Central Virginia Woodworkers Guild

06/15/2024

Great day to attend the James River Bateau Festival! All these bateau’s are headed on a 7 day trip to Richmond, just like in the 1800s when boats just like these to carry to***co and other products east for export. The Guild got to see one under construction a few months ago - good luck Robert!

06/09/2024

Thanks to all who came out for our June meeting last Thursday at Hill City Hardwoodshardwoods. Especially thanks to Chris and JW from the Richmond Rockler Woodworking and Hardwareodworking store who made the drive down to Lynchburg to talk to us about the use of epoxy in woodworking. Lots of great information about the use of epoxy for charcuterie boards, "river' tables, bar tops, etc. They talked about using the right epoxy for the job, how to prep the jigs and how to finish the final product. Was a great night with a big crowd. Thanks JW and Chris!

06/05/2024

The June 2024 Guild will be held next Thursday, June 6th at Hill City Hardwoods in Lynchburg. We will start at 730 PM. Hosting us this month will be the Manager of Rockler’s Richmond Store will be giving a presentation about working with end grain. Should be a great meeting – hope you can join us!

04/12/2024

Much thanks to Robert Schumacher for hosting us last night at his shop in Monroe. Robert is building a batteau for the annual James River Batteau Festival (https://www.vacanals.org/batteau). This boat will one of a fleet making the trip from Lynchburg to Maiden's Landing up near Richmond along the James River. Robert's batteau replicates the design of the originals from the 18th century - think lots of long heavy white oak boards and sealed with oakum. Robert walked us through he construction of the batteau as well as how this huge boat gets transported to the river.

Also present was Rob Campbell from the James River Association (https://thejamesriver.org) to talk about the history of batteau's on the James. In addition to being an expert on the history of James river navigation, he runs trips on a batteau from Lynchburg through James River Adventures (https://www.jamesriveradventures.org). Great evening - thanks Robert and Rob.

02/20/2024

Great meeting last week! Many of our guild members have been busy. See some of the great projects folks have been working on. Also, an impromptu lesson on antique window refurb and glazing! Thanks to for letting us use their shop again.

02/11/2024

Apologies for the late notice - the first Guild meeting of 2024 will be held this Thursday, February 15th at Hill City Hardwoods in Lynchburg (1208 Thurman Ave, Lynchburg, VA 24501). We will start at 730 PM. I am still gathering hosts for this year so we don't have a host for February so please bring any recently completed projects and we can have a "show and tell" event.

Also, as this is the first meeting of the year, please bring dues for the year - as usual, they remain $10 for the year. I'll have a notepad there to capture any changes in email and to identify that your dues are paid.

Looking forward to seeing everyone Thursday!

01/07/2024

Happy New year to all! Didn’t make it for Christmas but finished up the bed. One coat of boiled linseed oil followed but three coats of teak oil, sanding in between to 320. Added a coat of wax to top it off. In the second picture, it’s next to a white oak dresser completed a few years ago. Happy with the final look with the other furniture in the room. Teenager slept in it last night and it made it through!

12/21/2023

So many slats. Started with several wide poplar boards to cut down, joint and plane, and final saw to width. Added a ledge to the bed rail for the slats to sit on. Each slat gets a pin to center and keep in place while the mattress sits on top. Complete bed, ready for last sanding and finish.

12/18/2023

Heading into the holidays! Got the breakdown hardware mortised into the legs, top cap glued to the foot board, headboard glued up and the rails complete. Unfortunately, next up is sanding, sanding and more sanding. ☹️

11/24/2023

Holiday weekend progress. Headboard joinery and fit up complete, making sure all the joinery closes. Really could use some longer clamps to pull the headboard and footboard together but ratchet start straps will work. Next up, mortising the legs and rails for the assembly hardware.

11/13/2023

Next project underway. QS white oak bed - I like the calm of the straight grain oak. All 3x3 legs complete. QS WO veneered panels complete. Footboard ready for final sanding and glue up. Headboard initial stiles mortise work in progress.

09/08/2023

A little late but a big thanks for Vector Space for hosting the Guild for our August get-together. They have done a fantastic job putting together all their various shops and tools as evidenced by their Summer class. One of the participants from the "Build a Canoe in a Week" class brought his canoe and talked about the class taught by the Guild's very own Des Black. In addition, some great member projects to show off. Great evening!

08/23/2023

Right on HCH! Don’t forget about the Guild meeting tomorrow evening…

08/15/2023

The August CVA Woodworker’s Guild meeting will be held at the “new” Vector Space on Thursday August 24, 2023. Meeting times are typical so plan to show up around 7PM with meeting start at 7:30PM. Elise Spontarelli will host us, touring the new woodshop and space. In addition, Vector Space recently completed a workshop to “build an canoe in a week” for 14-17yr old teens – we’ll have one of the participants to show his canoe and talk about the workshop.

The Vector Space address is:
2004 Memorial Ave, Lynchburg, VA 24501

Hope to see you on the 24th!

07/31/2023

Before building furniture, you gotta start with the log! Nice (hot) day of sawing at the local sawmill. Nice wide walnut (also worked in some quarter sawn white oak as well). Cut everything at 5/4. It will sit outside stickered until next year before coming into the workshop.

05/29/2023

The June Central VA Woodworker’s Guild meeting will be held at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest on Thursday June 8, 2023. Meeting times are typical so plan to show up around 7PM with meeting start at 7:30PM. Vince Fastabend will host us and talk about the current completion status of Thomas Jefferson’s retreat at Poplar Forest.

Hope to see you there -

04/22/2023

Thanks to Todd Holt for a great Guild meeting last Thursday. We learned about using mica for lamp shades, the benefits of full size drawings, turning tiny wooden balls, the magic of CA glue, and lots more. Todd brought beautifully styled table lamps, floor lamps, and wall lanterns. Also, we had some member projects like the sassafras mantle clock and vise. Great meeting all around.

04/20/2023

Central VA Guild meeting tonight! 730 pm at Hill City Hardwoods…

04/14/2023

Hello all -
The April 2023 Central VA Woodworkers Guild meeting will be held on Thursday, April 20th at Hill City Hardwoods at 7:30 PM. Todd Holt will be hosting talking about lamp making, specifically arts and crafts style. If you've seen Todd's work or attended a Guild meeting when he's hosted, you know that it's going to be good.

02/27/2023

Tip off the day: Next project uses bridle joints that I cut with a dado stack on my table saw. The blade exiting the cut tends to blow out the straight grain of the white oak. However, a quick tap with a chisel at the top of the joint before cutting servers the fibers such that any blow out stops at the chisel cut. You can see in the second pic the capture of the pulled fibers. Final pic shows the completed cut.

02/19/2023

Thanks to all who came to our February Guild meeting last Thursday night. Hope everyone saw something interesting and maybe took a tip home for their next project. We had a great crowd (although, it was the quietest our group has been!) and was a great kickoff to 2023. Lots of good member projects to show off (unfortunately, since I was hosting, I didn't get many pictures). What was great was that even though I was presenting, we had some experts in the crowd that had some improvements for me (and the group) on my technique and drawer building setup. A cabinet is just a big box and drawers are just little boxes. lNo one got hit with a router chip and even the video setup was moderately successful! Win-win.

Looking forward to April!
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02/03/2023

Hello all!

The first Central VA Woodworkers Guild meeting will be held on Thursday, February 16th at Hill City Hardwoods at 7:30 PM. I will be hosting the first meeting of the year. I recently completed a bathroom vanity (see attached photo) and as I was building the cabinet and drawers, I thought it might be an interesting meeting to run through my process for cabinet / drawer design and construction using mechanical, under-mount slides. As with almost everything in woodworking, there are many ways to accomplish this but I'll try to give you some (hard-earned) tips for using this type of drawer slide and drawer construction.

More importantly, Randy makes me bring cookies as rent so we'll have some sweets. Also, we will have a give-away!

We are looking good for filling out our calendar for this year

February : Matt Miller
April: Todd Holt
June: Vince Fastabend
August: Elise Spontarelli
October: Kevin Martin
December: TBD

Finally, as this is the first meeting of 2023, please remember to bring this year's dues. Dues will be $10 for the year.

Hope to see you on the 16th!

01/22/2023

As we are midway through January, I’m going to call an audible for 2023. We’re going to try moving the Guild meetings to the even months vs the odd months. The intent is that it would avoid the struggle to find a host in January so soon after the holidays and we would avoid the November / Thanksgiving holiday which is also a pain. So, for 2023, we will plan our meetings for the months of Feb, April, June, Aug, Oct and Dec.

So, be on the lookout for a notification for the February meeting in a few weeks.

12/21/2022

Thanks to Karson Morrison for hosting the last Guild meeting of 2022. Karson showed how the use of lapidary plates in a Worksharp allows "forever" sharpening up to very (very!) high grits - Karson showed up to 100k grit via diamond dust grit. Cost comparison against buying the disposable sanding disks (sandpaper) was pretty compelling. Thanks to Randy Smith / Hill City Hardwoods for allowing us to use his space.

We had a great year this year with lots of interesting topics and great "show-and-tell" from our members. If you have any time off this season, get down in your shop and make! (I have a new bathroom vanity I'm behind on). Hope everyone has a great holiday break and looking forward to 2023!

12/05/2022

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and start to the holiday season. Our next and last for 2022 Guild meeting will be hosted by Karson Morrison at Hill City Hardwoods on Thursday, December 8, 2022. He will be talking about modifications to his WorkSharp sharpening system (everyone needs to improve their sharpening methods!). Meeting will start at 7:30PM.

09/25/2022

Thanks to Des Black who hosted the September Guild meeting at his shop in Forest. Des went over his evolution of the 3D inlay table from prototype to final design that served as the project for the beginner woodworking class he taught at Vector Space in the spring (see the July post!). Also thanks to Vince at Poplar Forest who brought one of the historical renovation painters to chat with us about science and skill necessary to develop the paint (paint is putting it far too simply) they are using for the architectural renovations at Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest retreat. In addition, we had some great member project to show including some wild cutting boards, beautiful mantle clocks and an end table.

07/22/2022

Thanks to Vector Space and Elise Spontarelli for hosting our Guild meeting yesterday evening. What a great benefit for our community. Really nice woodshop with two large CNC machines. In addition to the metalshop, welders, plasma cutter, computer center, rapid prototyping, textiles, etc. etc. etc. Vector Space also provides classes, including a table construction class that built the below table.

07/14/2022

Greetings all -

Hope everyone’s summer is going well and you’re able to take some time off for beach, lake, or, you know, some woodworking.

This month’s Woodworker’s Guild meeting will be hosted by Elise Spontarelli at Vector Space in Lynchburg. Elise is going to give us an update on what’s going on at Vector Space and what new equipment they’ve got up and running.

Meeting will be held on Thursday, July 21st at 7:30PM.

Vector Space is located in Lynchburg at 402 Fifth St, Lynchburg, VA 24504.
Please have a look at their website for parking (https://vector-space.org/visit).

Hope to see you all there!

Visit Makerspaces are still a new concept in Lynchburg, and the best way to understand Vector Space is to see it in person. We're open to the public every First Friday of the month from 5 - 8 pm, and we encourage you to drop in for a tour during this time. An in-person visit during this time will le...

05/13/2022

Thanks to Jeff Kornblum for hosting the meeting last evening. We've had meetings on wooden campers, wooden cars, wooden boats/canoes but never had a meeting on a wooden airplane. Jeff is building a Peitenpol high wing airplane. See a few pictures from the meeting below of the wing and fuselage almost ready for skinning. Mostly spruce and mahogany plywood with a corvair engine. Total weight is about 700 pounds when built. Looked great and can't wait to see it when complete and has a few test flights completed!

05/10/2022

Hope everyone is doing well!

This month’s Woodworker’s Guild meeting will be held at Jeffrey Kornblum’s shop out in Goode – the address is below. Jeffrey has been working on an airplane (yes, an airplane) and will talk about this project along with showing a smaller, hopefully non-flying pedal airplane he built for his grandson. Because the plane takes up most of his shop, this meeting will be held outside the shop area so please plan accordingly. Bring your own seating if you’re so inclined.

Jeffrey’s address is 1442 Sycamore Creek Dr, Goode, VA 24556. When coming up the private road, he is the fourth house on the left with a flag hanging from the front porch.