The Patriot Woodworker August 2012 Newsletter

Well here we are again! It's August, and the kids are back in school and the fall months are quickly approaching. We would like to thank all The Patriot Woodworker members for being here with us, and sharing in the arts of woodworking and machinery restorations. It has been over a month since our last newsletter so we thought we'd get some news out to yall.

But first I would like to personally thank each and everyone of our members who call us home, if just for a few minutes out of their day, we would not be in existence if it wasn't for our members. You make our world turn, our shavings fly and our site jump. As you all know The Patriot Woodworker has a strong emphasis on "Support Our Troops" and our members support our troops! Thank you so much for all you have done to help us stay live and to help us help our men and women veterans returning home from war.

 

So without further delay, let's talk about some happenings that we have been experiencing lately on The Patriot Woodworker!

It is with our sincerest gratitude that we offer a big thank you to our first sponsor ever, Woodcraft! They have been sponsoring our site for the last couple months! And they signed up for a 6 month review period so you all need to shop Woodcraft and show them our support!

We contacted Liz of Woodcraft a couple months ago, and she agreed to contribute the funds neccessary to help keep our site live for 6 months. She and Woodcraft believe in our cause, and they love the troops as much as we do.

So I would like to ask of our members, when ever you can, please support Woodcraft! They are an excellent retailer of tools, machinery, and supplies. As a matter of fact, they are virtually a one stop shop for all your woodworking needs. I have been a customer of theirs for over 10 years now and have never had a single issue, plus their customer service is tops, just a great bunch of folks.

So with a hearty thanks to Woodcraft, THANK YOU!!! Thank you for your support in our site, and thank you for your continued support within your own organization to help our men and women in uniform.

 

We are proud to announce that we are officially underway with our 1st Annual Patriot Woodworker Turner's Contest Sponsored by Woodcraft and Easy Wood Tools! We kicked it off today and we have quite a line up of prizes for our woodworkers!

We approached Woodcraft with our idea and asked them if they had anything in mind as a prize for our 1st place winner and Liz Matheny immediately thought of the Easy Wood Tools by Craig Jackson. It wasn't long after that we received this notice that not only was the winner getting a very cool set of mini tools, but they are also signed by owner/founder Craig Jackson and custom colored red, white and blue. These are truly one of a kind.

And just recently Craig Jackson donated another set of Easy Wood Mini Tools for our 2nd and 3rd place runner ups and our People's Choice Award too. So the runners up and the People Choice will each receive one Easy Wood Tool each. Thanks Craig Jackson!

Remember, if your in the top 4 you'll be asked to send in your turning to us to be auctioned off, all proceeds will be donated to Homes For Our Troops.

For complete information regarding our 1st Annual Wood Turning Contest please go to A CALL FOR ENTRIES!

The Grand Prize, a set of 3 Easy Wood Tools, The Mini Rougher, The Mini Finisher and the Mini Detailer. Thank you Woodcraft and  Craig and Donna Jackson owners of Easy Wood Tools!

As some of you may know we have a local Build Brigade going on in my home town for Sgt David Mayer. Homes For Our Troops is building a specially adaptive home For Sgt Mayer in Corona CA, pretty close to myself and a couple of our members. We are going to be there for the opening weekend of the build on August 25th performing various volunteer duties. Myself, wife and three kids are going to help out around the site and help other volunteers get situated in their duties. We also have Joe Lydon and Allen Worsham who are going to be their as well to help around the job site. It should be a day of fun, cherished moments, and service of which we could never pay back the debt we owe Mr Mayer. He sacraficed for our feedoms over in the mideast, we are only giving a couple hours of our time, we could never repay him, thank you Sgt Mayer for your service and commitment to our country.

If you would like to help out in an area near you, please visit Homes For Our Troops and find out how you can help!

Please join us over at Ebay to help raise money for Homes For Our Troops. The Patriot Woodworker Community came together and procurred 4 Stanley Bedrock hand planes to sell on Ebay. 100 percent of all proceeds are going to be donated to Homes For Our Troops. We hope to hand them a check at the Sgt David Mayer Home Build this coming weekend August 25th. So if you'd like to purchase a piece of Bedrock history, slide on over to Ebay!!! Please go to our discussion on The Patriot Woodworker regarding the auction, then follow the links to our Ebay auction. Happy Bidding!!!

As you all know Fred Wilson by now, he is a top scroller on our site and he has done a ton of wonderful scrolling. And in the midst of his hectic scrolling schedule, ol Fred has managed to set a little time aside and make up a very special scrolling inspired by The Patriot Woodworker site and another great scroller in the community of scrollers, Steve Good. Fred came across Steve's pattern for Patriot. And he slightly modified the pattern to come up with what maybe our future trademark design for The Patriot Woodworker. Above is a photo of Fred (man on the right) handing off one of his prized Patriot Woodworker scrolls to our own Scrollsaw Forum Host Greg Aksdal (man on the left). Please don't ask me how and where they met to do this top secret hand off, but they got it done! Congratulations Fred on a wonderful job well done!

 

Oh Wait a minute, is that Fred showing up at my door step to give me one of the coveted "I Am A Patriot Woodworker" plaques! Why yes it is! Hey Fred, you sure do get around man!  Fred was standing out in the heat on the porch, he just showed up out of the blue! What the heck you doin out there Fred, come on in and cool down!!!!! Ol Fred just keeps poppin up all over the country handing out the coveted "I Am A Patriot Woodworker" plaques. You could be next!

I'd like to personally thank Fred Wilson for having The Patriot Woodworker spirit near and dear to his heart, Fred, thank you sir for all your doing and all you have done, we are a better site since you showed up on our forum, as are all our members when they show up and participate!

Greetings fellow scrollers. I hope this finds all of you having a great summer. Hopefully those of you that have been participating in the summer craft show season had a great couple of months. For those of you that scroll just for the pure enjoyment of it, I know you've got some new projects to show off, and what better place to show them off than in our Scroll Sawing Forum. Those of you that haven't been on in a while, drop on in and see what's going on, we miss you. see you on the forum.

Greg Aksdal

Scroll Saw Forum Host

As you all know, the reason we exist is our men and women who serve our country day in and day out, and put it all on the line for us. They hold the bad guys at bay, and they protect our shores so we can all live a normal day and enjoy life. The Patriot Woodworker community builds, and sends our troops Challenge Coin Displays to The Wounded Warriors. The folks at The Wounded Warriors then hand them out to our troops. Typically we send our displays to the military hospitals around the nation, but this last campaign we had a special request from our Wounded Warrior Rep to ship them straight to the WWP headquarters in Florida. They wanted to hand out our displays to the troops there, working on staff at The Wounded Warrior Project.

Now and then we get some pictures of willing warriors who have given consent to allow their photos to be sent to us, as a thank you for your hard work building these displays, and for your dedication and support of our fighting men and women. In the photo above you see a soldier, his name is Tim Ross, he is on staff with WWP and he is holding one your Challenge Coin Displays that we sent off near the beginning of summer. For a brief encounter with Tim Ross, you can view him at Tim Ross Video. Thank you Mr Ross for your service to our country, and we hope these displays bring a little hapiness into your life, and the lives of your fellow soldiers if for only a short moment in time, we are honored to make, and give them to you and your fellow troops.

For more photos of previous Challenge Coin Display recipients you can Meet Our Hero's.

And thank you Patriot Woodworkers for your proud support of our fighting men and women!

Thank you all members and visitors alike who call us home. And thank you for your time and patience while reading through our August Newsletter. And please don't forget to surf on over and welcome our newest members at The Patriot Woodworker Member's area!

God Bless, be safe in all you do, and remember the reason why we are safe as a nation, our men and women in uniform.

John Morris

The Patriot Woodworker