This Week in Wood » Family

School Project for Mitchell

glennth — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 03:40:48 +0000

I’ve been sick and a bit frustrated about my last shop session so I haven’t been in the shop for a bit but today would get me back there.

All week long, my youngest son, Mitchell has been telling me about this project that his teacher said they can do. It’s a “Stoolie”. I told him we couldn’t do it until I had an idea of what it was. Yesterday, he brought home an instruction sheet.

A “Stoolie” is a stool with a single leg. The reason his school is promoting this project is to help kids stop leaning back so much in their chairs during class.

We went to Lowes (which is where the instructions pointed us) to get the parts for this project. The Lowes folks were very helpful and in fact the various department folks said they knew exactly which project we were building. We needed some nuts and bolts from hardware, some pipe and fixtures from plumbing, and a wooden circle from lumber. Mitchell also wanted us to upholster the stoolie so we needed some padding. All went well except for the piping. They were out of the required 1/2″ pipe so we had to go with 1″ pipe instead, meaning an elephant can sit on our stoolie.

We had some cleaning of the pipe to do and then we started on the project. First step, ease the edges of the disk.

Next we found the center of the disk and drilled the holes for the fixture to attach the pipe to the disk.

Next we attached the fixture and tightened the bolts/nuts.

We then worked on the upholstering.

We attached the pipe and tested the height.

Here is the proud builder.

He’s been using it all over the house all day long. It goes to school on Monday.

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School Project for Mitchell

Smurfing Good Woodworker

glennth — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:11:44 +0000

The other day, Xander (12) and Mitchell (10) and I were out doing a few errands. I needed to feed them and they defaulted to McD’s after a very lack luster discussion. I don’t think they were too hungry.

The boys are well beyond happy meals and the toys but once in a while, the size/amount of the food is what they want and so that’s what we get. I thought it was funny when I saw the toy was this:

A True Luthier Experience

glennth — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 21:38:51 +0000

Today I wanted to tackle the other half of my 2nd Guitar build, specifically the binding and purfling. The first side/back side went fairly well and lessons were learned. I was very hopeful on tacking the second side/top side.

As I was going out to my shop, I asked my oldest (Xander, 12 years old) if he wanted to come and help me figuring an extra pair of hands couldn’t hurt. Of course, the ears on my youngest (Mitchell, 10 years old) perked up and he wanted to join us. Off we went into the vast unknown and predictions completely thrown out.

While I was prepping things for the install (getting tape pre-cut, glue pored and ready, brush for glue, cleared area for the glue up) I discussed how they could help. I assigned one of them to take pictures. Xander signed up for that. Here is his self portrait. You can see how focused he is on photo’s of the build and no goofing off. Please note that he took about 50 pictures and only about 15 were in focus enough to use.

Once jobs were assigned, we began. Through out the glue up pictures, you will see Mitchell who was my sus-luthier. I had Mitchell help with the glue and getting me tape and then finally attaching the rubber to clamp everything down.

During the process, we had a minor disaster happen. The purfling consists of 3 pieces and the middle piece decided to break when we had gotten to the second side. The boys were both incredibly helpful and I think we resolved it though we won’t know till the clamps and tape come off. I’m most worried about the large round at the bottom of the body on the cutaway side. I may have to do another patch it if doesn’t look good. Next came the clamping.

Because of the small disaster, it was a bit stressful but overall, I hope that I can convince them to help me more often when I’m in the shop. It was a good experience for them and I think they both had some fun while it was going on (except for the bit of cussing when the middle purfling broke off and bit more when it broke a second time).

School Project – Science

glennth — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:20:09 +0000

This year one of my volunteer areas is helping Xander’s 5th grade class in science. Sometimes this is preparation work and sometimes it is in class room help. I’ve been doing it for about a week and have been enjoying it a lot. The kids seem to be having fun.

This week Xander’s teacher asked me to prep and experiment for testing how leverage works. I am posting this here because it loosely involves woodworking – ok it’s only Popsicle sticks but still…

Below is the prototype of what I needed to make. It’s a Popsicle stick with 2 cross members (1 cm in length) and gradient marks 1 cm apart from the lowest cross member. This will allow them to adjust the fulcrum point on the Popsicle stick.

Here are some shots at different stages. I used a 2 part glue. It’s messy and I really don’t like to use it (you have to wear gloves and it smells) but it’s instant so I could get it done all in 1 day. I had to glue up about 100 of these.

Woodworking with my son

glennth — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 04:26:25 +0000

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.