President Frank Ramsay opened the meeting at 7 PM and announced the date and time of the next Board Meeting which will take place in the Spray Room(same building as the Bluebird Room) at the Foster City Rec Center on May 20th at 4:30 PM, just before the regular monthly meeting. All members are welcome to attend. We welcomed Anne Glynne, a former BAWA President, who has rejoined us after many years and John Clark. Chris Amy and Bill (?) attended as guests.

Dan Goodman talked about the new Rebuilding together project, taking place on April 24th , which will involve remodeling a mobile home. There is also a second project that will involve building some shelving for the Bayshore Child Care Center. Most of the work for this will take place in Per's shop and Jay asked for volunteers to help with this before the end of April. Frank talked about the replacement of the gates at the Janet Pomeroy Center in SF. The material cost for the red cedar is estimated at $1100, which donors to the Center will cover. We are still uncertain if the gate posts will need replacement as well. Harold announced that the Toy Workshops will start up again soon as the concern over imposition of lead testing requirements has been resolved. Per announced that the July presentation is still open and he is soliciting advice from the membership as to what would be desirable. John Seybold announced that he is trying to put together a group wood order. See the This and That section for details.

Mike Cooper than gave the main presentation for the meeting on tips and tricks for making better use of your router. The first was a trick to use when routing a stopped slot in your work. He suggests using a set of 1/8 inch thick spacers under your work which are sequentially removed as the depth of the slot is increased. In this way the router bit can be set at the correct final height in the beginning and not moved during the process. This avoids the possibility of getting stepped walls on the slot which can be caused be moving the bit depth during cutting. Mike uses a straight bit for doing this. Yeung commented that he prefers a spiral bit, which pulls the chips out. Mike then described a jig from Jasper, www.jaspertools.com which allows the mounted router to cut circles from 2 ¼ inch up to 18 3/16 inches in diameter in 1/8 inch increments. The jig requires that a 1/8 inch pivot pin hole be drilled in the work. For doing edge work with the router Mike recommends an offset handle jig to help support the weight of the router dangling off the edge. You can order the jig he uses, pre-drilled for your router, from www.patwarner.com. The fourth subject was a clever jig from US Products which allows you to cut specially sized dadoes in plywood. The jig is set up by clamping the spacer bars onto the plywood piece that you want to fit into the slot. You then install the chosen straight bi t(1/4, 3/8, or ½ inch) and set the fence to the chosen bit size. There is an optional right angle guide for holding the jig, which is also available for purchase from US Products.

Ed Marinaro talked about the possibility for BAWA to participate in a woodworking show. Ed was mainly interested in determining what the membership expected to get out of this participation, i.e. whether they wanted a chance to show off and sell their work or to get constructive criticism of it. Should the show be private or public? Should the exhibits be juried? Some possible venues were bandied about including the Palo Alto Art Center, Fort Mason, Los Altos Community Center and the Palo Alto High School Wood Shop. It was also suggested that we seek a co-sponsor to help amortize the cost and administrative labor required. Some suggestions were the cities of Danville and Santa Rosa, and the Rotary Club in Saratoga or Los Altos. Ann suggested that we could get a free booth at the San Jose Home and Garden Show if we were to do woodworking demonstrations. Ed Marinaro, Mark Rand, and Paul Hummel agreed to further pursue this idea.

In the Show and Tell segment Bob Nisbett described the Dowelmax jig for drilling matching sets of dowel holes for joining pieces of wood. The jig costs about $300 and promises greater strength than even a mortise and tenon joint. He also showed pictures of a blanket chest which he made using this jig. He pointed out that he prefers to make the lid first and fit the chest to it rather than vice versa.

Yeung Chan showed off a Taiwanese #4 plane that he had just purchased for $119 at Japan Woodworker. It comes in a custom wooden box and he believes is comparable in quality to the Lee Nielsen plane. John Seybold showed a wooden box to contain his son's wooden soldiers that he had made using the dovetail jig set he had designed and made for use with his table saw. He had brought this jig for show and tell at a previous meeting.

As the meeting was ending, Stan Booker, our rafflemeister, announced that enough tickets were sold for the large jatoba board. He drew the winning ticket, which was held by Bob Hulgan who had to have a police escort to his car with the prize. There were the usual door prizes and then the huge onslaught of Silent Auction items began. Money was thrust at our Treasurer from all directions. He reports that when he got home, he found money stuck in his ear, his shoe and on his glasses. Many thanks go to Per Madsen's six items mostly palm sanders, Frank Taylor with 2 items, Dan Goodman with a flex hose and John Seybold with a very nice drill press. BAWA made out with $141.