Eastern Massachusetts Guild of Woodworkers

Eastern Massachussetts Guild of Woodworkers

Upcoming Guild Events

NOTE DATE CHANGE! December Guild Meeting-- Mike Mascelli on Staining and Finishing

December 20, 2025 9:00 AM • Woodcraft, Walpole and virtual on Zoom

Upcoming Non-Guild Events

Joined Together: 30 Years of the Furniture Masters of NH

October 09, 2025 • Currier Museum, 150 Ash St., Manchester NH 03104

North Bennet St School Annual Open House December 5-6, 2025 | 10:00 – 2:00 pm both days

December 05, 2025 • 150 North Street, Boston MA 02109

Another Special member Discount

royal-lac-post-catalyzed

We just received notice of a discount from a new vendor. Here is a chance to purchase a variety of shellac finishes at Shellac Finishes (shellacfinishes.com), especially catalyzed shellac-based wood finish at a discount. You can find various sizes and shades of pre-mixed solutions, dewaxed flakes, and associated finish supplies on the Shellac Finishes website. To gain access to t the discount be sure to log in, then navigate to the MEMBERS sidebar tab and click Special Member Discounts.

Guild Project Fall 2025 - Build A Chair From Bulls%$t

The fall guild project Build A Chair From Bulls%$t (BACFBS) has started and is moving forward. The number of participants has grown to 13. One member has already finished their chair.

There have been lively discussions in the Announce Forum with progress and tips being traded. A month one check in a Zoom meeting will be held on November 10 at 7:00 PM. Contact John LeJeune if interested in joining the project. This is the largest participation for a guild project in the past few years with 13 members signed up to date.

For those still interested:

Get a copy of the book. or Download it here.

The chair pattern is here.

View the Videos on YouTube from Lost Art Press or Dinkles Workshop.

Contact John LeJeune for questions and admission.

Homework:

Get a copy of the book. or Download it here.

The chair pattern is here.

View the Videos on YouTube from Lost Art Press or Dinkles Workshop.

Contact John LeJeune for questions and admission.

John LeJeune addressed the guild at the September meeting with the Treasurer's Report. He stated that with a $16K balance "the boat is afloat." The board approved the annual budget in excess of $8K on 9/4/25. Currently, there are 132 members. Dues were due as of 9/1/25. We appreciate everyone's support.

TWIG Has Its Own Archive - New

The TWIG Sessions archive link under EMGW Guild Video Library tab has been updated to provide video sessions through August 2025. You must be logged in to view the videos.

Invitation for Featured Piece of the Month Articles

Oh, no! The Featured Piece of the Month column is in an endangered situation. You may think that because we have continuously published featured pieces for years there is a limitless queue filled with new articles. That's not the case. The cupboard is nearly bare. These ongoing articles reflect the guild's stability, quality, and variety of woodworking that encourages new membership and pride for existing members. Show your interest by documenting a piece and sending it to me. Be one to step forward.

Open Committee Positions

Committee Positions. (Rob Carver) We are still in need of volunteers to team up with committee members already on staff. Committees are short staffed so please consider joining a committee in order to ease the effort to maintain successful outcomes. Any amount of time you volunteer is helpful. Here are the ways you can become a bigger part of the guild. One of the most rewarding ways to connect with other EMGW members is volunteering to help on a committee. Many tasks are very light lifting and can be fun and lead to long-term friendships.

Newcomer Committee: Make a phone call or otherwise contact a new member after they join, and become the first person they meet. We'll provide guidelines for that first conversation. newly elected VP Mike Bossin is the person to contact.
Program Committee: Help plan the Saturday programs a year in advance. We meet about quarterly on Zoom for 60-90 minutes. Shape the substance of our meetings and make personal contact with cool presenters. Let Rob Carver know if interested.

Presenters: Long-time guild members remember the good old days when more presentations were given by guild members. Is there a topic or technique that you are willing and able to present to the group on a Saturday morning? Don't be shy. Raising your hand is another huge way to help the Program Committee.
Development Committee: We're starting to get more serious about fundraising and soliciting & collecting tool donations for auction. Mike Bossin is leading the charge. Anyone is welcome, and people with backgrounds in non-profit finance or marketing/advertising are especially welcome. We anticipate needing to gather and move tools, so a truck and healthy back are assets.

Nominating Committee: Developing a pipeline of on-going leaders is an essential need for any voluntary association. For many years, we've had a fantastic single-proprietor operation handling this function and it is now time for transition. Can you recognize talent? Talk to Rob.
The AV team can use another person to help with sound at our events, so we need a person with know-how about portable sound systems and amplification, who might also be a substitute when one of the three-person crew has to miss a Saturday session.

Tool Swap at Woodcraft Woburn and Walpole.

John LeJeune reports the photo (L to R) of Ray Tice, Vic Kelman, Carl Tappan, Michael Bossin and John LeJeune is from the Woodcraft of Woburn October 25, 2025 Tool Swap. They are standing in front of our new wood banner that Vic Kelman made with her wood burning tool for guild events such as these. Other items on the table are recent guild projects. (Shaker stool, wavy cutting board, hand made brush and dustpan and hand carved owl and bear. Additional volunteer/participants at Walpole Woodcraft on 10/18/25 were Dan Sichel, Cindy Forkner, and Matt Forkner. Money raised from the tool sales from members and the public totaled $443.00. There are still some tools left if members are interested. Thanks to all who participated and who bought tools. The event has also yielded the recruitment of several new members. We welcome them to the guild.

Slideshow of Recent Monthly Meetings with Presentation

October Guild Meeting at Wolf Tree Wood
in Dracut, MA
October 11, 2025

Credits Tom Shirley and Linda Smith

The Annual Guild Picnic and Show & Tell
Tim Holiner's House
Dover, MA
June 14, 2025

Credits Tom Shirley

Field Trip and Tour of Reader's Hardwood Supply

East Taunton, MA

June 5, 2025

Credits Tom Shirley

Bevel Cut

Zachary McDaniels Awarded the

Nobel Prize for Woodworking

by Andrew Davis

Have you heard? Andrew reports that one of our own has won a Nobel Prize and wouldn't you know, it was for woodworking. Perhaps you've met him at a monthly meeting or at a special interest group session.

Apparently, it was Zachary McDaniels who captured the technique to make fancy cutting boards, which recently has become the rage in Scandinavia. In the parlance of the cognoscenti they are called chaos cutting boards (CCB). (See above Zachary's Nobel Prize sitting on top of perfectly executed CCBs.) It is possible that McDaniels, a trained chemical engineer and clearly a polymath as you will read, learned about a subset of computer science called Chaos Theory and the rest is history.

Zachary McDaniels has not returned my calls to confirm his award. Regardless, you can read about him in Zachary McDaniels Awarded the Nobel Prize for Woodworking. Perhaps that will put you on the path of legends.

Andrew welcomes your feedback.

Measure Twice, Cut Once - Wisdom From the Shop

Secure the Tool or the Wood

by Rob Carver

As you know there is danger when it comes to woodworking, especially when using power tools. Table saws with spinning blades, routers with bits, jointers with helical blades, flatbed belt sanders with 60 grit sandpaper can be extremely injurious. A woodworker has to secure something - stock or tool - to safely execute a cut. The more directions of movement or degrees of freedom the more dangerous the work is. The more securely the wood is from the tool (or vice versa), such as clamps, sled, or fence, the fewer the degrees of freedom make for safer work. The idea here, as Rob puts it, is there are considerable benefits by reducing the degrees of freedom in woodworking and in life. Rob explains it all in his article Secure the Tool or the Wood .

You can reach Rob by clicking Rob Carver.

Cape Cod Subgroup

Six of the eleven members of EMGW's Cape Cod subgroup met July 25 2024 at the home/workshop of Josh Shapiro in Chatham. We got a tour of Josh’s well-equipped shop which he assembled over the past 8 months, starting with an empty room. Josh buys used equipment exclusively and shared with the group his tips for buying equipment on Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, and other venues. Contact Andrew if you are in or near the Cape Cod area. - Andrew Davis

Pictured from left to right are Steven Contin, Walter Henry, Andrew Davis, Josh Shapiro, Mike Walter, Rob Aronson.

Mentoring in EMGW

Mentoring in the Guild takes many forms. Everything from a brief conversation or email on a particular technique to a full-blown cooperative effort to build an entire piece. Most mentoring occurs informally among members. However, the Mentor Program provides an easy way, especially for new members, to get involved in mentoring. Members listed on the Mentor Program page of this website have expressed a willingness to help other members in a variety of ways.

To read more about the Mentor Program, click here or navigate to About Us then Mentor Program. To see the list of Mentors with their interests and contact information click here or navigate to Members then Mentors.

Featured Piece of the Month

Cherry Slant Top Desk

by Dave McCormick

Dave just doesn't surprise - at least when it comes to woodworking. Dave is a prolific woodworker and contributor to this column. You can find many of his pieces in the website RESOURCE archive. Here's another impressive piece from Dave's workshop. Made predominately of cherry this piece was carefully designed with full-scale designs of its assembly parts.

The desk top when open takes advantage of slides that are embedded beside each side of the top drawer. The desk top then rests on the slides for support. The precision is immaculate, complete with knife edge dovetails joining the drawer front to its sides.

Also when the door is open, there is access to an artistic, delicate-looking walnut gallery for storage. You can admire the smooth transition between the case and the desktop. This piece is so good that you may want to zoom in to see the pictures for a better idea of the fine woodworking precision. So click the Cherry Slant Top Desk link, and lick your woodworking chops.

Click Dave McCormick to send your comments.

We are always looking to fill the Featured Piece queue. Please consider submitting an article. Remember this column is not necessarily dedicated to furniture pieces. Tools, jigs, processes, and other woodworking related themes are also relevant.

The Woodworkers' Bookshelf

Review: Lee Valley Paper Catalog

by Dan Sichel

Dan Sichel makes it known that the once familiar Lee Valley catalog is back, available in paper form after being discontinued in 2019. It had been one of my favorite picture books. Dare I ask, could this be called woodworking porn material? Bind it as a hardcover book, this could be coffee table reading.

Dan provides a brief write up about the new version in his review of the Lee Valley Paper Catalog.

It's easy to submit a suggestion from you – just email Dan Sichel.

Map of Member Locations

For in-person meetings, the possibility to carpool to monthly and FIG meetings, and other group gatherings may be of use to you. Tom Shirley has updated the Member Map as of December, 2024 that displays members' locations on a Google map. This is private information, so to access the map you must be logged in. To interact with the map, simply click the map above. You can also click Member Map from the Member Map dropdown list. Once there you can pan, zoom in and out, and click a pin to see the member's name and location.

Starting out in Woodworking? EMGW Members Compiled a Guidebook for You

Considering getting into woodworking? A team of members of EMGW has written a guidebook targeted for new woodworkers and a refresher for other woodworkers.

The guidebook is complimentary. It can be viewed and downloaded for your reading pleasure. We hope that reading the guidebook will engender interest in woodworking and membership in our guild. Click here for a priceless copy.

Considerable work has already gone into renewing older and securing new discounts from various sources. To review the list on the website you must first login then click Members and then Special Membership Discounts.