Our fall Shop Tour will be this coming Saturday, October 19th. We’ll be visiting 6 shops in the La Conner area, and we’ll have a light lunch at our last stop. You’ll see good use made of smaller shop areas as well as some larger shops. Please respect the scheduled open times since this will allow participating shop owners to also visit some other shops. When 2 shops are open at the same time, either shop may be visited first. Parking is tight at several shops so please carpool when possible. As always, it’s nice when we wear our membership badges so we can all get to know each other better. Feel free to bring spouses or friends who might be interested in seeing what the NCWA is all about. We’ll have coffee and muffins at our first stop (Jerry Anderson’s) as well as copies of complete shop tour directions.

On Oct 1st, we’re back at the Hillcrest Lodge with a live demonstration of marquetry by Tom Dolese’s talented wife, Jennifer. Jennifer has been collaborating with Tom on many of his furniture commissions with beautiful marquetry scenes for several years. She studied with Craig Vandall Stevens, a well known marquetry artist, and has perfected her own style with creative designs that incorporate a wide variety of veneers with subtle hot sand shading. She taught a class for NCWA a few years ago and demonstrated her talents during the last shop tour in the Bellingham area. Jennifer is also a member of Artwood, located in Bellingham’s Fairhaven district. For more info see Tom and Jennifer’s website: http://terrafirmadesignnw.com

Don’t miss our next meeting Saturday, 10:00am, September 14th at the Shelter Bay Community Center (see Directions below). Garrett Hack, long-time contributing editor for Fine Woodworking Magazine, will be our guest. Garrett will demonstrate how to complement hand and power tools in a process he calls WORKING SMART, in other words, how to work efficiently, make fewer mistakes and have a lot more fun! He will be demonstrating throughout his talk, answering questions and concluding with how to make scratch stocks. Garrett charges more than our normal speakers, so we will be charging $10 for admission. We have about 50 people committed so far and our limit will be 100, so please make a reservation by mailing your $10 to Doug Duehning, 150 Swinomish Dr, La Conner, WA 98257, or email . It’s important that you do this soon because we are also offering this special event to other woodworking clubs. This is a rare opportunity for us to learn from one of America’s leading woodworkers and furniture makers. IMPORTANT NOTE: NO BRING AND BRAG, OR LIBRARY EXCHANGE, BUT THERE WILL BE SIGN UP LISTS FOR THE INITIAL CLASSES IN OUR 2013-2014 EDUCATION PROGRAM. Garrett’s website is http://garretthack.com/

HANDS-ON SCRATCHSTOCK SESSION

There won’t be room for everyone to make a scratch stock with Garrett, but if you want to participate, you’ll need to bring materials and tools. MATERIALS: Garrett recommends old Woodmiser bandsaw blades, old handsaw blades, scraper-type material — all spring temper hardness and fileable. HEAVY shears to cut it would be great but we can cut it other ways. Small wood blocks to hold cutters (1″ x 1″ by 3″ roughly). TOOLS: flat mill file to flatten, round chain saw files to shape bead profile, any diameters, or other shaped files. Sharpening stones (1000 grit, 6000 grit, any type) to hone profile. Garrett has some slip stones that work for the beads. We will need a backsaw that makes a kerf slightly smaller than the blades. This is tricky. Usually a carcase or tenon saw, or cheaper backsaw (with a slightly larger kerf). Saw depends on material we use to make blades. Wooden handscrews or other clamps to hold steel and places to work. Wooden handscrews work very well as vises.

On Saturday, August 24, we’ll be gathering at Val and Laura Matthews place from 1-5 PM for the annual picnic and tool auction. This is our traditional combined Northwest Corner Woodworkers Association (NCWA) and Northwest Washington Woodturners (NWW) event and takes the place of our normal monthly meetings. Val and Laura have ample parking and space for this, and all you have to do is show up with a side dish (salad, desert or whatever), something cool to drink, and a lawn chair or two. Normally, we eat about 3 PM and close the bidding for the auction at 4:30 PM. Don’t forget to bring your significant other and something to sit on. The two clubs provide the burgers, hotdogs, brats, fixings, soft drinks, water, paper plates, plastic ware and napkins. Also, the drawing for our Toys-for-Tots raffle will be held, and tickets ($2 each or four for $5) will still be available prior to the drawing.

SILENT AUCTION

For those of you who have never participated in a silent auction, the rules are pretty simple. The seller displays the item for sale with a sales sheet listing the item, a short description of the item condition (e.g. new, works good, needs repair, etc), seller’s name, minimum acceptable bid if the seller wishes to state one. Anyone interested in the item simply enters a bid and their name. Anyone else interested in the same item enters a higher bid on the next line. Normally, bids should advance by at least 10% over the previous bid. Check back often to see if you are still the highest bidder. When the cutoff time is announced, the highest bidder wins the item provided their bid exceeds the stated minimum bid. The bidder then pays the seller, so don’t forget to bring money or your checkbook! You never know what might show up for sale! Please make copies of the attached silent auction form for any items you bring to sell.