Upcoming Schedule
January 22; Frame and panel construction
techniques-using cope and stick bits.
February
19; Box making at Phyllis Jaffee’s in Westboro
March
19; TBD
April
16; Turning TBD
May
21; Working with hinges at Cliff Clarke’s in Boston
May
?; Workshop, Plane making with Peter Wilcox in Boylston.
June
19; Fine tuning your machines
Job opening
With
this newsletter I would like to announce that I will be stepping down as
President of the Guild in June. Since
our elections are held in September, I will organize that meeting at which time
we will elect a new president. I have
been in this position for two and a half years and feel that it is time for
someone else to lead the group. Pat
Everett, the Guild’s founder and first president held the office for six
years. I have greatly enjoyed working
for the guild and have especially enjoyed writing for the newsletter. As president, I have been able to meet almost
all of you and have enjoyed all of our meetings and gatherings and have develop
many friendships through the years.
The
Guild is all about the members and without you, there would be no Guild. When Pat announced his retirement as
president 3 years ago, there were no volunteers for the job. We had a meeting at Cliff Clarke’s place
which was the last meeting of the Guild.
Prior to that meeting, I had been a faithful attendee at most meetings
and felt as though it were time to give a little back to the group. I had learned a great deal through the
monthly meetings. I volunteered at that
time to be President and it has been a lot of fun ever since.
Between
now and September, I hope someone else in the Guild will decide it is their
time to give back and volunteer to be President. The only job requirement is an enthusiastic
attitude towards woodworking and woodworkers.
You do not need to be a professional woodworker, have the fanciest shop
or the latest gadgets and gizmos, just a passion for woodworking and a desire
to lead a great organization made up of equally passionate woodworkers.
Thank
you,
Chris Kovacs
Dinner and Auction
Thanks to the efforts of Maggie Wood, the
Guild held its Holiday dinner at the Siam Village restaurant in Maynard. Despite the cold temperatures, freezing rains
and treacherous roads, more than twenty brave souls attended. The food was excellent and a good time was
had by all.
Following dinner, we adjourned to Maggie’s
shop in the basement of the same building.
Coffee and desserts were served and more socializing occurred. Chris Kovacs acted as auctioneer and many
items were sold. Thanks to all who
donated and bid on items. The auction raised over $230 which greatly
offset the cost of the dinner, desserts and flowers.
I am thankful for those who came for dinner and I hope these types
of events will become annual traditions for the Guild.
My front door
For those who have been to my house over the
years you have seen it slowly change on the exterior. This past spring, summer and fall our house
received a major facelift to its front facade.
We nearly completed the front this fall with one major exception, the
front door. I knew I wanted to build the
door and come up with a design that would make my neighbors jealous. I didn’t want the door construction to delay
progress on the rest of the project, so up went some plywood over the opening
and it has been there for more than six months now.
My biggest challenge, other than finding the
time to build a door, has been designing one.
My wife and I are always looking at doors on other houses and although
we admire many separate features of some doors, none of them seem exactly
right. Due to a variety of structural
features in the house, there are actually three openings under the plywood. Two
twelve inch wide side light openings flank each side of a 34” opening
for the door. We have also been given a
wonderful piece of stained glass that would fit perfectly into the side light
opening. I started making sketches and
scaled drawings of various door designs, but none wowed me or my wife. They
were either too fancy for the house, too plain, too outlandish and everything
in between.
Last week, however, I was given a good lesson
in design. It was one I had learned
while taking classes at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship. The lesson is quite simple: do not let
pre-existing conditions, joinery, or skills get in the way of good design. This lesson was revisited last week by the
same two instructors who first drilled it in my head years ago, John Fox and
Craig Stevens. Over dinner with these
two furniture makers, I showed them the drawings. They immediately wanted to
know why I was limiting my designs to fit my rough-framed openings. My simple response was that they were already
framed. Their rebuttal was that since I
framed the house once, I could do it again to fit the door that I
designed. I should not let the opening
dictate a major feature of my house.
Also, I kept trying to work the stained glass into the design and again,
they were concerned that this was limiting the design potential. They suggested that the door should be
designed first, and if the stained glass then made sense in the design, then it
could be added. I fnot, then perhaps the
glass should be framed and displayed
elsewhere in the house or in a nearby window.
Suddenly, with these major constraints lifted,
Craig Stevens began sketching various scenarios for a door. He had some designs with double doors, a
single door with one side light, doors with lots of glass, ones with no glass,
doors with carvings, and many other possibilities. My wife was thrilled with some of the
sketches and I was again thinking outside the box and trying not to limit my
designs because of the space or my skills or my desire to reframe the
opening.
We still have not decided on a door design but
at least we are exploring more possibilities and not restricting our
creativity. This was a great reminder to
me that joinery, skill level, and other variables can have serious effects on
design and that one should do their best to design first and then figure out
the ‘how’ later. There are enough
excellent woodworkers in the Guild that the ‘how’ is usually the easiest part
of a project. It is a great design that requires the most effort.
-Chris Kovacs
Next meeting
The
next meeting will be held January 22 at 9:00 at Chris Kovacs’ shop in Groton,
MA. We will cover tips and techniques
for building cabinet doors using cope and stick cutters.
Cope
and stick cutters allow you to make a wide range of doors styles with
interesting profiles along the inside edge of the stiles and rails. However, when you buy these matched sets of
cutters, they never come with instructions and can be difficult to set up and
use. During this meeting, we will cover
a variety of jigs and methods that work with these cutters to yield excellent
results quickly and safely.
We
will also discuss/demonstrate raised panel making and alternate uses for cope
and stick cutters.
Directions to Chris Kovacs’ shop:
132 Whitman Road
Groton, MA
(978) 448-2567
From the south:
Take I495 north to exit 31 (Rt. 119). Take a right at the end of the ramp onto 119
west.
From the north:
Take I93 or Rt. 3 to I495 and head south to exit 31 (Rt.
119). Take a left at the end of the ramp
onto 119 west.
From the Boston area:
Take Rt. 2 west to I495 and head north two exits to exit 31 (Rt.
119). Take a right at the end of the ramp onto 119 west.
Once
you are on 119 west, head towards Groton for 5 miles. Watch your odometer and
the street signs on you right.
As
you near five miles, take Gay Road on your right. The sign is high on a
telephone pole. This is more of a veer right as opposed to a sharp right turn.
There are also signs for the Grotonwoods camp on the right as well. If you come
upon a CVS, you have missed the turn.
Stay
on Gay road for about 3/4 of a mile and then take a left onto Whitman Road.
The
house and shop are toward the end of the road on the left. Currently, the house
is a bit blue and tan. The front door is
a couple of sheets of plywood and there is still Tyvek here and there, but my
shop is barn-red. Park in my driveway or
along my side of the road.
