I have a certain affection for people
who are interested in learning and it doesn't matter to me what it is
they want to learn but if it's woodworking then I'm especially
interested. Sure, I could teach appliance repair with equal
enthusiasm but there aren't any cool tools involved with that.
Then you have the school systems across the land dropping their woodshop
and industrial arts programs like they were crawling with lice, which
leaves someone like me with a pretty dim view of kids missing out on
some real good fun.
On this particular day, however, my
outlook on the plight our current younger generation is facing was
brightened dramatically the very second Hunter stepped into the Twisted
Knot Woodshop. He not only impressed me with his attentiveness,
but his zeal and insatiable desire to learn something was like a breath
of fresh air.
Hunter is eleven-years-old and he's
the son of a gal who is a testament to the feeding of character given to
this young man.
Raelynne stopped by the shop some time
ago along with Hunter and his sister, Madison, whom they call Maddie, in tow.
She stopped by to loan me her five-bazzilion dollar Nikon Camera so I
could take some decent pictures because my stupid digital camera decided
to go on a strike.
After visiting for awhile I looked
down and told Hunter, "Hey, you know what? I was about your age
when I first started woodworking, if you ever wanna hang out here
in the shop or maybe come make some project then you get your mother to drop you
off, Ok?"
Well...this past Thursday my marker
got called in.
Riiinnnnngggg! "Good morning,
This is the World famous and spectacularly divine Twisted Knot Woodshop,
how may I direct your call?"
"Still only World famous? I
thought you'd be spread across the Milky Way Galaxy by now?"
"Yeah, I'm working on it but the inept
jerks at our ISP can't get it together - the other day I found their
dish was pointing at the Betelgeuse region instead of the Andromeda sector!
They're a buncha dummies over there.
What's up with you?"
"Ohh, Hunter has a project he wants to
do and school just let out for the summer, so do you think he can come over tomorrow?"
"You bet he can! I'm finishing
up a project and should be done with that around 1100 is that good?" Turns
out Hunter had so much excitement bottled up that if I had said 0230
then that time would have been
just as dandy for him.
After Raelynne dropped him off our
first order of business was to hold a little safety meeting and, unlike
most kids his age who are completely ignoring what you're saying, Hunter was looking
directly at me and if my words were water he was absorbing them like he
was a sponge. I opened a cabinet door and showed him the box that
is clearly labeled "Safety Nazi Stuff"...it contains safety glasses
and ear plugs.
He got quite a good giggle outta that.
"Nazi?" He said with
raised eyebrows.
"Yeah," I said, looking around,
"There's all kinds of 'em running around here - there's the cleaning
Nazi, the tool maintenance Nazi, the turn-off-the-lights Nazi, the close-the-door-it's-cold-outside Nazi and a whole lot more - I got me a
Gestapo here."
"Who are they?"
"Well, son...they look a lot like
me...I had them cloned."
Now, before I get much further I have
to back up a bit to the phone call I had with Raelynne, "He wants to
make a baseball display shelf."
"Swell, sounds like a great starter
project to me, see y'all tomorrow morning." Then, since I'm a Boy
Scout and our motto is "Be Prepared", and since I didn't have the
slightest clue how big an official baseball is, I went to the Internet
to find out and wrote down the ball's minimum and maximum diameters, the
latter being 2.94", which was close enough to 3" for me to be able to
assist Hunter in his design.
You can't imagine how amazed I was
when Hunter arrived at the shop being fully prepared to take on his
project - he was carrying a tiny baseball bat and an official baseball.
My first thought was, "Man, I'm outta my league here...this little guy
is already a step ahead of me!"
"Alright, Hunter..." I said
while leading him over to the workbench, "...the first stage of any
project is to have a plan" and went on to explain how important it is to
have a drawing complete with dimensions so I showed him how to make an
isometric drawing of a board. Before my very eyes he quickly drew
the bottom shelf to hold the baseballs and the upper shelf, complete
with drawn slots, to hold the bat handles and with a little help he
worked out the spacing dimensions all on his own.
It was his design, his plan and the
decision to paint rather than stain and the selection of wood to use was
all left for him to choose. At several points during the process I
would show or explain something or ask him questions. For
instance, when he was done laying out the hole locations for the balls I
asked him to point out the tools on the bench and tell me what they
were. Or, when a moment presented itself, I would describe the
definition of a woodworking term; cross grain, waste side and quite a
few others.
"Hunter? I asked off the cuff,
"What's the most important thing in a shop?"
He looked up at me with bright eyes
and said, "Safety!" And every single time he was about to use a
power or air tool he would reach for his glasses and put them on - no
prodding necessary.
I swear, that boy is a ham in front of a
camera. I'd fetch it, aim it at him and he'd stop what
he was doing, look up and smile or profile like he was in a photo shoot.
"Don't look at me you goof, I'm taking pictures for your mom not
Gentlemen's Quarterly magazine, do what you're doing."
Later, when we got to the finish room,
I threw him a trick question, "Hunter, besides your eyes, ears and
fingers, what's the next important thing to protect?" And, as I
helped him put on the "OSHA approved, I-look-like-a-locust" respirator
he said, "Aww...mom's GOTTA have a picture of this!" Then I told
him, "Now's yer chance to sound like Darth Vader!"
I do not believe in coddling a kid nor
do I believe they should be treated like one when operating dangerous
things. But we had a special problem to overcome and I handled
that problem like I do any other by adapting, improvising and overcoming
it.
See, he has a slight vertical
dimension issue so to bring him up in the world I found him a stump - a
milk crate - that was previously being used to hold some woodworking
magazines. I emptied it, turned it upsidedown and presto...it was
as if him and me was playing an xBox video game and we, as a team, got
an instant height achievement award! His eyes lit up like a
Christmas tree when I brought it over to him.
The first time we moved to another
machine I said, "Go get your stump." I didn't have to say it
again.
Before each machine or hand or power
tool was used we took a moment to discuss it and I pointed out the
dangerous parts. At the same time I told him about all the good
things and he came to terms with both.
Before you look at the following
pictures I want you to know that none of them are staged - each machine
you see Hunter at, each nail gun and each power tool you see in his
hands, he is using and it's turned on.
You can almost palpate the concentration
here. Notice the pencil in his ear? I told him a pencil is a
lot cheaper to lose than a finger and to use that to clear the blade
away.
Here he is on his stump. It doesn't
bother him none.
The jigsaw was a moment where I got pangs
of fear and I initially had the speed turned way down. After I
watched him hold the saw the way you see here, I gave him full speed
ahead and turned it to the highest setting.
Even if you can't see his face, you can
clearly see the intent he is focusing on this cut.
We had a couple of coordination issues
with the rasps but I showed him how his upper body can move separately
from his hips downward.
Now he's got it!
The planer didn't scare him at all.
Notice the ear plugs.
Nail guns? Shucks...it ain't
nothing but a thing! Any chance of nailing my fingers? Nope,
I got both my hands up here.
More rasping...he almost forgot the
corners. If that look on his face doesn't say 'I'm serious here!'
then I don't know what does.
"Silver is good for me!" He said,
"I can paint like baseballs and stuff on the sides!" He barely
missed a spot...overflowed a couple but no big deal, it was wiped off
and he carried on.
You can't beat a smile like this...no
way, no how.
After the cleaning Nazi left and every
tool was put away, we sat down on the bench and had a little talk.
"So, what do you think, was it fun?"
And, with that, I'll let you ponder on
his response.
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