NOTE: There will be a special “Ken’s Corner” Presentation for club members starting at 8:30 AM, see details below.
Resin-Pouring To Fill Voids In Wood
For our regular meeting, our speaker will be Nate Lucas, one of the owners of Urban Tree, a local company that makes beautiful live-edge furniture using locally-sourced urban trees that have been downed for many reasons, including weather, construction, and safety. As is often the case with live-edge slab construction, there are many circumstances where voids, checks, knots, or other damage in the slabs need to be filled with some sort of resin, either for aesthetic or structural reasons, and often both. Nate will discuss and demonstrate some of the techniques and materials that he uses to properly do these “resin pours,” and will have with him samples and photos of different types of resin pours (including some in-process steps) that he has done.
As it turns out, we are fortunate that Urban Tree is having an open house at their Wilkinsburg shop (7800 Susquehanna Street, 4th Floor — Apple and Google Maps find it fine) on the same Saturday afternoon as our meeting, so if you’d like to see some finished examples of their beautiful work, including some with resin pours, you’re welcome to stop by after the WPW meeting is over.
NOTE: Special “Ken’s Corner” Presentation (Start time of 8:30 AM)
Recently, the WPW was contacted by Duncan Everhart, a Pennsylvanian who has recently been granted a patent for a unique approach to cutting compound miters on either a miter saw or table saw. Duncan is a woodworker with experience in design, residential contracting, art, and fine woodworking. For the last few years, he has been working through the process of getting a patent on a compound-miter saw design that makes cutting these joints a lot simpler (i.e., no math, charts, or trial and error). On April 2, 2019, his patent was finally fully in place. While waiting for the patent to issue, Duncan used the same concepts to develop an accessory for the table saw that also makes the set-up for compound cuts easy. Currently, Duncan is trying to place (license) the manufacturing of the miter saw with a larger company, but he is exploring the option of marketing the table saw accessory on his own.
Duncan’s reason for contacting the WPW was to see if we might be willing to give him an opportunity to demonstrate prototypes of both the miter and table saws, answer any questions we might have, and then solicit our honest feedback on any aspect of the demonstration that we want. He hopes to gain helpful insight from the group’s feedback as he tries to bring the designs to market. Here is a link to a video of Duncan demonstrating a prototype of the chop saw: https://youtu.be/GrLjGSrG7p8
Our plan for this special pre-meeting demonstration will be to have it replace the normal Ken’s Corner demonstration, starting early at 8:30 AM so that it can be completed by 9:30 AM, still leaving enough time to enjoy coffee and donuts! If there’s a lot of interest, continued questions, and a desire to possibly try the equipment, Duncan will also be available after the regular meeting to continue his demonstration and gather feedback for those who wish to stay beyond the meeting.
For this meeting only:
Doors open at 8:15 AM for those wishing to see the special 8:30 AM Ken’s Corner compound-miter demonstration (please see write-up below). The coffee will be ready, but the donuts may not be there until 9:15 or so.
For those only wanting to see the regular meeting on Resin Pouring, please come at 9:45 AM for our business meeting and announcements, and the presentation will start at 10:00 AM.