After a few attempts to bend fine strips into curves, I gave up and resorted to the scroll saw.
Junk is stuff you have no use for. Here is a blade that was destined for land fill, so was the timber. Junk can be reclassified! The teeth have been ground smooth and the weight of the blade gives the table a nice stability. In making this there was a nice exploration of cutting compound…
Decisions of Children A retailer wanted a morning’s activity with children.Making children happy isn’t difficult; they love doing cool stuff. When given a choice of projects they apply assumptions passed on by their parents. It is fun to present them with a boy’s cliché, a girl’s cliché and a gender non specific alternative. They were presented…
Good Ideas Don’t Need to be Complicated Serving Tray For an object to complete the journey from initial musings to touchable reality requires a certain fidelity, on my part, to the original idea. Discouragements take the form of excessively complex prototypes. It is difficult to let simplicity rule. The journey of the serving tray couldn’t be shorter….
Simple Machines Blogging takes time and my recent past has involved a sick wife and a new grandchild. Suburban life is rich with texture. It can make blogging take a back seat. Following is a report of a nice afternoon in my shed with my son! My disabled friends haven’t been ignored, the next blog…
My friends were impressed by the notion that our train’s carriages could be hooked together and towed around. It failed, however, in that each woodworker could only take home a single carriage; they had nothing to tow. At the end of the train project, and experiencing a flush of overconfidence, I asked staff for inspiration. They requested a fire…
Sharing with Good People Sam is a wonderful helper in my disability woodwork lessons. This basket is her idea. She rattled her head until the idea came then generously passed it on to me. Woodwork is fascinating and sharing it is rewarding. BUT the reward is doubled when people in the workshop are enthusiastic. When the enthusiasm is…