Xander, my elder son, is ten years old. He’s in a gifted program which he goes to one day a week. Part of this gifted program is that he must do a year long research project which culminates in a presentation at the “Experts Fair”. He’s picked How to be a Video Game Designer and How to create your own Greek Myth in the past. This year he has chosen How to I make a project using Woodworking.
He’s begun the research by getting books from the library that are targeted at kids. He’s gotten very excited about these projects in these books. All of them are simple and typically use but joints and often don’t even use glue but use nails and screws instead. Simple!
Today, we began some education that I can give him. We covered Hand Saws. I went through European style saws including crosscut, rip, carcass and dovetail. We also covered Pull or Japanese style saws. He liked the European style saws best though the big rip and crosscut saws were hard for him and he preferred the smaller dovetail and carcass saws. I showed him how to hold saws and start cuts. It’ll be a while before he’s totally comfortable but he had fun.
Next he wants to try a few power saws.
