Highland Woodworking Winter Open House and Lie-Nielsen Event

Highland Woodworking will be having their Winter Open House and Lie-Nielsen Event this weekend, Feb. 1-2.  The event goes from 10am to 6pm on Friday and 10am to 5pm on Saturday.  If you are near the Atlanta area I really encourage you to try and make it out.  Highland is a great store to visit even without and event going on.  Lie-Nielsen will have their staff on hand to demonstrate and let you have some hands on with their wonderful tools. 

Also, at this event will be Chris Schwarz giving demonstrations of hand tool skills and Michel Auriou the maker of Auriou Rasps demonstrating the process of making the custom rasps. 

The MWA is planning on meeting at 10am on Sat for the event and will do lunch around 11:30 or 12 at one of the local restaurants.  It should be a great turnout so I hope anyone in the area will stop by and enjoy the event and join up with us.  Be sure and say hello if you do come out as it's always nice to meet members and readers in person.

 

MWA Visits Highland Woodworking

As I mentioned before last weekend Highland Woodworking had their One Day Sale.  As part of this event Scott Morton of http://scottmorton.com came down to do some demos and work on some new videos for Highland's educational series.  MWA came out in force and we had a great turnout.  We even had a few out of town member drive in to visit, Scott Meek of http://scottmeekwoodworks.com drove down from Asheville, NC and we also had Jeff Branch of http://woodfever.net came up from Pelham, Al.  We had a great time looking around the store and taking advantage of the sale. 

After leaving Highland, we visited a local watering hole to have dinner and talk woodworking.  It was great seeing everyone and I for one look forward to doing it again.

Highland Woodworking's One Day Sale with Morton

Going to be in Atlanta this weekend?  If so be sure to stop by Highland Woodworking for the One Day Sale this Saturday.  One of our very own MWA Boston members, Mike Morton, will be there doing demos and shooting video.  Morton is the instructor and host for Highland's educational videos and product demos.

The event will be a lot of fun and there will be some great deals.  We plan on being there at 4pm on Saturday to watch some of the demos and check out the sales.  If you can make it throw on your MWA t-shirt and come out.  For all that would like we are planning on grabbing dinner and a brew afterward around 6pm.

If you can't make it out when the group is scheduled to meet, then try and stop by anytime during the day.  If you do make sure you introduce yourself to Morton.

I hope to see you all there as this will be a great event and looks like we may have members from several different states coming to join in the fun.  

Be safe, learn something, and have fun!

MWA Meeting 6 Atlanta

This post is over due but I still wanted to share our meeting this month here in Atlanta.  We had a great turnout and it was nice to see a few new faces in the crowd.  We met at the usual time of 9am at Boulevard Dinner had breakfast and talked woodworking. 

We also took some time discussing up coming events here in Atlanta that we are really excited about.  Next month on Feb. 12th at 2pm we have a Google SketchUp introduction by Aaron Marshall at Woodcraft here in Atlanta.  Steve the owner of our local Woodcraft has been kind enough to offer their classroom to us.  If you can make it would love to have all that can attend but if now we are working on recording it to post on the MWA site. 

I also, received confirmation from The Woodworking Shows that we have a booth at the Atlanta show in March. The show is schedule to be here March 9-11.  We will have a booth and be giving 3 mini-instructional sessions per day.  If you are interested in helping out and manning the booth for a few hours let me know so that we can split the time up. 

I have attached a few pictures....some of which are just to funny not to post!

MWA Meeting 5 Atlanta

Another great meeting here in Atlanta.  We met at the usual spot for breakfast, Boulevard Diner, and then headed over to Woodcraft of Atlanta to pick out a few of our own Christmas presents.... well, at least Bill Akins picked up his own Christmas present, a #7 Lie Nielsen plane.  That is one of my favorite planes in my shop and can tell you it would be hard for me to put that one under the tree until Christmas morning. 

I also have a big announcement to make.  I few weeks ago I asked Aaron Marshall if he would be interested in doing a demonstration/ training session of Google SketchUp at a future event.  As most of you know SketchUp is a great tool and Aaron's knowledge of the software is very impressive.  For those of you not familiar Aaron does all of the Google SketchUp drawings for Marc Spagnoulo's Wood Whisperer Guild.  The current guild project is a Roubo split top workbench and the drawings Marc and Aaron have provided have an amazing amount to detail. 

We were able to work out most of the details at this months event and now have a date and place.  Steve Quehl the owner of Woodcraft here in Atlanta has been gracious enough to allow us to use the classroom in his store for the class and we are scheduled to hold the class on  Sunday February the 12th at 1pm.  My guess is that we will just move the monthly meeting to that date since we are scheduled to meet the day before.

As myself and many others on here have said, we want MWA to be about online and offline support, teaching, and camaraderie.  As part of this we plan on making the session available to members online, we still need to work out the details on this but it is a chance for MWA members from across the country to be able to participate in an event together.  So make sure to put the date on your calendar and keep an eye out for the final details. 

If you have not had a chance to come out and join in yet, keep in mind that all are welcome and we would love to have you out. 

MWA Meeting 4 Atlanta

Today we had another great meeting here in Atlanta and with a growing turn-out.  We spent the morning discussing woodworking and just building camaraderie in the group.  Rufus brought in a few of his antique planes for everyone to see (of coarse I forgot to take a picture) and Bill brought his purpleheart plane that I posted a while back.  The plane looked great and I can tell Bill is already getting addicted to plane making!

The great thing about the meetings are the chance for woodworkers of all levels to sit down and discuss what we do.  Woodworkers who have be at this for years can share and debate different techniques for doing things such as our discussions today on sharping.  On the other side new woodworkers can ask questions such as, what is the best way to trim a miter cut for a picture frame, my suggestion was to use a shooting board as they are extremely accurate and the proper length can be crept up on, while later another suggested using a Miter Trimmer which is great especially if you are going to be doing a lot of frames or trim.  The point is we all learn from one another.

By having the online world and offline worlds come together we all stand a better chance of getting to know one another and learn from one another.  After each meeting my excitement is renewed about the possibilities we have as a group and can't wait to start hearing about meetings set up by Dyami, Tom, and Mike, as well as any others around the country that would like to join and take the time together to learn more about woodworkers in their location.

If you are not a member of MWA and would like to join the group just send me an email with you contact info or leave a comment here.  We would love to have you aboard!

Atlanta Meeting This Saturday!

I just wanted to make a quick announcement as a reminder that the Atlanta chapter will be meeting this Saturday (the 12th) at 9am at Boulevard Diner just a few miles down the street from Woodcraft of Atlanta.  I have spoken with the owner, he is very excited about us using the facility, so for now that will be our regular meeting place.  After breakfast and visiting, anyone that would like can join us at Woodcraft to check out whats new.  I hope to see you all there.

Also, you may have noticed several changes to the site and we are working on more as we improve the site and our direction. 

The address to Boulevard Diner is:

3446 Holcomb Bridge Road
Norcross, GA 30092

MWA Meeting 3 Atlanta

Todd Hyman, Aaron Marshall, Chris Adkins, Bill Akins

As many of you know a group of us Georgia woodworkers have gotten together a few times over the summer and had a great time.  It is a great group of guys and I really enjoy us talking and learning from each other.  So far we have met at different locations with no regularly scheduled dates.  It is difficult to keep this going as I will tend to procrastinate until last minute which is what I did this last meeting.  In the end there were only four of us but many other keep asking to be left on the list for future meetings.

The group today included Bill Akins, Aaron Marshall, and Todd Hyman.  After leaving we are all pretty excited about seeing this continue and made a few decisions.  First the name, we have just been calling this the Georgia woodworkers get together and well.... that petty much just sounds lame.  Most of the woodworkers and those that follow this blog are what I and others now refer to as "modern" woodworks, and by this I mean that we are hybrid woodworkers.  We don't feel that it is necessary to say that we are only hand tool or power tool users and whatever range in between.  We also learn from not only putting sawdust on the floor in the shop and in classes but also from social media and the blogging community.  For this reason the name Modern Woodworkers Association seems the most appropriate.

We have also set time and place to meet on a regular basis.  We will meet at the Boulevard Diner (let me know if you need the address) a few miles up the street from Woodcraft here in Atlanta at 9am on the 2nd Saturday of each month.  From there after catching up we will stop by Woodcraft.  Steve Quehl the owner of Woodcraft of Atlanta has been very accommodating and is excited about the success of the group.  Aside from the regularly scheduled meetings we will also have "field trips" from time to time to explore local woodworking and projects that we can work on and learn together.

This group is about learning from each other and helping to continue the grow of woodworking.  Anyone that wishes to participate can send me an e-mail at highrockwoodworking@gmail.com and I will add you to the list.  We would even like to encourage those that live outside of Atlanta to join even if you can't attend the meetings, we can all learn from each other and please spread the word.  There are no obligation, if you can make it to meeting then great but if not thats ok too.  I do hope many of you will join us and help spread the word.

Keep on woodworking!

MWA Meeting 2 Atlanta

Today was the second local Georgia woodworkers event and we had a great time again.  For this event Lamar set up a tour with the owner of CAG Lumber Steven Brown.

When Lamar set up the tour to visit Steve's mill I expected a large saw mill but when I arrived at the address typed into my GPS, there was nothing there.  I asked a neighbor if she knew where the saw mill was and she said she didn't know there was a saw mill around....I thought I was totally lost.  I called Steve and he gave me directions on in the way guys back home in North Carolina give directions, second road on your left after the church at the mechanics sign. 

After arriving, Steve brought us up the hill to watch him slice up a Beach with his Wood-Mizer, wow that thing is awesome, I have watched this before but am still amazed at how easy the machine handles the logs.  The first pass just cleans the bark off and makes a thin cut after that he can slice whatever thickness he wants with no binding.  The first few boards cut are mainly 8/4" but later Steve made a few cuts for mantle boards that where 4" thick and the Wood-Mizer cut the boards with no strain at all, amazing to watch.

Other than the Georgia heat the only part of the work that brought a sweat was when Steve had to change the blade, it is crazy to think that the blade on this saw cost pretty much the same as the blades on my own band saw in my shop!

After finishing with the Beach log we took a tour of Steve's shop and a few project going on in there while having a cold drink.  Several tables and chairs made from beautiful Walnut and I couldn't help but admire the corner Big Green Egg stand...

Next Steve brought us around to see his stored lumber, I must say that I was not expecting the stock pile that he had.  He had rack after rack of Walnut, Cherry, Maple, Oak, Cedar and much more.  He even pulled out a few pieces of his private one-of-these-days-I-will-build-something-with stash and has some beautiful and interesting stuff, like Sassafras (smells just like root-beer). 

Steve was a great host and we all really enjoyed the tour around his mill, he has a great stock of most any thing you want and can get just about anything else, and with great prices...plus he is just a nice guy.  You can visit Steve online at http://caglumber.com/.

The past two events have allowed me to meet many great local woodworkers and I really hope we continue and grow to bring in even more woodworkers.  Any others that are interested in joining our group let me know and I will add you to the e-mail list of events to come.

Keep on woodworking!

MWA Meeting 1 Atlanta

Last month while listening to a live session of Wood Talk Online, several guys in the live chat room mentioned that they lived in the Atlanta area and were interested in getting together.  After much e-mailing we finally met yesterday for the first time.  We all gathered a Highland Woodworking here in Atlanta and had a great time checking out all of the wonderful tools, talking about woodworking, and later having lunch together.

Next Saturday (Jun 25th) with the help of Lamar Bailey we are meeting at CAG Lumber yard in Gainsville, GA for a tour of the lumber yard at 10am.  After the tour we will probably grab some lunch together.  

Anyone interested let me know and I will send you the address.  

The pictures in the post were sent to me from Bill Akins, thanks Bill!  Also, the last picture is of the new planer Bill pickup while we were there.