Rick, Paul, Shawn, Keenan, Jim Hiltz, Arno were in attendance tonight.

Rick brought a guest: Bastien Pinot. Bastien is  Rick's neighbour on the New Boston Road. He is from France and enjoys woodwork.

This was a fun evening for all hands.

Paul worked on laying out mortices for a child's bed and then drilled out the mortices  on Leo's  Morticer machine. It is important to lay out the mortices on each piece accurately, using a good square . The side rails of the bed should be positioned toward the outside of the posts rather than centered. The mortice width should be slightly smaller than the width of the side rails so as to hide the mortice recess.  Make sure that the mortice on one face does not interfere with the adjacent face mortice; i.e pay attention to the depth of the mortice.

Keenan is also in the process of making a bed for his brother and was interested in the morticing methods.

Shawn is still experimenting with chucking methods for the lathe. He had a nice oak piece that was securely mounted to his faceplate and turned nicely.

Rick worked on his "birdseye maple" bowl. It is quite beautiful. It is almost finished and  in record time for Rick--about six months!

Arno had some plates he made for the MicMac game Waltes , and he turned the bases off on the lathe to get rid of the foot.

This is a picture of the plate used for the Waltes game of dice. Arno has been making these on request from Membertou .







Jim Hiltz quietly observed the proceedings with a critical eye.

Below-The Morticing machine

The important aspect of this machine is the rigid , adjustable , rock solid base . This allows one to move the stock forward and back accurately  and to secure the stock firmly .  Of course it is Leo's design. Each mortice is done without disturbing the settings so as they all are accurate. The first cut is challenging as there is nowhere for the shavings to escape. It can be difficult to raise the cutter from the stock as the cut is pretty tight . Once the first cut is done, one takes a subsequent cut no more than half the width of the chisel(cutter), depending on the hardness of the stock being cut.