RE: SAPFM-ORV Spring Meeting March 28-29, 2026 at Woodcraft in Columbus, OH

[David Conley]

SAPFM – ORV Chapter,

1) If you want to display photographs for our group discission on “Repairing 3 mistakes (your fixes)”, please send them to me before Tuesday, March 24 (earlier is better). I will have them uploaded to my laptop for display to Woodcraft’s TV screen.

2) Saturday’s lunch will again be from Subway. That continues to go over well at the meetings. Cost will be around $10/person. If you are coming to the meeting, please RSVP by Wednesday, March 25. If you do RSVP and life happens and you have to cancel, please let me know of the change. I use the head count to judge the amount of food to order for Saturday’s lunch.

3) For those arriving on Friday night with no dinner plans, we will meet in the hotel lobby at 6:00pm. If you would like to join us, please also RSVP for Friday night dinner, so we won’t leave without you.

4) Please note that we have a bonus Spring Meeting at Dan Hrinko’s shop on Revolutionary War Campaign Furniture on May 2 & 3, 2026 in Caldwell, OH. If you are planning to go to this event, please make your reservations now. They didn’t allow me to setup a group block.

Cheers,
David

Society of American Period Furniture Makers
Ohio River Valley Chapter​

AGENDA

SATURDAY, March 28, 2026

1. Open doors at 10:00am
Arrive, relax, enjoy some conversation with friends

2. Introductions and Show & Tell, 11:00am – 12:00pm
The “show and tell” is an ice breaker. Please bring anything you would like to show off. If you have a special piece, a project or even a jig, please bring them. For those who haven’t attended a previous meeting, this is a quick introduction, a display of your skills, interests, projects both past and present, jig, etc. It can even be a request for help in a particular area. After we go around the room, we will break for 30 min. During this break, you can seek out the other members who have similar interests and/or have already built a project/jig you want to build. This break will give you the opportunity to meet and establish a new friendship, pick their brains, and continue communicating with them after the meeting. This is extremely helpful for highly specialized niches, like inlays, marquetry, carving, Bombay chest, etc.

2a) Show & Tell, 11:00 - 11:30am
Show & Tell an item you made in the form of the object and/or pictures …

2b) Break to discuss Show & Tell one-on-one, 11:30am-12:00pm

Also, we will have another swap meet. If you've got something to sell or trade, please bring it.

3. Lunch, 12:00 – 1:00pm

4. Demonstrations 1:00pm to 5:00pm

1. Repairing 3 mistakes (your fixes) - Group discussion (1.5 hrs)
2. Using Colorizing Dyes by Jay Ratcliff (1 hr)
3. Basic and Unique Federal Inlays by David Conley (1.5 hrs)
   • Inlay Tools
   • Sand Shading
   • Shading Long Strips
   • Installing Multiple Linear Strips
   • Fans
   • Black Feet on a Tapered Leg

SUNDAY, March 29, 2026

Breakfast (on your own)

5. Demonstrations 9:00am – 12:00pm

1. Cabriole Legs by Dan Reahard ( hrs)
   1. Proportional Design Aspects of a Cabriole Leg
   2. Effects of Wood Grain orientation
   3. Cutting out the rough blank on a bandsaw
   4. General Shaping of the Leg (minus any carving)
2. Basic Federal Inlays by David Conley ( hrs)
   1. Stringing
   2. Bell Flowers and Dots

6. Wrap-up, 12:00 - 12:30pm

Woodcraft – Columbus, Ohio

Address:
1077 Bethel Rd
Columbus, OH 43220
(614) 273-0488

HOTEL ARRANGEMENTS (10 minutes from Woodcraft):
Courtyard Columbus Worthington
7411 Vantage Drive
Columbus, OH 43235
(614) 436-7070

Group Name: American Period Furniture Makers Group
Group Rate: $ 119.00 + tax
Call to reserve: 1-614-436-7070
Reservation cutoff date: February 25, 2026.

Cancellation Policy: 48hrs advance notice

 

[David Conley]

Society of American Period Furniture Makers
Ohio River Valley Chapter
2026 Spring Meeting
Columbus Ohio
(As reported by Dale Ausherman)
​

The Ohio River Valley (ORV) Chapter of SAPFM held its spring 2026 meeting on March 28-29 at the Columbus Woodcraft store. The event was organized by Chapter Lead David Conley and attended by approximately 20 members and guests. Special thanks go to store owner Bob Smith for generously hosting us in his spacious, well-equipped store. Members traveling through Columbus are encouraged to stop in and visit this outstanding store.
The meeting opened with a Show-and-Tell session, followed by presentations on using colorizing dyes and stains by Jay Ratcliff, Federal furniture and inlays by David Conley, and design, layout and general shaping of cabriole legs by Dan Reahard.
David Conley started the show and tell by sharing results of resawing on a Laguna 16 in. bandsaw using the Laguna Resaw King 1 in. carbide-tipped bandsaw blade. He also showed the impressive smoothness of an end-grain cutoff resulting from use of a Rigid carbide-tipped 1/8 in. kerf, 10 in. dia. table saw blade. David then discussed the issue of aligning the installation of the six Lions Head drawer knobs on his night stands. The knobs mount with an affixed wood screw so the screws must all be started at an angle such that when tightened all of the Lions heads are upright across the full set. David hit upon undertaking trial mountings in wood scraps, then keeping track of the starting angle of the knob with respect to final vertical orientation. Another favored suggestion was to screw the knobs into small dowel inserts then bore a hole to take the dowel, in which case the knobs can be vertically aligned when gluing in the dowel mounts.
Next Dan Hrinko showed his custom design of a console table with floating shelves and inlaid Federal legs. The legs were cherry with maple and walnut stringing, and included fields of walnut and tiger maple. Dave Upperman then showed photos of a federal table he inlayed with stringing surrounding fields of highly figured walnut. He discussed various methods he tried to cut the channels for the stringing, including small Latta-style “scrapers,” Dremel tools with small end mill bits, and even 6-1/2 in. Diablo table saw blades with 1/16 in. kerf for the straight runs. He ended up preferring the Dremel approach.
George Walker impressed us with a small dovetailed tiger maple box with bottom moldings including bracket-style feet. What really caught our attention was a tiny (about 1 1/4 in. by 1 ½ in.) ebony carpenter’s square he made to check the cutting of the dovetails to ensure squareness and fit. Following George, tool collector extraordinaire Don Wood shared with us an actual 18th c. wood plane made by the noted London plane maker Christopher Gabriel, whose account books from 1770 to 1809 survive. The plane was in incredibly great condition.
Following a lunch break Dave Upperman returned to show and tell with a photo of two Queen Anne compass-seat side chairs he made 20 years ago. Dave bought his mahogany from two sources, and realized later that while most was Honduran mahogany, some was Philippine mahogany. Dave was new to period furniture wood species at the time and did not realize the difference in the two species, as they looked reasonably the same. Dave, with the hindsight of 20 years’ experience, was able to point out that the front seat rail on one chair is significantly lighter than the other.
Jay Ratcliff then began a main topic of the meeting: Using Colorizing Dyes and Pigments. His material results from his 20+ years’ experience, including applications such as printing and photography. He also had one extensive class in colorization.
Jay began with Color Theory, showing a color wheel, a circular diagram that organizes colors to show their relationships, including primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Primary colors (red, blue, yellow) cannot be created by mixing other colors, while secondary colors (green, orange, purple) are made by combining two primary colors, and tertiary colors result from mixing a primary with a secondary color. This structure helps artists and designers visualize how colors interact and complement each other, and can help one mix paints or pigments accurately to achieve desired hues. E.g. complementary colors are opposite each other and create contrast, so adding a complementary color can mute the effects of its opposite primary color.
Jay showed how color and finish layers build up on wood. Jay generally makes the first finish layer the main color layer. If he is adding colors in higher layers, they are dyes or pigments in glazes. Also, the wood grain structure reflects light with different properties in different directions, which explains why adjacent book-matched wood can have different contrast when viewed from different directions.
Jay had many real samples of finished wood surfaces from the classes and projects he undertook, with each example having the multiple layers and finishing steps documented on the back of the sample, including abrasive grits used, any chemical layers, and drying times for the layers. He showed many different examples and application sequences.
Jay discussed the difference between dyes and pigments: Dyes are small molecules that dissolve into solvents (water, alcohol, oil) and penetrate deeply. Pigments are ground particles suspended in a binder that stay on the surface. He also distinguished their differences in appearance and lightfastness, impact on application approaches, and how to best use combinations of alcohol or water based products.
As a specific use case, for his own kitchen project Jay showed the late Glen Huey’s finishing process from Glen’s book Fine Furniture for a Lifetime, including the sanding steps. This process involved 9 total layers and 15 steps. He then compared this to his own variation of the process, which he feels gives equal results. Jay’s finish required 8 total layers, and only 11 steps.
In conclusion Jay showed a project where he restored a damaged occupational therapy (asylum) table. This was a table top with a complex marquetry surface that had been damaged by a large crack running across the top. He filled the crack with an appropriately colored stick shellac, scraped smooth, then touched up adjoining pieces with matching dyed shellac.
Jay’s final tips and takeaways included:
° Test on actual scraps from your project.
° Dyes are transparent and can be adjusted after the fact.
° Pigments are color particles that are suspended in a binder and solvent.
° Add more pigment until the mixture becomes essentially paint.
° Remove color with a complimentary color(s).
° Chemicals allow less control of the color.

The next meeting topic was David Conley demonstrating the methods used to implement the Federal inlays in the pair of Seymour nightstands he has built. The inspiration for the inlays came from a photograph of the Tambour desk (documented as No. 184) by John and Thomas Seymour on the title page of Winterthur’s American Furniture, The Federal Period by Charles Montgomery. David added some fans, black feet, and adjusted the inlay design of the front edge of the table top. These beautifully inlaid pieces have a unique structural design which uses two panels for the sides. The reason for this, and the means of implementation, were the subject of David’s Sunday morning presentation noted below.
David quoted as primary resources he used for the inlaying were the CDs of Steve Latta, Fundamentals of Inlay, Federal Table Leg from Lie Nielsen, and Marquetry, Veneer & Inlay for Furniture Makers, by Rob Millard.
David then reviewed how he makes the various inlay pieces such as stinging, bell flower petals, dots, and corner fan wedges. His shopmade thicknessing gauge with a long slot and plane blade is used to size the boxwood stringing to a uniform 1/16 in. thickness, using an inlay slot as a sizing gage. He cuts the bell flower petals using #5 Sheffield carving gouges. When he did not have the correct #5 width, he used an analytically derived chart to help with sweep and length selection for specific gouge manufacturers. To cut the bell flower dots he makes his own cutters using brass tubing with filed teeth on one end, setting 1 to 2 teeth inwards to provide relief for dot removal. Alternatively he uses Japanese leather-hole punches. He fine tunes the fan’s wedges to 22.5 deg. using a template and a hand plane mounted upside down in a wood vise.
He then demonstrated hot sand shading using a smooth surface (not heat coils) hot plate, small pan, and extremely fine sand. Dave used Vunder craft sand from Hobby Lobby, but Dick Reese reports that the best shading sand comes from the beaches of Siesta Key in FL. Ohers suggested wedding sand. As to heat, Dick also has found that use of a Coleman camp stove allows quicker and more accurate setting of the heat level. David used the smooth surface hot plate to shade the long segments used in the leg pilasters, with the segments laid directly on the hot plate surface with no sand.

 

[David Conley]

(Continued)

The boxwood stringing is very brittle and gets soaked for hours before bending around the large base of a soldering iron, with a metal flexible backing strip to reduce cracking, while fitting the curves.
Dave showed scaled diagrams of the inlay patterns (stringing and banding) on the leg panels, as well as the corner shells on the top. He also showed the layout of the bell flowers, and the dimensioning of the lower leg cuff banding and tapered ebony feet. He showed his Microfence 4 in. plunge router base fitted with a Fordom rotary tool which he uses for cutting the stringing channels, both straight and arcs. For straight cuts on the legs he can run the router base with a fence along the straight edge of the leg, 1/8 in. from the edge. For cutting the arcs at the top of the legs he uses a smaller Stewmac precision router base with his Fordom rotary tool mounted on a larger shop-made Lexan base which enables use of a pivot point for cutting arcs by rotating the base around the point.
After installing the stringing David rough planes the stringing just proud of the wood surface, then later uses a scraper plane to make it flat to the surface.
In a few instances the pivot point slipped out and resulted in a major error in the arc. David showed how he recovered by excavating the ruined area, gluing in a replacement surface piece, then re-cutting the arc with more care.
David then showed his approach to layout of the bell flowers from a drawing taped to a leg by punching through reference points. He then roughs out the petals with the mini router, fine tunes them with the carving gouges, and then hot hide glues in the petals. He repeats the process with the outer two rows of petals.
Next he showed making the Pilasters for the tops of the legs. This is the large rectangular area inside the upper leg stringing. It is filled with large stringing of nested and mitered rectangles. David dry fits the multiple pieces, starting on the outside edges and working your way around to the center, them clamping them all at the same time.
Installing the leg cuff banding comes next. First he opens up just the cuff banding area, which banding is made of three parallel pieces of large stringing to repeat the look of the multi-piece stringing of the pilaster areas. The eventual cuff pieces wrap around with a compound angle (due to the leg tapering) so the pieces ideally would be mitered with appropriate compound angles. But the cuff’s width is so short that the compound angle can be ignored with a little minor trim. But the black feet are long enough that they must be mitered with compound angles. To do this efficiently Dave had the help of our Industrial Arts teacher member Bryan Koppert, who made a vice-mounted jig to facilitate shooting correct lengths with compound miters. Its design is reminiscent of a donkey's ear shooting board used to clean up miter joints for box miters and picture frame miters.
David’s final topic was to show his process for making the surrounding triple stringing for the top, and then making the corner fans for the top. For the fan process he recommends use of a Dan Hrinko’s jig designed for layout of the fans, and for guiding a router to excavate the fan outline in each corner. Then it is just a matter of putting in the wedges and the interior arc of stringing. David put the individual wedges in one at a time. Others have suggested assembling the entire fan first.
Sunday’s meeting began with Dan Reahard presenting the design, layout and general shaping of cabriole legs. Dan took classes with Mack Headley and the late Gene Landon many years ago. Dan retained interesting drawings and notes from these classes, which were wonderful to see as reminders of the incredible contributions these masters made to our education in period furniture. One drawing showed all the key dimensions for a Philadelphia chair leg, and it was interesting to see the noted references to the Ionic or Corinthian classical orders. Gene liked to reference these dimensions in his projects. Dan also showed a figure from Carving a Ball-and-Claw Foot, by Mack Headley, Jr., FWW, Sept/Oct 1990.
Dan exhibited two carved cabriole legs, one a robust representative for a Philadelphia chair, a style generally pursued by Gene, the other a lighter leg more in line with the New England (NE) legs followed by Mack. The NE leg was thinner, with a slightly squashed ball and sweptback rear talons. The Philadelphia leg had heftier ankles and a slightly elongated ball with talons aligned as if is inside a cube.
Dan showed how either leg could be used in profile to make a template for sawing the first stage of an actual leg. This single template is sequentially laid at an inside corner of a correctly-sized leg blank, the two instances being perpendicular to one another, to mark the blank for sawing. All of the key dimensions of the leg are recorded on the back of the template. Thus no additional drawings are needed to make the leg. Dan demonstrated a method of sawing which leaves small wood bridges along the cuts, so that no taping is required to hold the piece together for the orthogonal saw passes. He also showed the choices to be made in orienting the blank’s grain direction relative to the leg. Rings oriented diagonally front-to-back results in straight grain on both faces appearing to follow the contour of the leg, orienting the diagonals side-to-side results in a bullseye pattern on the knee. Choice is builder’s preference.
For shaping and carving the leg Dan used a RIKON Bar clamp held in a swivel-base vise, which is then attached to wood blocks to be secured by a bench vise. The fixture provides great flexibility and good access for carving. To shape a round cross section one cambers the edges along the leg, being sure to mark and KEEP center lines, making proportional sequential flats to approximate a circle or oval as required. He primarily uses Nicholson Nos. 49 and 50, which cut quickly and are more forgiving than a spoke shave. He then gives a final smoothing with a wood file. Nicholson rasps do not come left or right handed as do Auriou (OR-REE-YOU) rasps, because the latter are hand stitched and for cutting efficiency the teeth feature a slight bias or slant designed for a specific hand's natural skew.
Dan says there is no need to leave more wood while shaping to later add a shell or acanthus leaf to the knee. One can just relieve the surface as the decorative carving is no more than 1/16 in. deep in either shells or acanthus leaves. For our next meeting the chapter plans to have attendees carve a foot, such as Ball and Claw or Trefid, on a shaped leg they prepare at home using the methods noted above.

 

[David Conley]

(Continue)

Following Dan, David Conley returned to show the unique design and construction of the nightstand double side panels. The construction enabled David’s highly-figured mahogany boards to be resawed to make two sides out of a single piece of wood. The internal panel is a rail and stile frame that provide structural strength and stability. The exterior side and back panels are ½ in thick mahogany retained by ¼ in. mortise and tenon joints into the adjoining legs. These are only glued at the top tenon. The rest of the panel is allowed to float in the lower M&T joints, preventing future splits due to cross-grain construction. The drawer runners are set in on dados and screwed into the internal structural panel, making it easy to replace them in the future. The drawer blades in the front and back form the rest of the structural case.

David enlisted the SAPFM online Forum to help evolve the design of the double-side concept. The group discussion’s objective was to reduce the complexity of the glue up in light of the large number of mortise and tenons. Jeff Headley made major contributions to the topic by greatly simplifying the design.

https://community.sapfm.org/index.php?threads/how-do-you-do-a-complex-glue-up.3062/#post-14194

David showed the approach to resawing and planing the 11 ½ in. board that created the exterior side panels and back. He also showed his special tapering jig with extra drywall screws to prevent stock slippage used to taper the nightstand’s legs. And he showed correct use of his mortising machine to cut the very long side mortises in the legs, and use of his tenoning jig with table saw to make the corresponding tenons. David made a spreadsheet with dimensional change coefficient and humidity change assumptions to compute how much expansion width to add to the many mortises. David also compacted key surface fibers with his burnisher, then shellacked them, to create hard-wear surfaces on the top and elsewhere for the somewhat soft mahogany. He also showed assembly of the Jeff Headley designs of the interior side panels. To reduce glue up complexity, David glues the side assemblies separately before gluing up the entire case.

David also showed a spreadsheet detailing all of the dovetail pin and tail dimensions for the three graduated drawers. He also shared the method he uses to align a dovetail saw guide (such as the Veritas Dovetail Saw Guide) for precise cutting of dovetails. This is a simplified variation of the method used with the Glen Drake Kerf Starter tool. You just need to have a set of thickness gauges and a dovetail saw guide (like: a Veritas Dovetail Saw Guide). After you have determined the thickness of your saw's kerf by measuring the saw's kerf with the thickness gauges, you just place the selected thickness gauge on the magnet side of a dovetail saw guide and it will precisely show you the outside cut edge of your saw. Next, lock the saw guide in place, remove the thickness gauge, and saw away.

Thus completed the ORV Spring 2026 meeting. The chapter extends its appreciation to David Conley for his leadership, Woodcraft for hosting, and to Jay, David, and Dan for their excellent presentations. Thanks also to all members who contributed projects, ideas, and lively discussion.

The 2026 SAPFM ORV Fall Meeting is scheduled for August 22-23 at Woodcraft in Columbus, OH. Planned topics for Saturday include waxes by Dave Upperman, inlay bandings by Dave Feola, and review of favorite furniture-building books and DVDs by group discussion. Sunday’s ½ day session will be a hands-on session carving a cabriole leg led by Dan Reahard.

- Dale Ausherman