On Valentine’s Day this year an intrepid band of OCWA members and friends, ventured out into the San Gabriel Valley to visit the professional home of the Ol’ Prez, namely, Southcoast Cabinet Inc. for a tour of the factory and showroom facilities.

Of course we underestimated the size of the turn-out, and bought only two dozen doughnuts, which disappeared post haste with the ensuing onslaught of woodworkers clamoring into the facility, if you call the movement of a bunch of geezers clamoring. We had between thirty-five and fifty members show up, and they all seemed to have enjoyed themselves. I want to thank Dante Senese; President and Owner of Southcoast Cabinet Inc., Scot Halseth; General Manager, Harold Thomas; Vice President in charge of operations for the Fineline Division, and their entire staff for the warm welcome, and the opportunity to visit one of

the finest Production Cabinet facilities on the West Coast. And, of course, the custom department is pretty good too. (Please see the accompanying article on our trip.) On Saturday, February 9th, I made a surprise visit to our toy workshops at the Lutheran High School, and at Gunny Polhamus’ shop respectively, to check up on all of our cur-mudgeon elves making sawdust for the Christmas Toy Pro-gram. It was quite heartening to see the large turnout there happily making toys. These folks put in a lot of time, with very little fanfare, making some of the finest wooden toys with the smile on a child’s face as their only reward. I doff my chapeau to them on a job well done. This year is moving along quite rapidly, so don’t forget to get started on your projects for the Fine Art Woodworking Show at the Orange County Fair in July and August. Also, be sure to sign up to be part of our “Turn of the Century Woodshop”, it’s going to be a lot of fun, and I hope to see as many of you participate as possible. We will have sign up sheets available at all the meetings leading up to the fair. Last month I talked about table saw safety, but this month I want to talk about the most important tools you have in your arsenal, and they are your eyes. Eye safety should never be taken for granted, and it doesn’t hurt to have more than one pair of safety glasses. I keep a pair in my truck, and several pair in the work area. You should also make sure to keep eye wash in your emergency safety kit, so you can rinse out the particles that may get into your eyes. Never rub your eyes, because this could lead to scratching of the cornea. Not a good thing. A good percentage of the OCWA membership aren’t spring chickens anymore, so we sometimes need to wear bifocals to see up close, and I have found a great web site that carries bifocal safety glasses, and that would be www.safetyglassesusa.com. Check them out. You won’t be disappointed. Not only do they help you to see close work, and are impact resistant, but they block out 99.9% of the harmful UV light that has been known to cause Cataracts. Please remember to protect your eyes at all times, and I’ll see you at our next event.

Sawdust & Sawdust & Sawdust & Shavings Shavings Shavings Volume 25 Issue 3 March 2008

President’s Message James Santhon

Board of Directors

President James Santhon (949) 481-2821

Treasurer Ralph Crowther (949) 588-2922

Vice President Chester Maharaj (949) 422-4522

Secretary Ed Straub (714) 536-4568

Director at Large Aaron Fleischer (949) 279-3586

2nd Dir. at Large Jim Balestreri (949) 493-6431

Woodturners President Dick Foreman (714) 637-6175

Public Affairs Chairman Ralph Alder (714) 544-4388

Past President Doug Nowlin (714) 838-1890

Committees

Badges Lew Musgrave (714) 532-4778

Library Ollie Vaughan (949) 278-5939

Nominations & Elections Bill Rogers (714) 637-2912

Newsletter Don Scott (714) 533-7883

Mentor Chairman Jim Steinmetz (714) 842-8793

OC Fair Ed Straub (714) 536-4568

Webmaster Aaron Fleischer angry4wood@ocwoodworkders.com Denise Paley

Drawing Cheri Durthaler (714) 936-9188

Refreshments Don Wolf (714) 533-7839

Resources George Plummer (714) 540-4527

Toy Program Jim Balestreri (949) 493-6431

Welcome/Membership Gary Morse (714) 241-1972

IN THIS ISSUE

President’s Message 1

Field Trip 2

Woodturner Shavings 4

Coming Attractions 5

Show and Tell 5

Toy Program 6

Freedom Pens 7

Meeting Dates 8

Monthly Drawings 6

Field Trip

Simply put, the objective of the mentor program is to put people that want to know stuff in contact with other peo-ple who actually know that stuff. In an effort to do that the club's mentor program is going to be experimenting with a new format. At the general meetings a corkboard will be available with cards to fill out and post. Members seeking assistance can post a public message requesting mentoring in a specific skill. Another member that may be more capable in that skill can read the card, pluck it from the board, and offer assistance. If necessary, I will try to dig up a mentor for a request languishing in despair. To make it more likely to get help, the requestor will need to be a specific as possible. Requests for help with "finishing" or "joinery" will be hard to fulfill. On the other hand, requests for "How do I eliminate orange peel with my HVLP spray gun?" or "What is a good type of joint between a table leg and an apron?" are more likely to give quality results. As usual, there is a down side to changes. This approach does not pre-approve the mentor. It relies on the volunteer mentor actually knowing what he thinks he knows. To that end I will suggest that potential mentors self-police and ask themselves if their potential advice is something they actually know from experience or if it is something they just read about. Let's give it a try and see what happens.

Mentor Program David Wade

Southcoast Cabinet Tour Ed Straub As the Prez said the Southcoast Cabinet Inc., located at 755 Pinefalls Ave. in Walnut, California 91789, hoisted members of the Orange County Woodworkers Association. The OCWA members were invited to tour the facilities where custom cabinetry is produced by an American company which has been in busi-ness for more than 25 years. Their main business is the design, production, and installation of kitchen and bath cabinetry in new and remodeled homes. Their website, www.southcoastcabinet.com, displays a large assortment of their custom designs. Our tour began in the custom design shop where James Santhon and Stanislav Reznicek build those elegant one of a kind pieces. You wonder why I use such a generalized term as "piece", well how do you collectively categorize things such as a spice rack drawer hidden behind a turned post, a 15 foot by 6 1/2 foot oval conference table with a curly maple veneer top, soft maple banding, and lathe turned corners, a supply of turned posts and columns for counter supports, and two Ford "Woody" station wagons, one in birds eye maple. We might call it just woodworking but that would not identify the crea-tivity required. The other Woody is a 34 Hot Rod. We talked to Jerry Boone over in the cutting tool design works. He designed, machined, and ground the shaper cutters necessary to produce the special mill work required to reproduce the seventy year old frame work in the body of the 1937 Woody. Jerry, with 27 years experience, maintains and designs specialized cutters like these so that Southcoast can provide unique shapes in their custom furniture. While we were in Jerry's shop he described the steps necessary to designing and fabricating shaper cutters. He has a pantographic type grinder which makes those special shapes possible and reproducible. Remember that shapers require two blades which are exactly matched. Some how we just don't like ripples in a molded finish. Typical of the family atmosphere is the art work in Jerry's shop. One can hardly speak of shaper cutters in a cabinet shop with out mentioning doors and drawer fronts. When you men-tion these at Southcoast the name Alfred Martinez is always present. Al is the Door shop foreman. You want tight miter joints? Al's people produce frames like that. You want surfaces with out ripples? Al's people do that. You need a lot of frames on time? Guess what? Al's people do that too. The Finishing Department, where they made that conference table top look so rich, uses water bourne finishes which are significantly better for employee health and the environment than petroleum solvent based finishes. With the finishing line equipped with rolling conveyors, plenty of light, safety equipment and lots of table space people like Jorge Valades can pro-duce beautiful surfaces. Back in the custom shop, James has a lathe to work with, you have all seen James at the Nova DVR the club uses for dem-onstrations right? Well, to improve on that scene I asked Denise Paley to model the Powermatic James works with. No-tice all of the special tools James has to work with. Well we all need a set of outside calipers, right? Imagine the size of goblet one could turn with this machine. It has a 96 inch length by 24 inch diameter capacity. We surprised Harold Thomas at his desk in the cabinetry Design Center. Notice the cabinetry. That is working elegance. Turnings have a place and a presence in furniture quality cabinetry. Upstairs is where we found that conference table I told you about earlier. Not bad for a six day lead time. How do you like the doors Al made for the base? Notice the corners on the table, they were turned on the big Powermatic lathe in the custom shop as a single "platter" type turning and then cut apart to fit the mitered banding produced with Jerry's cutters. Nice huh? The finish, by the way was applied in the fin-ish shop by an expert crew. It took a fork lift to get the table top up to the second floor and six big guys to get it diagonally through the door. The core is particle board. The plates on the center line cover the communications and electrical cables which lay in a track just under the table top. That takes planning. Hard to do as a retrofit. Speaking of design and planning, as you would expect the design center is filled with kitchen and bath designs and a design room. As you can see, Nicole Burwell, Hugo, and Mike Kintanar layout their designs on big sheets of paper so that one can really tell what they will look like. After they have a design firmed up and approved they encode it into a computer file and gen-erate cut lists and all of the shop drawings needed by to build the product. There is something very subtle and most elusive here in the design room. They are in a kitchen environment designing kitchens. A design room with bare walls, drafting machines, and computers does not produce the same inspiration one gets from being in the environment you are designing for. I know, your lap is too small to use as a design table in the bath room. But just think of how moved you would be.

Woodturner Shavings Dick Foreman The Jimmy Clews professional demonstration was held on February 16th. Jimmy turned a “wave” shaped lidded box, a thirteen inch highly figured soft maple platter with a dyed rim and a long stemmed goblet; all of which he is internationally known. The pieces were signed by Jimmy and presented to the club for the October auction. He had many interesting tips and hu- morous stories interlaced with his fantastic turning skills. The club had forty members attending to make this the largest turnout I have seen for a professional demonstration. Jimmy kept Ralph Alder in a state of perpetual motion in order to keep up with the video equipment; but he managed very well. The breakfast of donuts, bagels, coffee and drinks provided by Chester Maharaj got us off to a good start and box lunches purchased and set up by Robin Huff kept us going for the day. Thanks to the members who helped to make this a great day and a great demonstration. Ross Gilroy turned an off-center piece at the February 21st meeting. He did an excellent job! It was turned from mahogany and ended up about the size of an apple with an off-center neck. An interesting turning; and very will done Ross. See you again next year. Next months Challenge will be an off-center piece. Better start now! The March 20th demonstrator will be David Wade turning a “Sphere” for the group. David is getting to be an old hand at demonstrating and he is al-ways fun to watch and is a wiz with the tools. Be there to see for yourself.

This months Challenge had a hand full of entries. The Chal-lenge was to turn anything, “A Surprise” turning. James Santhon performed the duties of judge for these pieces and he picked a goblet with a corkscrew stem completed by Ross Gilroy as the winner. About a dozen pieces were entered in the Show and Tell. A few more entries are starting to turn up for this part of the monthly meeting which is good to see. The Open Shop at George Plummer’s is being held on March 15th. These Open Shop get-togethers are a lot of fun and give you new members a chance to meet others in the club with like interests and see how their shops are laid out. The flyer, with all the particulars and map, is avail-able at the meetings. Checkout the new calendar for the entire year on our website. Aaron Fleischer certainly spent some time putting this together for the membership, so look it up at OCWoodworkers.com and review it for upcoming events. Harold Hardy is now taking orders for hats and shirts with the new OCWoodturners logo on them. Check them out!

The Sandpaper Jig Workshop will be held on March 29th (new date). The flyer is out so sign-up with Victor Cohn for a fun time. I would like to thank Craig Chambers for handling the meeting February 21st for me on very short notice due to a family crisis. Have fun at the lathe!

Show & Tell Photos OCWA

Coming Attractions OCWA Events Location Dates

Woodworking Show Pomona Fairplex May 2-4, 2008

Utah Symposium Utah Valley State College May 22-24,2008

SD County Fair Solona Jun 14 - Jul 6

OC Fair Costa Mesa Jul 11 - Aug 3

San Deigo Symposium San Deigo July 19th

Demonstrations Host Date Cost Location

Open Shop OCWT March 15th Free George Plummer’s Shop

Turner’s Club Demo David Wade

OCWT Spheres March 20th Tustin Senior

Center

Sandpaper Jig Workshop OCWT March 29th TBD TBD

Keith Gotschall Demonstration OCWT June 21st $25

Advanced Tustin Senior

Center

JoeFleming Demonstration OCWT May 3rd $15 Tustin Senior

Center

We had 20 plus loyal toymakers at the February work party. They were helped in two locations, Tom’s place and Bill’s school. It is a great advantage to be at the school, lots of room and worktables. We can use the power tools provided. They are not abused and we clean up afterwards. There were baby rattles turned, hearts sanded and drilled, cars and buses completed. Keepsake boxes finished, sanded and hinges installed. The hoops for the basketball games were finished to a point at which the remaining operation was routering a 1/8th ra-dius on the inner and outer edges. The telephones required minor touch-up sanding then mouth and ear pieces glued on. At Tom’s place there was work on basketball assembly and drilling the keypads for the phones. I was very pleased to have our Prez drop in to see the action. He stated he would come more often but has to work on Satur-day’s. This Saturday he was free. It was greatful that he used his rare Saturday off to use the time to visit us. In the scheduling of our work parties it is harder to determine where they will be held. Therefore the time and place will be an-nounced at the main meeting. Those who are unable to attend the meeting, please call myself or Bill the next day for details. We still have lots of wood!

Toy Program Jim Balestreri

Monthly Drawings Cheri Durthaler I sincerely apologize for missing the last meeting. As I was getting ready for work the morning of the meeting, my water heater literally shattered and flooded half of my place. Then to add insult to injury, 12 days later, after the place was all dried out and ready for re-construction, my kitchen undersink water filter blew apart and RE-FLOODED everything again and I had to go through the 3 day dry out process all over. I think my brain has finally dried out enough to hear myself think. Meanwhile my female puppy was in heat so the dogs had a riot while mommy had her hands full. I will probably have a litter of AKC Miniature Dachshunds in about 1-2 months if anyone wants to buy one of my water heater puppies. If you are interested let me know. The raffle prizes for January were (yes, that’s right, that was 2 months ago): Ebony wood (member), Miter Square tool (member), The Toolbox Book (member), Empire Level tool (member), Lazy Suzan swivels (member), Table saw Miter fence (member) and 2 clamp racks (member). Winners: You guys always get past me, If you want me to mention your name, be sure to give it to me, otherwise I will only announce the Bonus prize winners. Speaking of the bonus prize, Guy Willacker gave us a gift card from Rockler for $100.00 for February’s BONUS draw-ing, so there will be a drawing for it this month instead. Remember, when you buy $10.00 of tickets you automatically get the yellow ticket for the bonus. Write your name on the back and give it back to me. So far I have sold only 12 for this drawing, and 2 of those 12 are people who have bought 2 tickets. No pressure, but the $100.00 will be taken by one of those 10 people, unless you want to reduce their odds! What ever you choose to do is fine with me. They wont mind either. This is the beginning of a new year, and we finally got those old debts paid off, SO, I am going to make some small changes to the raffle drawing. You will find out Thursday night. I want to provide you with more of a variety of items and make a way for each of you who wins to be more likely to get something you can use the most. I know that’s a lot of words for a little girl, just trust me. I’ll explain it at the meeting. We made $86 for the club, and again thank you very much for supporting the raffle this last year. I hope I can do better for you this next year. I am looking forward to it. I’ve been watching sales and picking up items that I think you will like. It wouldn’t hurt if you would like to email me and tell me something you would like to see offered in the raffle. Send your note to: cher-ilee@softprogs.com and be sure to put “OCWA Raffle” in the subject so you don’t get swept away with my spam. I would like to hear from you so I can pick out things based on your needs or wants. And I don’t want to hear you say you can’t use the things I get, so let me know! If it’s feasible I will get it. Thanks to Joe Lomax at Austin Hardwoods in Santa Ana. And to Jim Anderson at Anderson International Trading, Anaheim. And especially to Guy Willaker for the bonus card this month from Rockler in Tustin, and thanks to Ingko Oetomo at Woodcraft in Stanton for helping me with this task. And to all: for providing such great and diversified places to find so many neat things for woodworking. I really enjoy the specialties from each place and also I hope we are helping you grow. Thank you again.

I received several emails thanking all of you for your con-tinued support of our troops and I will include a special poem written by SSGT Norbert White of the 82nd Air-borne Division in Afghanistan .

Today Al Whitcomb and Bill Rogers are going with me to the Camp Pendelton Hobby Shop for the first pen turning class. There are two wood-shop instructors at Camp Pendelton, Dave Heck who teaches at the Hobby Shop and Pat Salter who teaches at the Briggs woodshop. We are all excited to be a part of the first pen project and will continue to bring supplies and mentor our Marines. Al Whitcomb and I did some reorganizing of our wood/lumber surplus and we will be donating Brazilian cherry, sassafras and other lumber to the Hobby Shop for the Marines. Anyone who would like to do-nate excess wood/lumber please let me know and we can either take it to Camp Pendelton for you or you may take it yourself. I recently volunteered to help supply Dave Heck at the Camp Pendelton Hobby Shop all the necessary pen supplies for their first pen turning class on February 28th. Thanks to Guy Wil-lacker at Rockler and an anonymous donor at Woodcraft I was able to take all of the necessary pen supplies for the Camp Pendelton Pen class. Al Whitcomb, Bill Rogers and I were on

hand to assist Pat Salter with the class and everyone seemed to be pleased with their accomplishments. Each student made a pen and pencil set and I'm sure this is just the beginning of their pen making career. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR YOUR THE HELP!!! Our next endeavor will be to start a toy program at the Hobby shop. Bill Rogers and Tom Polhamus chose some simple toys as examples for the Marines to make for their children and other Marine children. We are also working on setting up a Christmas toy program for the Marines similar to our Christmas toy program. I will have an update of our pen turning event at our next meeting! Bless you all for your support of the Freedom Pen Pro-ject and our Marines at Camp Pendelton. Ruthe Ingram and our troops

Freedom Pen Project Ruthe Ingram Nationwide Count: 79,505

OCWA Count: 8,292 Nationwide 2008: 664

OCWA 2008: 460

Turners Pen

s

Bob Gibs 40

Ruthe Ingram 91

Bruce Potter 80

Les Rogers 121

Bruce Lewellyn 20

Lutheran High 60

Ken Turlin 20

Al Whitcomb 18

Fred Wilmott 10

THANK THE SERVICEMEN By Norbert White

The letters come and the letters go,

And cards from day to day Sent from the fighting Servicemen

Deployed so far away. We remember our dear loved ones;

Friends and family too People we meet along the way

And special ones like you. We serve our country everyday

Proudly in the fight; Warring against the tyrant foes

So you can sleep in peace at night, With steadfast hearts we serve our nation;

And do our very best. So from our fellow Americans

We ask this one request. Should you every meet a serviceman

That you pass along your way. Stop and tell them; “Thank You” For the price they’ve had to pay.

And when you fly our nation’s flag Say a silent prayer,

For the faithful men and women Who keep it flying there.

WHERE? Tustin Senior Center

200 S. C Street Tustin, CA 92680

WHEN?

Woodworker’s Meeting Thursday March 6th 7:00 pm

Woodturner’s Meeting

Thursday March 20st 6:30 pm

Board Meeting Thursday March 6th 6:00 pm

P.O. Box 1038 Fullerton CA 92836-8038

Friends of OCWA — Please Support Our Sponsors

Anderson International Trading

(800) 454-6270 Deft, Inc Laguna Tools

(800) 234-1976

Rockler Woodworking & Hardwoods (714) 282-1157

Austin Hardwood & Hardware

(714) 953-4000 Forrest Blades Reel Lumber Service

(714) 632-1988 Skill-Bosch Power Tools

Craft Supplies, USA (800)551-8876

Industrial Blade & Products Co.

Renaissance Door & Window

Woodcraft Supply (714) 899-1422

Sawdust and

Shavings

Monthly Newsletter of

The Orange County Woodworkers

Association

Visit us at the Web at: ocwoodworkers.com

The OCWA newsletter is sent out on the Saturday be-fore the Woodworkers Meet-ing . . . At the latest. Any articles you wish to sub-mit must be in my hands no later than the Tuesday before that date. Editor: poppyocwa@scottseagle.com