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The 2011 TEAM Awards for NW Missouri

April 18, 2011 By

Every year I look forward to judging the high school competition called the North West Technology Education Association of Missouri (TEAM) Awards contest. Our local woodworkers Guild is invited to judge the woodworking entries, and every year eight of us are either selected, or we volunteer to judge the entries. This year the event was once again hosted by the Missouri Western State University campus in St. Joseph, MO, about 10 minutes from our house.

If you would like to read my report for the 2010 TEAM Award results, click here.

The following is the entry we felt was the best in the woodworking category, and will be going to the State competition is Sedalia, Missouri, May 5-6, 2011. We awarded this nice game table 99 points out of 100 maximum possible. The joinery was all mortise & tenon, including the mitered table top; the aprons were also joined to the legs using mortise and tenon joinery. We did not award 100 points because we felt that a little more effort would have resulted in better grain match at the mitered corners; and two of the squares were off at the corners by about 1/16-inch. That aside, the table was terrific:

Best in wood for 2011.

We spent a bit of time trying to decide whether the legs were bought, or whether they were made by the student. In the end we decided the legs were made by the student, as revealed by the variations in measurements near the bottom of the legs – it was this detail that proved a deciding factor to award a high score to this entry:

Excellent workmanship in these legs.

The table top was close to perfect. I was impressed with the perfect miters, and with the mortise & tenon joinery at the miters. And, as I mentioned above, the quality of the match of the squares in this board was near perfect:

The chess board was close to perfect!

I believe this entry will do well in competition at State level, which will be held May 5 and 6 in Sedalia, Missouri.

My impressions about the 2011 woodworking competition:

The first thing I noticed on entering the gymnasium where the competition is normally held was the significantly lower number of entries, compared to years past. There was no question in my mind that less time is being spent by High School kids working on “shop projects” or, as it called today, Technology Education. The following is the complete list of categories that make up Technology Education in Missouri:

CAM/CNC
Computer Applications
Drafting – Architectural
Drafting – Mechanical
Electricity-Electronics
Graphic Arts
Industrial Crafts
Metalwork
Open Division
Photography
Plastics
Power and Energy
Robotics
Technology Exploration
Woodworking

I am saddened by the reduced number of entries, and hope that, as a State, Missouri will find a way to reverse the trend. I am convinced that, ultimately, it is our children who will miss learning opportunities available only in the classes covered by this program. One of the main factors in decreased enrollment is a critical shortage of qualified teachers in the schools. I sincerely hope this changes during my lifetime; the State must find way to provide incentives to teachers to enter this wonderful part of our educational system.

I will continue to work on preparing a slide show of the remaining entries in the 2011 TEAM Awards, and will post it when finished.

— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Design, Education, furniture, High School Competition Tagged With: , ,

The new altar, delivered and in place

August 16, 2010 By

In an earlier article, I promised to show photos of the altar in place once we delivered it to the client. The delivery went flawlessly, and the altar now is in place at Fr. T’s private chapel in the Rectory of a local church. I requested permission to snap some photos; the lighting proved difficult, but I was able to capture the images below by using shop lights reflected off the ceiling, in addition to the lights in the chapel.

The little chapel used to be a plain, ordinary room in the Rectory; but two parishioners led the renovation project and created a wonderful place of worship, with the help of volunteer parishioners, who are also carpenters. The walls were modified somewhat by the carpenters; and the leaders, artists in their own right, “antiqued” the room and also created a wonderful window illusion, where Fr. T placed an old crucifix:

The altar in place at the chapel.

The tabernacle door is a very old door that Fr. T rescued from another church. As part of the project, we built a box to hold the door.

I included the corner shot above, to allow visual comparison with the computer rendition I created using eCabinet Systems software:

Final design - dimensions were obtained from this model.

A photo of the altar in the sanctuary — the small table on the right will be used to hold the cruets used during mass, and a missal in the center shelf:

Front view of altar in the chapel.

Due to difficulty getting proper exposure, I had to get a close-up to show the detail of the characters placed on the raised panels — Chi-Rho in the center panel, Alpha (the Beginning) in the left panel, and Omega (the End) in the right panel. The following photo also shows a little more detail of the gradines (the long, short boxes on either side of the tabernacle), the altar stone inlaid in the mensa (altar top), and the door detail of the tabernacle:

Detail of top portion of altar.

I carved the characters in the shop (maybe “shaped” is a more appropriate word?):

Symbols as work-in-progress.

The characters were finished in a lighter color than the altar base, to provide contrast; depending on how the brain perceives the characters, sometimes they appear as low-relief carvings, and other times they appear as onlays, which they are:

Symbols, with finish applied -- attached to panels.

I snapped the following while in the shop, as a work-in-progress (the wood is lyptus):

Altar base cabinet in progress.

As I have received requests for the dimensions, I include the following measured sketches for anyone wishing to use them to build their own altar (extracted from the eCabinets software):

Dimensions obtained from the computer model - front view.

The side view dimensions:

Dimensions, side view.

Our daughter was involved in the fund raising activities that funded this project. All parishioners involved in the fund raiser will be invited to attend a function in the near future, to view the new chapel in the Rectory. Already plans are in place for Brother A., currently living in the Rectory, to sew new cloths for the altar.

I thank Dan, my partner in this job, for his help in building this project in his shop. This was such a huge project, I would not have been able handle it alone in my shop.

I also thank Fr. T for placing his confidence in me to design the new altar, and for giving us the opportunity to make it a reality.

— Al Navas

Filed Under: Blog, Design, furniture Tagged With: ,

Onlays for the altar

August 5, 2010 By

Following some research into symbols required for the latest project, I worked on the following. Now they are ready to receive the finish:

The symbols, to be used as onlays on raised panels.

After (carefully) cutting out the shapes on the scroll saw, and some sanding to remove the blade marks, I used the Proxxon mini-router to round over the edges:

The tools used in final shaping.

Then the serious sanding started. But the results were worth the time, as my client was pleased with the results. The size was perfect (Chi-Rho is 7 inches tall), and shaping, although very simple is pleasing.

Do these qualities come through in the images? I look forward to your comments.

— Al Navas

Filed Under: 3D, Blog, Cabinetmaking, Design, furniture

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