2020-02-11 Monthly Meeting

Meeting Started at 7pm, with 17 members in attendance. A good turnout given the snowy conditions.

Note: Thanks to Stephen Parsons for filling in and taking minutes and pictures at the February meeting.

NEWS

Chair, Brad Holley spoke of the recent passing of our one and only lifetime member, Graham McCulloch, and the celebration of his life held at J.A. Snow funeral home in Halifax this past weekend. Graham was a significant contributor to our association acting in many roles within the membership and board and contributing much to our library and equipment raffle prizes over the years. We will continue to honour his work through the dedication of our library.

Phil has been in touch with a number of folks in Chester interested in Men’s Sheds, a national and international men’s movement of support and activity for retired, aging and sometimes isolated men through shared work. learning and camaraderie. They were also interested in our organization and wanted Phil to let them know about us. Stephen suggested that we might take them on as a possible new chapter, at least until they are established. It would allow them to take advantage of our resources for the short term, and possibly joint activities in the future. Meanwhile they might provide some small contribution to our costs as a share in the services (website, library, newsletter, etc.).

Rec NS R&R Lottery  – Brad reminded members about the current fundraising activity through the Rec NS raffle , please take some tickets if you can. We will have to get unsold tickets and raised funds back by the March meeting.

Next Board meeting is  scheduled for Tuesday Feb 18 at the Museum of Natural History on Summer Street in Halifax. Items for agenda should be sent to Brad.

March meeting will start with the AGM for the first part of the regular meeting time, then the remainder of the evening will be a buy/sell/trade/giveaway market.

Discussion – Brad posed a question to members about furniture or project design…

How do you start a project? Pen and paper? How much detail?

Shared strategies included:

• Make numerous small, minimally detailed sketches – as suggested in Mike Pekovitch’s book The How and Why of Woodworking 
• use graph paper to set up work to scale
• use tracing paper to copy initial designs and then changing particular elements
• make photocopies of the basic carcass then add elements to each copy
• cut out elements and put them together until you find a design you really like
• develop a miniature scale model
• use Computer Aided Modelling software like SketchUp.  Stephen and Brad like Sketch up because by the time you develop a 3D model with all the detailed joinery, you feel like almost like you have built the product without cutting a single piece of wood
• create templates – whether you work from SketchUp or use plans from a book or magazine, you can download Matthias Wandel’s inexpensive Big Print software from woodgears.ca. As long as you know the dimension you want from one element (say a drawer length) the software will then scale all other elements and allow you to print out exact sized overlapping sheets to allow you to cut out and create templates for cutting or duplication.

Member Presentation

Don Shubaly, Shop Safety Part I – VOCs

Don opened the discussion talking about various VOCs  – Volatile Organic Compounds – commonly available in our shops. VOCs are aerial pollutants, but as both gas and liquid they can also be dangerous in other ways and so learning a bit more about some of these compounds may be useful.!

Tidbits: Flammable= inflammable! If it won’t ignite it is non-flammable.

WHMIS symbols – the shape and direction, colour and language of various symbols on containers of various products is something we all should know about.

Table of flammability (some of this from Graham McC’s blog, Short Cuts). Don showed us a chart of various VOCs and other elements typical in the shop including gasoline, diesel fuel, propane, alcohols, and mineral spirits and then went on to describe properties related to flammability, combustion/ignition, flash points and boiling points. 

He finished off talking about the many different forms and formulations of alcohols with advice about VOCs and poisonous ingested potential for various types of alcohol used in our shops.

Show and Tell/ Challenge

This month’s special challenge in honour of the upcoming Valentine’s Day was for something made for a loved one. However, as always, any project that members are working on is welcome in this show-and-tell section of our meetings.

• Bill showed us a number of approaches and attempts he was working on for a university plaque, and the challenges of finding Latin mottos that were gender neutral.
• Mike shared a special back-flipping skier toy for his child based on a design from a book he shared with us (and whose author has other works in our library).
• Doug built a clever walnut folding book holder made for his wife.
• New member, James, shared some interesting turning he has been doing including a candle holder/ chalice, bud vase, and turned bowl.
• Stephen displayed a personalized garden tote made in cedar, poplar and birch as well as a series of garden dibbers for his wife, Mary Elizabeth who is an ardent gardener.
• Tom made a beautiful set of earrings from book-matched spalted maple that when put together form a heart shape.
• Brad talked about his new workbench featuring a cool Veritas dual vice, and some special features like a built-in planing stop.

Next Meeting

March 10 – AGM and tool/shop gear market

Member market.  Don suggests you find stuff in drawers, shelves and other hidey-holes in your shop. Don’t expect to back up the truck to the centre – you might only have to load it all back in the truck at the end. Aim for about a half table of stuff at most. It should be fun. Meeting is March 10 starting at the usual time 6:45pm.

Challenge

No official challenge for our March meeting, but remember to bring something to sell, trade, or give away.