VIWG - Vancouver Island Woodworker's Guild

Welcome to the Vancouver Island Woodworker’s Guild web site.

Our guild is a non-profit organization of approximately 150 woodworkers, both professional and amateur, who are dedicated to the promotion of woodworking and the appreciation of fine craftsmanship.
Since 1980, our guild has been able to create and maintain a community of people interested in being a part of an organization that promotes woodworking education, community service and collaborative projects of value to all skill levels and age groups

Get involved by being our guest at the next monthly meeting. The guild has a full suite of education programs including show and tell sessions, monthly weekend clinics and excellent keynote speakers.

We have numerous community projects underway. One of note is the Wood Recovery Program. It is the only large scale wood recovery program operating in Western Canada. With municipal and private donations, we are able to use wood for artistic and community projects that otherwise would be burned. Members who participate learn all the steps from fallen tree to final processing. This includes cutting, grading, kiln and air drying and stickering with an emphasis on safety.

We have a long record of mounting high quality woodworking shows for novices and professionals alike. As a result, the guild has a key role in the local artistic community.

We thank our many sponsors who generously support our programs with specific donations and member discounts. We count on them for their financial assistance and for actively promoting the guild to their customers.

You can learn more about any of upcoming and recent activities, newsletters and sponsors by browsing this web site. We would love to see you at a meeting or hear from you at any time.

Next Meeting -
Tuesday April 8th 11th, 2008

Wood Colouring Techniques
Cam Russell will speak to us about techniques for enhancing colour and providing greater depth in wood finishing. He will talk about general principles and illustrate with samples along with a couple of very brief application demonstrations.

This will pick up on last month's demonstration of ebonizing with alcohol based leather dye by Phil Makin. Cam will illustrate the use of bright coloured dyes; thinned paint combinations; dyes underneath stains; and some of the simpler chemical effect dye/bleach techniques. These techniques can be used to make one wood species look like another other, match finish colours for furniture repairs, effective blending of sapwood and heartwoods, enhancing colouration in marquetry and just having fun with colour!

Upcoming Meeting Dates
For those who get mixed up on what days the meetings are, here is a list of the next meeting dates for 2008:

June 10th
NO MEETINGS for July and August
September 9th
October 14th
November 11th
December 9th

Show and Tell - Your Projects Wanted !

Anyone interested in showing their latest wood creations, furniture, turned items, jigs, tools or other woodworking related items are encouraged to bring them along to the next meeting.

The Show and Tell portion of the meeting is a place to share ideas with one another. Tell us some of your sucesses or bring us some of your problems and lets see if we can help you solve them. Very likely there is someone at the meeting who has experience in what your are doing or hoping to accomoplish, so bring your items along and share them with all of us. Let Phil Makin know in advance if possible or email him at makin@shaw.ca