is not appropriate for sanding wood because the swarf has no place to go and quickly clogs the paper. Closed-coat sandpaper is more appropriate on other materials such as steel and glass because the particles of swarf are much smaller.

Some sandpaper is advertised as non-loading, or strearated. These papers are covered with a substance called zinc stearate – soap, really – which helps keep the sandpaper from clogging with swarf. Stearated papers are only useful for sanding finishes and resinous woods. Wood resin and most finishes will become molten from the heat generated by sanding, even hand sanding. In this state, these substances are very sticky, and given the chance, they will firmly glue themselves to the sandpaper. Stearates work by attracting to the molten swarf, making it slippery, not sticky, and preventing it bonding to the sandpaper.

(The 2^nd. part of this article will be continued in the March, 2005 Newsletter)

A BIT OF HUMOUR HELPS!

Great truths about life and growing old.

. Wrinkles don’t hurt.

. Laughing is good exercise. It’s like jogging on the inside.

. Middle age is when you choose cereal for the fibre, not the joy.

. Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

. When you fall down, you wonder else you could be doing while you’re.

. Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

. You get the same sensation from a rocking chair you once got from a roller

coaster.

. It’s frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody asks the questions.

HA HA;;;

A husband suspects his wife is cheating on him. Tactfully he asks, “Honey, I think I’m playing second fiddle.”

His wife replies, “Hey, with a flute like yours you’re lucky to be in the band.”

(Thanks to Berwick District Woodworkers Club for the above)

WHO SAID THAT?

“Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.” Mark Twain

“Marriage is one long conversation checkered by disputes.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

WOODWORKING TIPS from “Woodsmith”

(Copyright of August Home Publishing Co. Publishers of the “Woodsmith”, Shopnotes” and “Workbench” magazines. All worth the read. Used by Waverley Woodworkers Inc. by permission).

Fitting a Mortise and Tenon Joint

No matter what method you use for making a mortise

and tenon joint, there’s still a good chance that you

will have to do some ‘fine tuning’ to get a perfect fit.

Undercutting The Shoulders. One of the most

common problems encountered with a mortise and

tenon joint is a gap between the two mating

workpieces. This is caused by a shoulder that isn’t

perfectly square or cut cleanly.

To avoid this problem, I like to undercut the shoulders

of the tenon slightly with a chisel. This allows the

edges of the tenon to fit tight to the mating workpiece

when the joint is assembled, see photo.

Removing Stepped Shoulders Another common

problem when cutting four-shouldered tenons is a

stepped shoulder. If I run into this, I don’t try to

correct it at my saw. Instead, I come back after and

pare them flush with the side shoulders, as shown,

as shown in the photo.

Brian McCallum.

Online Editor,

Woodsmith