General Meeting

General Meeting

Pete Galbert has agreed to host us at his new shop in Berwick ME.

Parking is tight so I recommend that you car pool.

• Agenda
• 9:00 am – meet and greet – -coffee and pastries
• 9:15 – short business meeting
• 10:00 –

  Tim Manney, Greenwood Spoon Carving with a Bandsaw Assist.

  Learn how to prep spoon blanks on the bandsaw that will finish carve as well as blanks prepped by hand with an axe or drawknife. It’s quick, material efficient, and a good way to get a lot of material ready to be carved. A bandsaw isn’t an essential spoon carving tool, but with care and a little bit of knowledge, it can be useful.

• Tim started woodworking in a small hemlock grove behind his college dorm. Carving spoons with an axe, a knife, a gouge, and a copy of Wille Sundqvist’s book Swedish Carving Techniques. Carving spoons required tools that were rare or not being made at the time so he started making and modifying tools around the same time. That interest in making tools has continued and he now mostly makes specialized tools for Windsor chairmaking in a small workshop in South Portland, ME. He also teaches classes on spoon carving, sharpening curved tools, and building Windsor chairs.
• 12:00 –  bag lunch
• 12:30 – Peter Galbert is a chair maker living and working in Maine. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois. Before specializing in chairs in 2001, he was a cabinet and furniture maker in New York City. He has taught and exhibited internationally. In 2015 he published a comprehensive book on the craft of Windsor chair making titled “Chairmaker’s Notebook” with Lost Art Press. Besides his book, Peter has also published frequently in Fine Woodworking Magazine and Substack. He also designs and sells tools for the trade, including a caliper for measuring on the lathe, a tool for sharpening drawknives, travishers for carving seats, an adjuster for shave horses and an upcoming tool for shaping drill bits. Peter also creates plans and videos instructing in various techniques as designs. In 2025 he built a workshop on his property in an old horse barn where he works and hosts classes for himself and other craftspeople. His guest instructors include Peter Follansbee, Dave Fisher, Tim Manney, Andy Glenn and Bern Chandley. His work was recently added to the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Artist Statement We share an intimacy with chairs interacting with them much like we do clothes, reacting to the f it and feel we experience. We are all experts when it comes to living with chairs. I work with wood, hoping to enlist its unique characteristics to make chairs that are enjoyable to live with and to build. Much of my work relies upon wood from freshly felled trees. Working with green wood benefits the process as well as the resulting chairs. The wet wood splits and shaves cleanly along the f ibers and is soft enough to work rapidly with hand tools. Working this way gives access to the toughness, malleability and flexibility inherent in the tree. The parts that result can be made surprisingly thin while retaining their strength and bent with ease. There is seemingly no end to the potential arrangements. To me, building this way is always engaging. Throughout the process, there is an interplay between the body and the wood. From the physical force and finesse required to break down the tree, to the careful arrangement of the parts to fit the body, the two are linked. I hope my chairs entice the viewer with a clear invitation, conveying that they have been considered and that the process is complete only when they sit. Peter Galbert 2026 In this demonstration, I will cover all the basic aspect of chairmaking. Splitting Green Wood Wood Shaving Parts Bending Carving (seats) Joinery Wood technology Finishing
• 3:00  – Adjourn