The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Build friendships via crafts
A door to a former Sheffield Lake Post Office building opens into a foyer with a lineup of hand-crafted wooden objects: shelves, cutting boards, a rustic wheel barrow, a small cabinet.
Further inside, precision woodworking machines transform a 3,000-squarefoot building into a dream of a maker space, identified by a modest sign in a window as North Coast Community Woodshop in Sheffield Lake.
The non-profit organization offers classes for members, non-members, and youth groups such as Scouting troops, and opens opportunities for creative expression for people living in homes without workshop space.
Members built the club in a handful of years on respect and common ground.
Founding member and Avon resident Mark Yourich, 59, retired after 34 years in pharmacy and longed to take a woodworking hobby to a new level.
He had been creating wood pieces as gifts and raffle items for non-profits for about 15 years.
So he joined with others in starting the club.
“The main reason was I was woodworking at home; I found it boring doing it by myself. I wanted to teach people, to pass on the knowledge I gained. Plus, I like playing with machines. I heard about this from a newspaper article. This group was trying to get a shop going, so I walked in.”
He found woodworking is more hands on than pharmacy.
“I did my woodworking as a release from the tension,” Yourich said. “Work could be a little stressful at times.”
His current projects are boxes from hardwood with decorative joining features from a contrasting color of wood.
“I’m also working on a bread box with a roll top door,” Yourich said. “I made a clock with wooden gears.
“We’re very involved with our dog breed. We work with a national club with our rescue, Softcoated Wheaten Terrier Club of America,” Yourich said. “I needed to make projects for them to sell. I don’t really have one favorite project, because I like to do something and move on.”
A set of stacking oval Shaker boxes reflect handiwork of Steve Waseleski, 68, a retired U. S. Steel veteran of 45 years who began woodworking 35 years ago.
“I’ve been with the group for about three years,” Waseleski said. “I needed a place to do woodworking. I retired. We moved to a retirement community. It didn’t offer woodworking. I wasn’t allowed to have barns and sheds, so I went online and found this place.”
He fills most mornings with woodworking, he said.
“And whomever is here, if they need help, I help them,” Waseleski said. “If you really need help, I don’t have all the answers, either. A lot of the guys here will answer questions.”
He found instructions in a book describing how to make nesting Shaker boxes out of very thin wood and brass fasteners, and in three months Waseleski
has made about 60 of them, he said.
“Basically it’s the camaraderie here,” Waseleski said. “It’s a good place to come; not a lot of money; it’s a great place to be.”
A registered nurse, 35-year-old Shane Madey from Brook Park sketched a plan for a huge project.
“I’m building a bed frame for a California king size bed,” Madey said. “It’s very simple. I just want it simple, clean, modern. I just want to see the wood grain.”
He designed the bed to be made of Honduran mahogany, with a headboard measuring 30-inches-by-7feet of naturally dried oak from huge trees felled in his back yard.
“I’ve been woodworking for four years,” Madey said. “I started with milling wood. There were two oak trees in the back yard measuring about four feet across. They needed to come down. I didn’t want the wood to be wasted.”
He allowed the oak slabs to air dry at one year per inch after the trees were harvested, he said.
Then he cut veneer from them to adorn an interior wall, and built oak tables, table tops, benches, mantels and shelves, he said.
“I still have one of the biggest oak slabs,” Madey said. “Nothing is as satisfying to me as harvesting a tree.”
This month to prepare a plank for use, Madey called on expertise of other members to help hoist and guide the plank on a jointer to create a flat edge, then on a planer to shave the other side to be parallel with the first edge, they said.
Membership in the club allows him to use very expensive tools when needed in a large shop space, he said.
“I could never afford this,” Madey said.
Labors of love given as gifts prompted Chuck Morgan’s son to make a special request when he found a photo of something he longed for online.
“I’m working on a farmhouse table for my son, made out of white oak,” said Morgan, 65, of Westlake, a board member who serves as public relations for the club. “The top is like a door frame with 45-degree panels and a simple frame underneath.”
He drew out the plans on paper and made a jig for cutting panel pieces.
“I did a practice one out of pine to make sure what I wanted to do was going to work,” Morgan said.
After assembling the tabletop, he intends to run it through a drum sander for a nice flush finish, he said
“My son wanted a barn wood finish,” Morgan said. “I’m using a weathering accelerator that you can buy. It usually turns it gray. Then I will do other things to protect the finish. It’s kind of a new concept. After the accelerator, a gray stain will seal the wood and then I will put lacquer on it. Lacquer doesn’t change the color like other finishes will.”
One of his more complex projects, he said, was several keepsake boxes he created as Christmas presents for his granddaughters, who were ages 8 and 10 years at the time.
“They’re pretty nice,” Morgan said. “They’re made out of exotic woods. One is made out of leopard wood, which is out of the tropics, and mahogany. The other is purple heart and Ohio sycamore.”
The club offers other support and amenities to members, such as tips on the best stores to find hardwood and tools, and shopping excursions to Amish country – not for quilts – for lumber, Morgan said.
About half of the members are retired, he said, hailing from many backgrounds: engineers, attorneys, manufacturers, mechanics, people from the medical field, a professor from Oberlin College. A handful of women are members, too.
“We have a wide range of folk who want to do this for fun,” Morgan said.
A membership costs $400 a year for a single membership, or $450 for a family membership including a spouse and one child in the same house. Youth must be age 15 years or older, and accompanied by an adult, he said.
To join the club or to find out about classes, visit nccwoodshop.org or email nccwoodshop@gmail.com.
“It’s kind of unusual,” Morgan said, “but it’s going to be a trend.”
Though the club is a relatively new startup with about 45 members, it has grown in good ways, Yourich said.
“It’s come a long way. We’re really proud of it,” Yourich said.
“Everybody just comes in here; has fun; and it works out.”