Lee's demo on constructing a jingle bell based on a design by Steve Alling and Bill Clemons was, as usual with Lee, very successful and informative. Lee passed out a number of copies of the article with schematics that came from Clemons' article, which I believe originally was in Hammer's Blow. Lee demonstrated and discussed all of the jigs and tools he made to produce these terrific bells and stressed that the material needed to be thick (3/16" or 7 gauge) enough to properly take the pressure required to achieve the proper shape. Doug Deleury brought a number of CNC cut blanks for sale which several members took advantage of as hand cutting or torch cutting these out is a bit tough. We also had a terrific tail gating event where a couple of us were able to cheaply pass on no longer needed blacksmith items to someone who could use them. Keep this in mind for future meetings as you might have something blacksmith related that you would like to sell at a reasonable cost. A side note, on May 4th Lee and his jingle bell won the best of show at the most recent Ashoken weekend seminar in the New Paltz area.

* * Please note that the kitty for coffee, etc. as well as for coal and steel is getting low. We have relied on coffee donations as well as general donations to cover these costs and we do not want to resort to charging dues, etc. Let's continue to keep things simple. So, with that in mind, we are asking that each member and guest, beginning with the May meeting, put in a single dollar bill in the donation can by the coffee pot. This hopefully will be sufficient to cover all costs. Also, anyone who has any shorts of a foot long or so of any kind of steel who would like to donate them to the club, please do. This will also greatly help keeping coasts down as this is around the lengrth we seem to use most.