This month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association was a trip down memory lane with a review of the year’s 1988 and 1992 that featured a video tour of two past exhibitions. Yes, there was even popcorn!

The exhibition held May 17-28 1988 was hosted at the Anna Leonowens Gallery and the exhibition held in 1992 was held from September 10th to November 14th at the Mary E. Black Gallery. This was the 10th anniversary of the club and it was a juried exhibition.

The amateur video was earlier converted from VHS to DVD and although it is showing its age it is an excellent snapshot into the history of the club and clearly shows the professional level achieved by the members.

What really took my breath away when I first saw this video was not only the high quality of the projects but their diversity. There were carvings, both portrait and wildlife, Windsor chairs of several varieties, formal chairs with ball and claw legs, Krenov-style cabinets, tables with gear driven drawers, boxes, toys, all styles of woodturnings and a lot more.

In addition to the video presentation was a quick review of the newsletters from these periods highlighting the following:

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We had a real treat at this month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association when we visited John Mcnab`s studio. To be totally immersed within the inner sanctum of John’s genius and to be surrounded by dozens of examples of his work was a definite thrill.

John, who recently won the Lieutenant Governor’s Master Arts Award for his piece entitled CSDC 3-8 (Compound Spiral Double Cone No. 3, 8 Sided), happily took us on an exciting journey through his creative process, carrying us from concept to creation, pausing only to reflect. Here, in his studio, we were witness to the artist in his environment.

John’s studio for the past ten years features a combination of antique tools that have been collected over time and quite a few tools that were designed and built by himself, each with their own story, like the bandsaw and horizontal lathe that he picked up from a Canadian Navy selloff. (There’s even a canoe that was once owned by painter Alex Coleville!)

Then there’s the jewel of the studio, his 30 foot vertical lathe that he built specifically for creating his signature helical shapes and conical forms. Being vertical the lathe removes the constraints, like gravity and length, that a traditional horizontal lathe are prone to with long pieces. Since some of his pieces are almost 30 feet long the space needed to do this horizontally would be restrictive. As well, turning something this length, especially something spiral, would pose another whole set of problems with bowing and whipping.

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This month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association really sucked! Yep, it really did!

Twenty members of the AWA met at our local Busy Bee Tools for an excellent presentation by store Manager, Bill Luther, on the ins and outs, whys and wherefores of dust collection. (Get it?, sucked – dust collection… LOL! Groaner! I know, I kill me! )

Bill gave us a relaxed and down to earth presentation that took a lot of the mystery out of purchasing, installing and using dust collection and filtering systems. He began with the necessary safety considerations of airborne dust and its possible health consequences. He then gave an overview of the available solutions for this problem including dust collectors, dust filters, dust masks, downdraft tables and more.

In order to help us determine which system we would require for our individual use he explained the minimum cfm’s (cubic feet per minute) required for different size shops. He also made suggestions for permanent installations and the need for 4″ piping for unrestricted airflow.

Bill also explained the need for properly grounding the dust collection system. Although this is another one of those often debated issues within the woodworking community the solution is so simple that it is better to be safe than sorry. The problem is that the motion of dust and air through the pipes can cause electrical charges to build up, and this is turn can cause the fine dust particles to literally explode! The solution is to provide a low-resistance path for the static electricity to travel to ground and the easy and simplest way to do this is to install bare-wire grounding from the tools that you are collecting the dust from, like your table saw, through the inside of the dust collection hose or piping and to the grounded chassis of your dust collector.

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This month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association was our Annual General Meeting. In addition, we also had a report on our nesting box project, a Show and Tell, a Q & A session and a draw for a set of Sorby woodturning tools!

The meeting got off to a quick start with reviews of the year-end and financial reports. This was followed by the executive nominations and approvals. Finally, the proposed changes to our By-laws were voted on and accepted.

The AGM portion of the meeting only took about a half hour (gotta like it! ) which allowed lots of time for other things including Show and Tell which there were several pieces brought in for.

Here’s a turned bowl that was made out a 3/4″ thick piece of wood. Circles were scroll sawed on an angled, refitted, glued and then turned:

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