We had just one gathering in December, our Virtual Holiday Party.  After we reviewed the entries and winners in the Virtual Holiday Contest, we moved on to the Show & Tell portion of the meeting.  Below are the items included in the slideshow from 19 different presenters.

Bob Henry recently completed this order of 20 Grinch ornaments for a client.  After cutting on the scrollsaw, he used acrylics to add color.

Tammra Cook carves a variety of projects which she sells at craft shows.  Her "stick Santas" of various sizes and wood are popular sellers so she stocked up for 2020 shows that never happened. (left photo).  She also carves a variety of specialized pieces including the Santas in the last photo.  Tammra used acrylics to paint her carvings.

Don Vanderveer is enjoying being fully retired.  He's always looking for fun projects to make.  For the club's annual "toy" donation to St. Rose of Lima's Food Pantry, he created this Cars & Race Track in a Box.  He used a CAD program to create an image for the four part race track and then transferred it to the plywood pieces.  He added appropriate graphics he found on the internet before applying a clear finish.  Then, he created and painted six (6) mini cars for the set.  The race track folds to fit into a 9 x 12" box that also holds the cars.  It will be a great gift for a deserving child.
​In June, Don showed use the coffee table he completed for his grandson who lives in New York City.  The grandson wanted to be able to display memorabilia in the top so it required  a glass top.  Relocated to the City, the table proudly adorns Don's grandson's living room.  The second photo shows the display on the top.  Details of the table can be found HERE.

Mike Vecellio is enjoying creating his own blanks using a variety of different woods.  Mike had a variety of cutoffs after creating rolling pins like the one in the photo.
Mike's sold all the rolling pins he's created.
Mike turns a bunch of pens, gifting many of them.  Finding a good click pen kit is difficult.  He used the Gatsby pen previously, but found the mechanism did not meet his standards.  He buys his pen kits through Exotic Blanks.  They carry the Berea HardWoods brand kits but with Exotic he gets small gifts with each purchase.  This pen is from a new kit he's evaluating - the Blaze with a Schmidt mechanism.

Bruce Meissner considers this Christmas Village Display the Christmas present from "hell" for his niece in Baltimore.  His niece has ​a Christmas villages and needed a way to display it. With a picture and rough dimensions, Bruce designed this 6 foot high unit. A rush job, Bruce completed the project in 4½ days and shipped it to Baltimore, weighing 58 lbs.  For the cost of shipping - $258, Bruce probably could have done a round-trip to Baltimore to deliver it!
The shelves are made from 3/8” plywood with pine under supports.  The bottom disk is 40” while the top one is 12” in diameter. The base is bolted together with ¼” hardware and dowel nuts. The largest shelves are split in half so they can be shipped. The parts slide onto a 1½” PVC tube split in the middle. There is a PVC coupler to join the tubes. Bruce turned a 14” ash dowel to stiffen the joint.   

Chad Dawson's barber had a piece of walnut firewood and asked Chad if he could make a bowl from it.  The wood was heavily spalted.  Normally, Chad uses oils to finish bowls but his barber was concerned that the spalting would cause issues long term so he asked Chad to "seal" it with a polyurethane finish.  Chad noted that unique spalting in walnut is dependent upon the type of fungus in the wood.
Chad's grandchildren love to canoe.  His 3 year-old granddaughter in Seattle asked for a paddle for her [30" long] but also asked for one for her newly born brother [the 14" one].  Chad used Sitka spruce from Washington State and walnut for both.
Chad made a collection of smaller bowls of various woods.  His wife then created sand filled pin cushions to fill the bowls as gifts.  Why sand filled?  The sand sharpens the pins (or needles) when they enter and exit the pin cushion!

Ed Siegel turned a maple salad bowl that he sold earlier in the year.  This is a second bowl from the other half of the blank that he recently turned by request.  Oddly, the second bowl was purchased by the daughter of the man who bought the first one.  For this bowl, he did create a core before completing it so he has a 10" core from which he can create another piece.

John Mielcarski occasionally attends meetings of the Mohawk Valley Woodturners.  Several years ago while at one of those meetings held at Ideal Woods in Dolgeville, he obtained the 18" mahogany blank for a peppermill.  Only the outside was turned.  Recently he worked with Charlie LaPrease to clean up the blank, bore it for a peppermill mechanism, and finish it.  

Ray Smith is one of our newer turners.  He's having fun creating some fun projects.  One of his recent projects is this 10 1/8" sycamore wand with a secret compartment.  

Rod Castle usually shows us peppermills.  For this month, he showed acrylic cell phone holders  using kits he bought through Penn State Industries on special.  These will be gifts for his grandchildren.

Robert Ward presented five more scrolled projects he recently completed.  The black dog  belonged to a friend in Missouri and passed a month ago after living a good life following his military service.  The other dog is a local commission.  The cutting of the couple was sent to Virgina and is Robert's first cutting living people.  The dreamcatcher is a pattern from Sue Mey for Robert's stock while he designed the Airborne plaque which was another special order.
Robert uses a friend in Denmark to convert photos into patterns although one of his 2021 goals is to learn how to convert the photos himself.

Dave Grant believes we need to move away from the Elf on the Shelf to Gnome in My Home.  For this effort, he created this Gnome and a whole set of rules for the new traditions of Scout Gnome.  Below is a summary of the six rules.  For the complete set of rules, download them here.

Rules for Your Scout Gnome

1. Name your gnome
2. Scout gnomes can’t talk but they are great listeners
3. You can touch your scout gnome
4. Your gnome doesn’t report back to anyone
5. Your scout gnome doesn’t move every night.
6. Activities you can do with your gnome are many.

Dave Peckham built these three trucks as his donation for the club's annual club's annual "toy" donation to St. Rose of Lima's Food Pantry in North Syracuse.

Jim Ruddock loves to make toys for the club's annual "toy" donation to St. Rose of Lima's Food Pantry.  Each year he combines a wooden toy with a kid's book as his donation.  This year he made train engines to go with the book The Little Engine that Could and race cars for Race Cars Count.   While we normally don't wrap the toys, Jim packaged the toys in bags with notes for the elves at the Food Pantry so they could easily determine which combo was in each bag.

David Wheat delivered quite a load to the "toy store" at Eight Acres.  Part of the load was six clear pine cradles, each with bedding and dolls plus their own large bag for the Food Pantry elves to use for wrapping.  David did the building and finishing (with shellac) while his wife Randy sewed the bedding and his daughter Sarah Eisel (also a member) acquired the dolls.  

The second part of David's load was these six clear pine trucks, again finished with shellac.  Charlie kidded David that he had one screw a quarter of an inch off after examining the bottom of the trucks.  Trust me, they are all exact!

Jason Wrench rejoined the club again.  He participated in his first virtual Show & Tell with two projects.  The first was the walnut countertop he recently installed in a kitchen locally.  The second was the Jack Daniel table he created for his mother.  Jason's other hobby is white water rafting and he often posts videos of his "rides".  As such, he often creates videos when constructing projects.  He did so for the table.  You can watch it here.  Another project for which he created a video is the construction of a checkerboard.  You can watch it here.
Jason constructs projects under the Wrench's Woodworks name.  You can go to his YouTube channel here.
We look forward to seeing more of Jason's projects.

Barbara Raymond-LaPrease recently completed these maple ornaments for her sister's family in North Carolina.  Her 4 grandchildren all have different interests. In one family, the oldest boy (5) is into baseball while his 2 year old brother loved tractors.  In the other family, the oldest girl (4) loves unicorns while her 2 year old sister loves owls.  Barbara also created four angels - three that went to the children's parents and sister - using the Steve Good pattern.  The fourth angel and cross will be a gift here locally.  The mouse is for the Great Mouse Hunt whenever that happens at the next NYS Fair.

Charlie LaPrease completed a bunch of projects during the past month or so.  This set of bowls and "scrap" snowmen were the first.  Turned from a heavily spalted log that sat outside for two years, these bowls are for the Rome log owner as family gifts for Christmas.  She needed four bowls.  Charlie made a bonus and then used scraps to create the snowmen as an extra gift.

A Patchett Rd neighbor had two trees large maple trees dropped earlier this Fall.  Charlie retrieved a piece and turned this bowl as a gift for her.  the shavings from the bowl are shown on the floor prior.  Charlie will present her with the bowl on Monday evening.

Bill Shea needed two ‘mushroom’ caps for a Shaker chair he’s constructing. The jig shown was the incorrect size for the inside dimension so Charlie created a new jig and turned the four caps shown.  Bill’s very happy with the two he received.  It seems that Bob Casey, his intermediary, held on to 2!  The photo of the chair showds the caps installed. ​

Bob, the son of a fellow fire department member continues to renovate a house on the Seneca River in Baldwinsville.  The club received a picture of those renovations in March 2007.  As he continues, he often finds projects that are beyond his tool set.  Recently he needed decorative corner pieces recreated.  Charlie to the rescue.  The corners are custom fit to the walls and have a very unique profile.  The top could be turned but the rest of the profile will need to be carved to match the original and match the wall where they will be installed.  Charlie turned four replacements.  The original piece along with its unique profile are shown in the first photo.  The Story Stick and Top Curve Guide Charlie used is in the second.  Charlie's replacements follow.  In 2021, we will receive a photo of the final installation and share it with you.

Ed Fauler's neighbor is renovating her home.  Inside the home was the column in the first photo.  She wanted it cut down to measure 40" from the curve above the square area.  Ed asked Charlie to help Tonya.  Cutting the column was tricky due to its taper.  Charlie cut it, placed a fastener between the sections, glued it up, and then turned the beads back onto the column before getting the column back to Tonya.  She will cut off the two ends during installation.

Deb Lum purchased this antique table for her fiancé, John  However, two of the finials were broken.  Charlie turned four new finials.  He had to cut off the old ones as no trick would release the glue of the originals.  Once they were off, new holes were drilled for the new finials.  Deb will now clean-up and refinish the whole table.