Open Shop Wrapup — August 2020 — David Campbell

Second Shop Tour
August 10, 2020

David has a well organized standalone shop and some excellent tools – a professional PowerMatic lathe for some real high-end turning and numerous other quality woodworking tools. Shop designed with double doors to allow for larger projects and the day Dave tackles building a boat. Wood storage abounds and lots of wood varieties on hand. David did a great job at explaining a few of his projects under way (torsion floating shelves boxes for example) and there was keen interest in those.

David and his wife Sarah were great hosts and opened the house to showcase a number of the very professional crafts and some furniture he made. Beer, water and snacks were offered. By the way, David’s wife is also a very very talented individual with her own crafts – you just have to walk into the house and you can tell. Together they make a great team of talented crafters!

Worked well:

Directional signs for flow to shop
Show-and-tell of his projects in his home
Open, free flow of questions

Improvements for the future:

Perhaps in the future we hold off doing these and conduct in July and August – too hot

Attendees: Those who ventured down his 600-foot driveway . . . and thank you Jack Collins for sitting at the top if the drive way to serve as traffic coordinator.

Craig Thompson
Jack Collins
John Matter
Gary Mlynek
Dave Dewees
John Lowder
Miles Dotto
George Flynn
Ron Smith
Warren Cox
Ron Collier
Scott Logan

Download open shop recap sheet here (pdf)

From the tour host . . .

I was a little disappointed with the turnout, but not the attention. They didn’t drink enough beer, they didn’t eat enough snacks, and they didn’t walk away with enough freebie wood bundles. On the other hand, the interest was keen and the walking tours went well. We demonstrated and talked about torsion boxes as shelves. Regarding safety, we reviewed MicroJig’s GrrRipper and Grr-Rip Block safety tools. We discussed using a straight plywood strip and double-sided tape as a jointer substitute. Questions about furniture and nick-nack small pieces were insightful; a couple members were interested in making threaded wood projects. The upcoming toy drive was discussed and several plans from David Wakefield’s book How to Make Animated Toys were reviewed.

I thought the two standout interests were turning and wood finishing. I also thought virtually all of the attendees were strongly interested in group projects, and several hinted that they would appreciate work sessions with another woodworker. A few of them were reluctant to promise toy completion, but everybody thought it was a worthy cause and most were eager to join in. Many had made toys for kids and grandkids; several had their own books of toy plans.

— Dave Campbell

Resource links from the meeting:

Second Shop Tour August 10, 2020

From the tour host . . .

Resource links from the meeting:

Torsion boxes:

MicroJig website (safety accessories):

Chasing Wood Threads

Three “animated” toy plans for review/comment:

Second Shop Tour
August 10, 2020