This month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association took on a different spin. A spin, indeed!

We were treated to a woodturning demo by our past chairman, Cecil Canam, who showed us how he turns a variety of Christmas ornaments. After all, it is the season!

Cecil focused on two varieties of ornaments, one using a pen blank and the other using a Christmas ornament kit.

Using a Tulipwood pen blank he turned an ornament in a style that is referred to as an ‘icicle’. While there are no specific rules for the design the goal is to make the ornament long and slender with decorative turning. Since it is turned similar to a finial the same cautions apply. Because of its small diameter special care has to be taken not to break it while turning.

Here you can see that all that’s left to do is add of a screw eye and ribbon to the top and the Christmas icicle will be ready for the tree:

Continue reading 'Christmas Ornamenting With The AWA'

This month’s meeting of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association was held at Home Depot, our home away from home. The feature of the evening was a presentation by member Jay Perry, who demonstrated the Veritas Mk.II Power Sharpening System.

Jay, as you may remember from the Seminar On Sharpening Plane Blades that I attended last year, has taught at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design for over 20 years, works for Lee Valley and has a strong passion for planes and for keeping them very sharp.

He demonstrated the sharpening capabilities of the Veritas Mk.II Power Sharpening System beginning with an old plough plane blade that was in a pretty rough state. However, after only a few seconds with the 80 grit sanding disk the rust and pits were removed, as you can see here:

Continue reading 'The Atlantic Woodworkers Sharpen Up'

Well, once again we kicked off a new season of the Atlantic Woodworkers Association the other night at Halifax Specialty Hardwoods. This has become a welcomed annual event which is always enjoyed by the AWA members and the shop owners alike.

The meeting began with the members catching up on what each other did over the summer and what project plans they have in mind for this winter, all while perusing the more than forty species of exotic and domestic stock on hand.

A short business meeting was held with updates given regarding the club’s by-laws, a call-out for the website member bios and project photos and a member was appointed to update and clarify our business discount opportunities. There was also an update on the bunk building project that we did over the summer.

At this point, Darryl Vallis, the owner/operator of Halifax Specialty Hardwoods, took over the meeting and started with an auction of two large, great looking pieces of Curly Maple which, like most of our auctions, led to a bit of a hot and heavy bidding war.

He followed this with the introduction of two new species of exotic hardwoods; Indian Rosewood and Shedua, a rich, dark, yellowish-brown colored wood with black stripes that comes from West Africa. From then it was on to one of the highlights of the shop tour, the introduction of their latest addition, a six head wood moulder:

Continue reading 'AWA – First Meeting Of 2009-2010 Season'

I mentioned in a couple of past posts that the Atlantic Woodworkers Association were planning on a bunk building project with Bayside Camp as a part of our community volunteer efforts. Well, we did it!

Starting back in May and up until a few weeks ago members of the AWA met on periodic Saturdays and occasionally throughout the week to build the 60 bunk bed sets (that’s 120 beds!) that were required for the Camp.

Although there were the usual construction related ups and down (wood not delivered on time, etc.) the building of the bunks was a sight to behold! At times there were 15 of us, separated in smaller groups, with some cutting, some on routering, some on leg assembly and some on bed base assembly.

When we got the production line going we really ‘kicked butt’! At one point, while doing the final assembly we timed ourselves and found we were assembling one bunk every six minutes! This was, of course, was after all the wood had been cut to size and with the legs put together, all the parts handy and six of us… Still, it was a feat that we were quite proud of!

Here are photos of some of the members who helped with the build:

Continue reading 'Bunk Bed Building At Bayside Camp'