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If we must spend government money, tax payers money, this is one of the areas where it's best spent, paying back those who protect us and keep us safe from the bad actors of the world, and who have paid the price with their body and mind. A pat on the back where a pat on the back is due, fine job Mr. President. Trump eases student loan forgiveness for disabled veterans - POLITICO WWW.POLITICO.COM “The debt of these disabled veterans will be entirely erased,” Trump said during remarks at a veterans convention in...

Whew, it's been hot and humid! Finally finished up the electronics repair on the old stereo. Maybe now I can get back to turning! Our Patriot Turners- @RustyFN showed us a beautiful bowl he made from maple, cedar and bloodwood. The colors are fantastic together- Rusty received loads of great comments on this one. Read more about this turning in Rusty's post- A couple of weeks ago, @Gerald posted a link to a video on basic woodturning and what we need to know. That post continues to generate comments a questions. If you haven't been following along, here's the complete post- @Ron Altier Created another one of his masterful ornaments! Ron explains how he did the colors/finish in his post- What’s Coming Up- @Jim from Easy Wood Tools reminded us of the Las Vegas AWFS Fair coming up this weekend. If you are in that area, you'll want to stop around the Easy Wood Tools both and meet Carl Jacobson! For The Newbies and Expand Your Horizons- This week I'm combining these two topics. A turner/teacher I've been following, Bradley McCalister, has a Monday morning, live Facebook program. Bradley demonstrates tools, techniques and answers questions on a variety of turning subjects. His presentations last about an hour and are well done. If you have a Facebook account, you can tune in at https://www.facebook.com/spiracraft . Bradley realizes not everyone "does" Facebook. He is also posting the recorded programs on YouTube. Those videos will show up around Thursday of the same week. You can see them at- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-3H1VnNmaoJClpHYd3pLgw/featured. New Turning Items- We mentioned this item once before but didn't really have anything other than a picture to help describe it. Thanks to a link from a post from the AAW Symposium, here's a very short video showing the light in action. The lights are available from- https://woodturningtoolstore.com/ Woodturners Wonders is having a nice sale on quite a few things. Whole bunch of stuff under $15!! https://woodturnerswonders.com/collections/products-under-15 Everything Else- We posted this earlier but in case you missed it, the latest volume of Woodturning Monthly is available- https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/woodturning-monthly/?utm_medium=email . Lots of projects and techniques. A couple of weeks ago, we linked a video by Tim Yoder, where he made a ring. As a follow-up, Tim has posted a two part video on making a bracelet. The metal parts are available as kits, which Tim mentions. Part 2 is linked from Tim's YouTube channel. My turnings always seem neanderthal and clunky. Every once in a while, I'll get something to come out a little better but that is rare. Lately, while practicing hollow vessels, it has become apparent that graceful lines and proportions may not be my forte. I went searching for some ideas to supplement my lack of natural talent and came across two article. The first was from Cindy Drozda. She discussed her finial turnings and what she felt looked "right". It is obvious she is a born artist. The second article expanded on Ms. Drozda's turnings by using mathematics to explain why her turnings are so pleasing. I am not sure who penned this article but for sure it wasn't me. Math is not my strong suit. http://web.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/Turning/DrozdaOnionFinial/DrozdaOnionFinialProport1.html Anyway, the author discusses, in detail, the various ratio and proportion rules that our brains can interpret as "pleasing". In an artist's mind, this all must happen by instinct. Not me! I know, I'm getting carried away here. From the link, above, I was able to create an Excel spreadsheet to instantly calculate the critical dimensions for turning a finial. The image in the spreadsheet was copied from the article. By entering the overall height of the finished finial in the blue cell, the critical dimensions are calculated and listed. I have not tried applying this to a piece of wood, yet. After it was all done, I wondered, is this more like building a model. Shouldn't art be spontaneous? I'm pretty sure Michelangelo didn't use spreadsheets. Be that as it may, the spreadsheet is available at- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dZTi9FvkfC9OBwN2VnOnV2MGJVWpKw11/view?usp=sharing if anyone is interested. Safe turning

If you are anywhere close, it should be great

Anybody been to one of these? Comments pro or con? https://www.woodstore.net/store/Weekend-With-WOOD-2018.aspx?a=NWS171012&did=180241-20171012

The last blog post we left off with the completion of the "appreciation awards" for our veterans who work for our school district. This blog we'll check in and see what took place the night of the Big Night. Our girls and the club members really worked hard to make this a wonderful event for our school district employee veterans. On the invitations the veterans were encouraged to arrive in full dress uniform, and many did! It was a wonderful sight. Below are a couple images of some of the veterans and their dates for the evening. The Sargent at the left is the club advisor for our daughters club. Some of the kids from the club were stationed at the entry to welcome the guests of honor. The building where the event was held was donated by the Golden Era Golf Club locally here where we live, they frequently donate their space to veterans and military events and gatherings. They also donate the space to the high school where our daughters attend and have their club. The annual ROTC ball is held here as well. It's a tastefully decorated building, and it has some wonderful history behind it. The kids welcome the guests for about a half hour as they trickled in, our daughter and club founder and president is in the background looking on with approval for how the night is unfolding, can you say "PRIDE"! I walked around and took some images for the evening, the golf course loaned their kitchen out as well, so the club members were able to prepare the nights meal for our veterans. The gentleman in the center is LT. Albright, he was a mess hall cook in his Army life, and he helps out with the high school club and he is also a teacher at the school, and this night he volunteered to lead the charge in the kitchen. This man smoked pork all day long for this meal in order to serve some awesome pulled pork sandwiches for the guests and many other items on the menu as well. Below is our younger daughter who is the Patriot Tigers treasurer, I just happened to catch her coming through the door to the kitchen as she was checking on things and making sure all was running well. Days before this big event, the kids from the club came over to our home and assembled several boards showing what the club as been up too. Most of the images on these boards are of the clubs efforts at the Homes for Our Troops events they attended. Mama and I put a lot of road time in for these kids, we drove them all over the county, and sometimes out of the county to get them to their volunteer destinations. We all had a great time, always. These kids worked really hard with this club, we could not be more proud of their efforts, and their Patriot spirit they demonstrated by giving back to those who gave much. The following images are the main dining area before the guests showed up, and you'll see an image of the patio where drinks were served. Golfing in the background! The drink service area, some of the Patriot Tigers are serving our veterans. The man to the left being served is Colonel Sick, he is an Air Force Colonel and he is also the commandant of our 6th grade sons military school he is attending. Below are the awards I made for the veterans, they have a wonderful prominent position in this event, I was proud of them as I looked on and took this picture. My wife below, she stands proudly by the club boards as she and I both remember all the hard work our kids, and the club members put into their Patriot Tigers club. The opening ceremony is about to begin, and the ROTC is warming up before the event and the presentation of the colors. The guests are starting to take their seats and the ceremony begins. And dinner is served. After dinner, the honorees were each presented their plaques. I really like the way the kids did this. Here is what our daughter stated at the microphone before the awards were handed out. "Dear Veterans, please stand when your name is called, please do not approach the podium, you have done enough for us in service of our nation, we will come to you and present you the plaque". I thought this was pure class, when the name was called, the veteran stood in place at their table, then each Patriot Tiger club member took turns walking to the veteran, and presenting them the plaque at their table, and each child shook their hand, and gave them a solemn message of thanks, it was done very nicely. Then after the plaques were handed out, they were all called for a group picture. Our daughter is at the far right in this image, and our younger daughter is the next young lady to her right, and next to the man in the grey shirt. This was a really fun project for everyone involved. I cannot say enough how impressed we are with the kids involved, and the adults who welcomed the opportunity to come to this event. This was an evening presentation, and our veterans came to this event on their own time. So you could say, these veterans keep on giving, even after service. By coming to this event, they allowed our children to express their thanks, and to be a part of something wonderful. Thank you veterans! Please click on link to view the program below. PROGRAM FOR MILITARY RECOGNITION.docx And we'd love to thank everyone who helped! A special note about our supporters of The Patriot Woodworker. I was able to create the awards for our veterans only because our supporters have contributed funding to our organization, and with some of the funds, the material for the awards was purchased, and so where the service medallions that went on the awards. All in all, about 375.00 dollars was used to create these awards, and we could not have done it without the support of our tools and supplies retailers who are year around sponsors of The Patriot Woodworker, thank you sponsors! Links of interest Patriot Tigers High School Club San Jacinto High School The Supporters Anadys Trophies and Engravings Laguna Tools Woodcraft Supply Pony Tools Easy Wood Tools Bessey Tools Golden Era Productions Golf Course

Good Monday Morning Patriot Woodworker's! I must admit I woke up rough this morning, not so ready to attack the week with the abundance of enthusiasm I typically have. Just one of those day's! I didn't even feel like putting one foot off my bed onto the floor, but, the world moves on so shall we! This weekend I was able to jump into the shop and make some progress on some plaques I am making for our daughters high school veterans support club. I got them cut, edges beveled, and sanded to 150. I'll spend a few hours on them this week after work getting them sanded to 600 in prep for some wipe on finish. I did not think about how much work this was going to be, it's an easy project, cut squares, bevel the edges, but it's the repetition of work that is really time consuming on the projects like this. The sanding is the most time intensive part of this event. Each one will have a service branch medallion applied at the top half and the a name plate with a special message to the veteran the club is honoring. So, that was my Saturday, Sunday I rested. How about you all, what is on your work week agenda in the shop! Have a wonderful week ahead folks, and thanks so much for being here on our community forum.

One of my favorite woodworkers and TV personalities and comedian is Nick Offerman (photo at left). I became aware of him when my oldest kids got me hooked on Parks and Recreation, a sitcom and political satire series that had me rolling and laughing every time I watched it. I wish they did not end that show, but as with most great comedies and tasteful shows on television, the show did end. I receive the Nick Offerman newsletter and enjoy reading it and seeing what Nick is up to in his own woodshop. And he recently traveled to Boston to visit and take a few classes at the North Bennett Street School (another one of my favorite places to visit in cyberspace) and he sat down and started to learn the process of chair making, from log to finish. It's a great read in Nick's own words, he's a plain spoken guy and very straightforward so don't look for any flowery phrases or emotional writings from Nick Offerman, he's not that kind of guy, it's funny, he played the part in the sitcom mentioned above, and he is that way in real life. So I am sharing his blog (Taking a Seat in Boston) on North Bennett Street School and a few other interesting links as well. Have fun! LINKS Taking a Seat in Boston by Nick Offerman Offerman Woodshop Nick Offerman Facebook Page Parks and Recreation TV Show North Bennett Street School North Bennet Street School Woodworking Eduction Nick Offerman Photo Montage Offerman Newsletter (February) Peter Galbert below demonstrating for Nick Offerman at North Bennett Street School

After being in my shop in downtown Springfield for a little over a year I've moved again. I'd made connections with Oesterlen Services for Youth and they kept asking me to move to their campus so I could work more with their residential kids. I finally gave in and made the move. They had an extra building that they weren't using so we are trying to get program going to give the kids some introduction to some vocational skills. There are two larger areas where I am setting up my main wood working room with the machines, and another area we will use for wood storage and probably some finishing. Down another hallway are smaller rooms which used to be dorm rooms. I'll be taking four or five of those rooms and setting up my printing equipment there so the kids will get an introduction to screen printing and small offset work. The electrician has been working on getting power run for all my equipment and he was supposed to be getting it finished up this weekend. Everyday the guys ask me when we'll be starting in the shop and I have to keep telling them it's going to be a couple more weeks. Right now they've got an open house scheduled for October 1, so I guess that makes it a little more definate. For the last four weeks I've been working with the girls for 2.5 hours in the morning and 2.5 hours in the afternoon with the boys doing some simple introduction to drafting work. Some of the are seeing it, and just like at high school, some of them just don't quite see it yet. One of my best students is a girl that all the sudden the lights just came on and she's getting it, but I think she may be leaving this week to go to a foster program in Columbus. All of these kids have some type of mental/emotional/behavioral issues and it can get a little challenging at times, but overall I'm having a good time with them. From what I'm understanding some of them could be there a couple years and some of them work through their program in four or five months so there will be a constant turnover. I was forced into an early retirement in 2010 when my school got a new superintendent and he decided to drop the industrial arts program as well as give the bus and custodial jobs to private contractors. It's good to be back working with kids again, even if they do make me crazy some days. (First time doing this on the new system so I don't know if I'm doing the pictures right or not.)