Guild General Meeting - 7-9

Social time 6:30

Martin Vlach and His Columbia River Table

The Columbia River As You’ve Never Seen It Before

It’s always a pleasure to have a presentation from one of our own fellow Guild members, and at our July monthly meeting (held both at the MAC and on Zoom) we have that privilege.

  Martin Vlach will present     on how he made an               amazing piece of art of         the Columbia River        drainage map.

  I first met Martin on a  Zoom meeting of Project  Build about a year ago. We  were doing a show-and-tell  of our recent work, when  Martin showed us some  pictures of a dining table he had made of an inlay of the Columbia River drainage. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was looking at a scale map of the Columbia and its tributaries from about Hood River to Longview (I’m just guessing here), all inlayed into a table top. What? Are you kidding me? The detail and the craftsmanship was amazing. I knew immediately that Martin’s work needed to be shared with the Guild. 

In preparing for this newsletter announcement, I asked Martin to share some information about himself and the project. Little did I suspect that I would get a short summary of the four stages of knowledge, and how he has moved through them on his woodworking journey. (Who knew there even were four stages of knowledge? I only know two: clueless and “I used to know that, but I forgot.”) I should have known, once Martin informed me that he used to be a software engineer. 

Martin was born in the Czech Republic and made his way to Portland via Canada. He began his woodworking journey after retiring (sound familiar to any of you?) from his vocation as a software engineer to become a small business mentor. The inspiration for the table arose from his love of nature and the outdoors. What could be better than to hike the Gorge and then reproduce it in wood.

The table was made by printing maps of parts of the river and pasting them to the table top. He then routed through the maps using a palm router. Next he filled the routed grooves with epoxy and then sanded them smooth. Sounds easy, right? Sure.

The result is a unique table top of the country we call home. You don’t want to miss this presentation. Check out his website for more information:

https://czechmecwoodworking.com/ 

Join us at the MAC or via Zoom. As always, the Zoom link is https://us06web.zoom.us/j/96184696029?pwd=MWZOUEZsejJua0pJY2tvbjVSVlFuZz09 

The Zoom Link will be available 24 hours before the meeting.

Zoom Link