Stuart Welch’s woodworking resume is almost too long to list. It includes winning furniture design competitions as a teenager, a formal education at the Rochester Institute of Technology, School for American Craftsmen, the Gunlocke Chair Company, his own woodworking business and teaching woodworking for the Baulines Craft Guild and UC Berkeley. Currently living in Skagit County, Stuart owns and operates the Rexville Grocery on Best Road and still has fun with woodworking building zany cuckoo clocks. In decades of designing furniture and teaching college-level woodworking, Stuart has learned that a chair’s comfort is all about ergonomics: the angles have to be just so, the chair has to be light but also strong enough to support a 300-pound person, and it all has to look good, too. Stuart invites you to bring examples of chairs you have made to this meeting and he will compare styles, materials, joinery, ergonomics and talk about the history of chairs in general.

Greg Klassen made a definite career path change several years ago when he switched from theology to fine woodworking. When he did, he went all out by studying at the School of the Redwoods and with two furniture masters in Sweden. He now creates one of a kind pieces under commission from his shop in Lynden. His work has won awards, been featured in several national magazines including Fine Woodworking, and was included at the 2013 Smithsonian Craft Show where he was interviewed and praised by Martha Stewart on national TV. Greg will demonstrate one of his techniques for inlaying custom non-uniform butterfly keys using a router and chisels. He will also bring several of his recent pieces to show and talk about. His website is gregklassen.com

NCWA member Rick Anderson, who is also a member of the Northwest Washington Woodturners, will present a woodturning demonstration on two kinds of turning related to furniture building. He recently made several spindles for a repair project and he will show us how to make multiple like items. He also plans to demonstrate making Shaker style knobs. Rick has been in NCWA for a number of years and has served as President for both NCWA and NWWWT. Don’t be surprised if he tries to convince you to become a member of the turners! Many of our members already are.

We will do a carpool from the Bellingham area to the boat festival on Saturday, September 6th. Members in other areas should also consider this special event. We’ll talk about the details at our September 2nd meeting and see who wants to join us. In the meantime, please call (360) 255-1984 or email me at sofa01@hotmail.com if you want to go from Bellingham. We will meet at the Fairhaven Parkway/I-5 Park n Ride at 8:45am and catch the 10:15am ferry as foot passengers. Cost is $3.25 each way for adults and $1.60 each way for seniors. Entry to the boat festival for one day is $15 for adults and $10 for seniors or military. We will plan on the 5:15pm or 6:45pm ferry to come home. Some of the highlights at the Woodworking Stage include:

• 11:30 Sharpening by Garrett Hack
• 12:30 Hand Plane Demo by Jim Tolpin
• 1:30 Curved Lamination by Garrett Hack
• 2:30 Vacuum Bag Veneering

And there’s more! Try out hand planes by Lee Valley or Lie-Nielsen, win a $100 gift card from Lee Valley, and just drool over all the beautiful boats. You can find more information here.