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Metro Detroit Metalworking Club |
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OCTOBER,
2004 Message From John Osborne, MDMC President. Welcome
back to the newsletter, now resurrected. It’s an important part of the
Metro Detroit Metalworking Club, also resurrected. Why didn't things
just keep on going? Well, all the work needed to run the club was dumped
on just one person. When the demands of job, family and life increased,
our last president was forced to let go of the club. He gave the records
to Larry Chenault and myself, and we intended to co-chair the club. But
Larry suffered a massive stroke, and I had work deadlines to meet. Joe
Pietsch called a meeting in the 1- reducing the
president's workload to perhaps 1/5th of before, by gratefully accepting
“offers of service” from Emil Cafarelli for Vice-President, Al
Campbell for Treasurer, Brian Lawson for Newsletter Editor, and John Lee
for Distribution. 2- asking Al to put the
member list in an Excel spreadsheet for email and/or mailing. 3-
arranging to meet the second Wednesday of each month at 4-
club Membership and Dues will run for the calendar year. 5-
members should deal directly with the Vice President, Treasurer, NL
Editor and Mailer as needed. 6-
members who do not pay the annual $10.00 dues will be taken off the
list, and put back on when dues are received.
If you wish to blame me for any of this, go ahead, but here is
why I did it: I want the club and the newsletter to continue. I consider
the club a valuable source of knowledge and support, and I’ve made
several good friends, as I hope we all have. The club has done a lot for
me and I think we’re doing something for the club by making these
changes. Now the club can continue with little disruption when something
happens. For instance: every member can contact all the others using the
roster. The computerized roster is much more versatile and accurate.
Members can show up even if an announcement does not go out. Any officer
can run a meeting (or any one else). The newsletter should improve
because the editor is not also the treasurer/president and John Lee will
help mail it. More members can consider becoming club officers because
the workload and pressure are decreasing and the satisfaction is
increasing. It’s not all on one person; now it’s a team. Give it a
little time and see how the new structure works for the club.
If an idea doesn’t work,
we will drop it like a hot rock and try something else.
We want to try using the newsletter to conduct club business.
That way, if you are not interested, you can skip over it and you won't
have to sit through it at the meetings. But, the club has almost no
funds at the moment. We could really use your dues for 2005 right now.
Send your check to "Allen Campbell " at
his address shown on the Treasurer's Report (yes, Al opened a checking
account for us, we are official). A special thanks to those who send
their dues promptly. If we do not get your dues by Jan 1st, you will be
taken off the member list. Its only $10.00 a year. All of us waste more
than that for less. We have 120 names on the roster at present, and that
is likely far greater than the actual membership. The dues will cut that
down to size.
Another function of the newsletter will be to reach out to those
members that can't make the meetings. Several people took the time to
call me and say how much they liked having a newsletter and they would
gladly pay dues to get it. Our newsletter Editor is probably sorry he
asked for a letter from the president, based on the length of this one.
I hope we don't have to revisit this stuff and from now on, we can talk
and write about workin' metal and making chips!!
Sincerely, John Osborne -
President (pro tem) Howdy Fellows and Gals, I’m Brian Lawson (formerly from At the recent September meeting I offered to help get the word out by doing the rough drafts of the “newsletter”, and this is the first one. As I live almost 2 driving hours each way (plus the border crossing) from the College, I’m not at all sure how many of the meetings I can get to in a given year, so I’m definitely going to have to rely on everyone to send me info and details to help this newsletter along. At that September meeting, there was a good deal of “housekeeping” that needed to be done, as there was quite a span of time since the last meeting, and a few significant decisions were made. One decision to keep the “dues” down had to do with cost savings, and particularly the cost of postage for this newsletter, which will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $45 this month to send in the mail. As about half or more of the members have access to the internet, it was decided that future newsletters will be sent through the internet to those who have access, and via USPS to those who don’t. So in fairness, it was decided that in order to receive a “hard-copy” by mail, that any members wishing that service should bring or send in (12 ???) Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes. SASE’s at todays current 1st class letter-rate postage for a 2 ounce letter is 60 cents. A copy of the latest newsletter will be stuffed in your envelope each month and mailed out. The “last” envelope from your batch will have “ Your Last Newsletter” written on it, which will be your signal to send/bring in some more. It is also hoped that this newsletter will “get out” early enough each month to give everyone a chance to receive and read it prior to the coming monthly meeting. And it was decided that
for now the meetings will be held at **** NOTE: I have to apologize ahead of time for the following. At the meeting, it was also suggested that this newsletter should carry some notes about the immediate past month’s meeting. So on September 8/04, I dutifully took some notes on a sheet of paper, and then over the next 48 hours I somehow managed to mix them in with the 150 POUNDS of catalogues and goodies I brought back from the IMTS2004 show in Chicago (I’ll explain that a bit later). Gone!!!! Probably not FOREVER, but at least until it’s too late for this printing, eh?!?! So I’m doing the meeting notes here from fading um, fading uummm, fading uhh.. OH YEAH!!..from fading memory, eh! **** At the September meeting, the first Show-and Tell (S&T) segment was from Emil Cafarelli, with a sample of a gadget he made to locate the center of a largish hole for work on the mill. It consisted of a 3/8” X 4” round bar which you would put in (either a 3/8 collet or a chuck already in) the spindle, and the unchucked end of that bar threaded into a brass piece with a ¼”crosshole which allowed another bar at 90 degrees that could have a Dial Test Indicator (DTI) mounted to it at what-ever radius is desired. Very simple and very useful. Discussion followed in which it was suggested that the round bar into the spindle could be made in various sizes but threaded in each case to suit the brass piece, so that there would be no need to remove a given collet to use a 3/8, if in fact a different cutter than 3/8 was to be used. Boy-oh-boy, this is definitely a case of one little picture being worth a thousand words. Hey, if you don’t like it, COME TO THE MEETINGS and look at the S&T for yourself!! Anyway, the second S&T was from Joe Pietsch. Or SHOULD have been. Joe ALWAYS has some neat tip or trick or explanation or a gadget for us! Always!! So I don’t remember what was next, ‘cause I was so upset with Joe not having one!!!! (Just kidding Joe, just kidding. Honest!) The actual second S&T was from Ron Schmidt who brought in a nice Luhrs spindle-nose 5C collett holder. Next, there was a suggestion that “Show & Tell” should include any books or articles read, and that reports on these should include the ISBN and/or the authors name and any other details to help others to find same. And in future I’ll include that info in the newsletter, so don’t worry about writing it down at the meeting. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX OK..OK.. So I just now REALLY looked HARD for the notes, and sure enough, after 45 minutes of paper sorting…there’s the notes I wrote! I’m not going to go back and change the preceding, so here they are: Officers of MDMC are: John Osborne = President; Emil Cafarelli = Vice-President; Al Campbell = Treasurer; John Lee = Mailing; (who are all pro tem until elections); plus Brian Lawson = Newsletter “Editor” (for me, just until January 2005 or elections, whichever comes first). And about the first thing asked, was Emil for a way to remove and replace the lens on his recent “gloat” ($5) find of a Last Word DTI. Many suggestions were given to Emil about what he could do about that, some of which were actually serious and reasonable! (HA HA) I was laughing so hard about some of them, I’ve forgotten what the “good ones” were! Either buy a Rolex and use the crystal from it, or just fill it up the whole case with J&B Weld or epoxy, were pretty good ones though. Also, it seemed to be recalled that there were some books and VHS tapes that MDMC had, but are misplaced at the moment. Anybody got any ideas? Oh…. and more to Ron’s S&T, he had an indicator holder for the lathe too. I’ve got that in the notes, but I can’t recall seeing it. Musta happened though, ‘cause I wrote it down. Hmm… maybe I’ll write down that Joe owes me 10 grand or something. See how that goes. And finally, although it
was mentioned quite early at the meeting, it was brought up, on a very
unhappy note, one of the long time members and a really interesting guy,
Larry Chenault, has suffered a severe stroke.
We were told that he is recovering very well at the Anyway, next month I'll try to get some "sketches" here about the Show&Tell and the sights on my trip to the Tool Show in Chicago (IMTS2004), but that's all for now, except the maps and Treasurers Report<BL/30> Ohhh… and if you want to send your SASE instead of bringing them in to a meeting, send them directly to the Distribution Manager, John Lee, at : MDMC Distribution MDMC Newsletter
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