|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Workshop for kids
|
 |
|
Introducing children to woodworking fun
|
|
|
By Steven Maxwell, illustration by Paul Perreault
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
see detailed illustration on next page
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
After spending six hours a day in the classroom during the school year, most kids need help warding off boredom once summer arrives. Working from a home office and fathering four children has made that clear to me. The good news is the constant mantra of “I'm bored” can change to “Dad, look at this!” with help from a workshop-savvy parent. Simple tools, a place to work and a nudge in the right direction often do the trick.
Over the past dozen years, I've introduced children to woodworking in the classroom, at sleepovers, during workshop birthday parties and at after-school youth groups, and I've reached some surprising conclusions.
Until kids are 11 or 12 years old, most are as happy making shavings as anything else. You don't need a bunch of easy-to-make projects-at least, not at first. A place to plane, saw and drive screws keeps them happy. As skills develop, projects become more attractive, but even then, the best ones come from the imaginations of the kids themselves, no matter how impractical.
There are six things I've found especially useful for kids' shop sessions: a folding workstation at kid height; planes and spokeshaves; impact drivers, screws and large blocks of wood; leather, leather punches and sewing tools; and an assortment of hammers, screwdrivers, pencils and decorative punches.
A solid place to hold wood is the essential starting point for woodworking with kids, and my favourite is the Triton Super Jaws. I own three of them, plus a Black & Decker Workmate. Kids under eight or nine need help opening and closing the Super Jaws, but its weight and three-legged stance make it very stable. Clamp a clear piece of pine into the jaws, hand a kid a sharp smoothing plane, then run for the broom and dustpan. One determined eight-year-old at a kid's drop-in centre at which I volunteer reduced a three-foot-long 1x3 to a pile of shavings in about 15 smiling minutes. Well-tuned hand planes and spokeshaves are both terrific confidence boosters because they yield lots of visible results for someone who's just learning. They also give kids safe opportunities to use sharp tools, since so little of the blade is exposed.
The best way I've found to introduce kids to power tools is with a cordless impact driver, a handful of 1 1/2"-long #8 screws and a 12"-long chunk of softwood log. Impact drivers keep screwdriver tips engaged with screw heads much more reliably than ordinary cordless drills. Start kids off by driving screws by hand into the end grain of the log, then switch them over to the impact driver with help. There's nothing like struggle in measured quantities to underscore the value of a power tool.
As well, I've discovered kids find leatherwork a blast. You can turn them loose making patterns on leather scraps using metal punches and hammers, although kids under 12 need help making pouches, cases and wristbands.
With a patient nudge in the right direction, most young people can easily enjoy some self-directed creativity over the summer holidays. And aside from making things more pleasant for everyone between the end of June and the beginning of September, it's also a great way to introduce the next generation to the fun and value of working with your hands.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
