Newsletter Table of Contents:

Club News: back to table of contents

Finally a new newsletter! I've traveled for work and missed a lot of meetings. I hope to attend more in the next year, and keep up the newsletters better. Thanks to those who have provided photos for the newsletter.

WYATT SAMPLE

St. Louis Area Woodcarvers Show, Kirkwood, Missouri

The St. Louis Area Woodcarvers held their annual show, Thanksgiving Weekend, in Kirkwood, Missouri. Several members of the Saint Charles Area Woodcarvers showed their works/wares at the show and are shown below:

Other Events

Glenda Tabor and Wilbert Brewton brought some finished pieces and demonstrated their woodcarving skills at the Piasa Winery in April at the Mushroom Fest.

The Club held its 2nd Annual woodcarving picnic on June 4, 2011, in Cottleville, Mo at Legacy Park.

After the dining was over Wilbert Brewton demonstrated the carving of a woodspirit.

Bob Heinrich brought a carving holder that he made from parts from a satellite dish to show the club members.

Club Meeting Pictures: back to table of contents

Below are pictures of members at club meetings, carving and socializing.

John Bouchillon pictured above gives the following advice to those who would like to try carving golfballs. He also carves softballs and will be happy to give you advice on that. Just catch him at a meeting.

To remove golf ball covers for carving, put the ball in a cup of water and place it in the microwave oven for 1 & 1/2 minutes. Remove the ball with a spoon, its hot. Wear a heat resistant glove (carving gloves will work) to hold the ball and lightly cut all the way around the cover with a knife. Loosen the cover with a screwdriver and pull it off with a pair of pliers. The heat softens the cover so it is easy to cut and to stretch off the ball with the pliers.

If you have more than one ball, place another ball in the warm water while you are cutting and removing the first ball's cover. Then, you can place the next ball in the microwave for just 1 minute.

Do not over heat or put the ball in the microwave without using the cup of water. I'm told it will make a mess.

Show and Tell: back to table of contents

The following are pictures of completed carvings shown at the club meetings.

Pictured above are Bob Berg's fantasy houses. He let his imagination run wild and created a large number of very different houses.

Glenda Tabor carved the flower pictured above as well as the two bowls.

Paul Medlin carved the Hillbilly character and the four leaf clover pictured above.

The bottle stopper above was carved by John Bouchillon. The dragon on the cane section was carved by Moe Schmitz.

Distant club member Dick Weber provided some pictures of his latest carvings to demonstrate what he has been working on so far this year.

In the last 3 months he has completed 3 birds. The first shown above is a Cinnamon Teal.

The pictures above are Dick holding the Arctic Loon along with a close up of the loon and his (Soon to be) Antique Pin Tail drake.

Dick and five other carvers replaced a 17 year old Salmon Wheel in the town of Coupeville, Washington. The town decided to replace the wheel with a new Whale Wheel to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Penn Cove Water Festival. They started in January and the wheel was blessed by the local Indians at the festival on May 14. The wheel is 70" in Diameter and the whales are 35" long and carved out of first growth Western red cedar 1 1/2"thick.

The pictures below show the original wheel and the carving replacing it.

Recommended Resources: back to table of contents

Wood Supplies

The following two links are to sources of carving woods. Heineke comes to the Belleville woodcarving show each year and to other shows and provides excellent wood. Slim also comes to the Belleville show and has also attended our woodcarving shows.

Heinecke Wood

Slim's Woodshed

Carving Video Instruction On-line FREE

Lynn Doughty is a western carver living in Oklahoma. He does a blog which provides tutorials on how he carves his characters with detailed instruction. There is no cost to the blog. It now has very well filmed video instruction - still for free. It is a great resource,check it out at Out West Woodcarving. The following pictures are examples from some of his instruction videos.

Gene Messar is a Flat Plane carver living on the Texas/Louisiana border. He has done a number of videos on youtube demonstrating the carving of santas, snowmen, Rufus and Sadie, hillbilly, wizard, hobo, halloween ghost, a scene with a dog treeing a raccoon in a tree and others. The following pictures are examples from some of his instruction videos. These carvings are demonstrated in a series of short videos. If you have high speed internet these videos are free and helpful. This is a great resource, check it out at Whittler0507

Dues: back to table of contents

There are no dues at club meetings, but be sure to pay your annual dues.   Check with President Rich Weitzman if you are unsure if you are paid up to date.   -- Club dues are $15.00 per year and include the website and electronic newsletter.

Seminars: back to table of contents

Meeting Time and Location: back to table of contents

Meetings are held at 7:00 p.m. on the first and third Wednesday of each month. The meetings include a brief business meeting followed by a carving session. The meeting location has changed. Meetings are now held at the Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project at 7295 Highway 94 South St. Charles, Missouri 63304. Visitors are always welcome!

Weldon Spring Department of Energy site.  From highway 40/61 or I-70 exit highway 94 and continue south toward Defiance.  It is just past the Francis Howell High School.  When you see a Quonset hut on the right hand side it is the next driveway / facility.

Member Web Pages-Update: back to table of contents

New members - be sure to get with Wyatt Sample and provide him with some pictures of your work and a background write up for the website. 

All Members, please feel free to update the information for your page on the website any time. Just send an email to the webmaster, Wyatt Sample, (link at bottom of page) with any new information about yourself.

Please provide some information about any new carving you want displayed and either send in a digital picture or bring in a picture of your carving to be scanned. You can look through the other member pages to see what type of information others have provided.

Reminders to Members

Contact us for more information on the club or activities.