Help the kids are taking over my workshop

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Pleased to hear your kids have invaded!

They'll remember it for a very long time. Get a big bag of sweets, let them choose the radio station (be brave!!) Make some hot chocolate - travel mug type things to keep it warm and sawdust free and enjoy it.

It's just about getting nice for an evening fire and marshmallow toasting - show them how to split scraps of wood with an axe to round off the day!

All the best
 
Hornbeam":2dyospl6 said:
Both my kids 17 and 13 have decided they want to make something in my workshop so half of my limited time is spent helping them make a jewellery box and some fretsaw animals respectively.


Brilliant stuff!
 
Fortunately or not as the case may be, I have 4 daughters none who have shown any inclination into any sort of manual endeavour and my shed remains a sanctuary. I do realise the folly in my discouraging them in the past but being asked to do jobs for them now is a small price to pay for the years of peace and quite I have had!!

Having said all that, I do lend them tools, give guidance and occasionally watch over as they attempt to do something now they have all flown the nest but they all have a "I can do that if my dad can attitude" and also you tube for guidance, perhaps my outlook and life would be different had they being boys.

Now waiting impatiently to impart any knowledge on grand kids when they arrive!!
 
It is never too late to learn!
A friend who sometimes is active on this forum started his life as a total computer nerd. When he was approaching 30 he got interrested in doing some basic woodwork and in less than 10 years he has developed into a rather skilled hobby craftsman. Lately he has branched out into metalwork and last time I visited he was busy rebuilding an old Deckel milling machine from the bottom up.

However anyone who gets started in childhood will get one hell of a head start.
I started out doing woodwork togeter with dad at age 4. Felled my first trees at age 5 or 6. Started driving a tractor (Massey-Ferguson 35) at age 6. Learned to use planer and thicknesser and lathe and bandsaw and table saw in school at age 14-16.
Started using the chainsaw at age 15. Spindle moulders at age 17. Still have 10 fingers and 10 toes.
If I ever get children of my own I want to give them the same oportunity as I got if there is any interrest at all.
 
My 7 year old has his own "workshop" area - filled with pieces of wood which gradually get smaller over time. Not much furniture is produced, but the joy in making "things" out of wood and (lots) of nails is incredible.

Apart from hammer and a big mixed box of nails, the next best tools are a simple spokeshave and a safe knife (Hultafors safety knife with no sharp point) - hours of fun using those. Sometimes I let them borrow my spoon carving knife but that needs focused supervision.
 
I have a 20 foot long shed, that was specifically built for boat building. I came home once from working away to discover teenage daughter had started doing her school artwork in said shed. Over the years she has taken over more space, to cope with lino printing, a freezer full of dead animals that are gradually being stuffed, and other various art type things. The advantage of this is that she hates the cold and has bought a huge infra red heat, which takes the chill of nicely. The latest planned job is to clear and insulate the garage so that she can have it as an art studio. Then i will get my shed back. Since she was little she has always been in my various sheds and workshops. When she was little one of her favourite things was to use vast quantities of pva glue to stick offcuts and saw dust together, she still uses loads of pva glue but for different things nowadays.
My wife also has her own workshop in the garden.
 
This might well trigger a few people but in the interests of fairness here we go...

Routinely teaching students now things that you learned at that age is in general, a dead-end. It would be like insisting they all used log tables and slide rules, abacuses and slate tablets. Very relavent at the time, but today, perhaps a touch less. Are students now taught how to use hand tools, lathes, bandsaws, 3-axis manual milling machines etc... yes actually. Perhaps not in every establishment, but they really are in some places, in those same places they are also taught computer aided design and modern manufacturing methods, why? Because that’s how things are made now, like your car, the concrete and bricks in your house and the computer you are reading this on. Is there a mountain of paperwork to do to enable this, yes, obviously, because taking a risk with someone else’s child is not something to be taken lightly, one slip with a Stanley knife could cause enough soft tissue damage to ruin someone’s fine motor skills for the next 80-years, if it happened and the establishment said “we didn’t think it mattered because in our day we did it all the time”, I can’t imagine that being viewed too well and rightly so. Many of us have seen what a large machine can do to people too, so the stakes are much higher still, but teaching students how to work safely around machines needs to be done and it really is still.

I do agree students need to have a balanced education and I do find it odd that things like cooking are taught at schools... isn’t that something for the parents? Well, maybe, but everyone’s got different parents. I, like many people here was brought up with tools and so naturally I found the level I was taught at school somewhat basic, for others they had never even seen a saw. You also don’t need long to teach someone how to use a saw in at least a basic way at any stage of their life, the same cannot be said for the fundamentals of language, maths and physics which will be of much more benefit to the individual and society than producing classes full of expert spoon carvers who can’t add up, though of course no sane person would ever propose such a thing, as we all prefer our computer designed, machine made, metallurgically designed metal spoons.

Not all kids are going to be interested in making physical things, the world is changing, whilst we still need those things, we also need the future and it may not be made the old fashioned way.

A
 
All of that is very true Mr Tiddles and I agree with it, certainly my 6 year old granddaughter will live in a very different world to what I experienced and she's very skilled with the usual tech products like ipads and 'phones, on the other hand she's also hands on and loves writing, drawing, Lego, craft stuff and shown an interest in working with wood.
She's also excellent at maths, reading and writing, way ahead of her age but the argument could be also made that in a world where your phone calculator will do the maths for you, spellcheck if you send a message and even write it for you via voice recognition maybe basic maths and english aren't quite so important either given the rate technology is advancing.

Won't be long before the chip in your hand, now available and being used is widespread and you won't even need to wipe your backside yourself. :lol:
 
Some good points by 'TheTiddles'

I'll chip in with something to mull over.

There are of course fundamentals that are important, such as Maths and English and Science. When some one grows up and gets their own flat for the first time - it's not viable to have a builder and handyman on call for everything!

Having the confidence to drill a couple of holes (centre punch them first because you were taught that to keep the drill on target). Being able to saw along a line to fix a bit of fence panel, glue and clamp some wood together or remove a sharp edge with sandpaper or a file. I think those skills are just as important for keeping the money in your pocket once you've earned it. A genuine life skill that really has an important place.

Children do learn skills quickly, but we all know how many tools you need just to mark out, hold and trim down a couple of pieces of wood! They need time in a 'maker' setting to understand how all the different tools function and learn from their mistakes.

Definitely all for the high tech. CNC machines offer amazing opportunities to tech savvy kids, but I think it really has a valuable place in schools.
 
Hugopuk":2of8qu37 said:
...... I do lend them tools, give guidance and occasionally watch over as they attempt to do something now they have all flown the nest but they all have a "I can do that if my dad can attitude".......

My dad didn't encourage me. I learnt nothing from him about woodworking, other than seeing that it was possible for ordinary people to make nice stuff out of wood. Just seeing people handle simple tools and make decent bits of furniture etc is enough, I reckon. When the time came that I needed stuff doing in my first flat, with next to no money I had no choice other than buy a few simple tools and get on with it........and I've been learning ever since. Now my daughters have their first properties, they (and partners) are starting to gather a collection of tools and get on with doing it themselves, in part because they've seen from me that it's possible.
 
MikeG.":708bip7n said:
My dad didn't encourage me. I learnt nothing from him about woodworking, other than seeing that it was possible for ordinary people to make nice stuff out of wood. Just seeing people handle simple tools and make decent bits of furniture etc is enough, I reckon. When the time came that I needed stuff doing in my first flat, with next to no money I had no choice other than buy a few simple tools and get on with it........and I've been learning ever since. Now my daughters have their first properties, they (and partners) are starting to gather a collection of tools and get on with doing it themselves, in part because they've seen from me that it's possible.
My dad did encourage me but his passion was old cars and I hated being out in the cold changing engines and gearboxes. He refused to be beaten and I developed a similar attitude to fixing things rather than just skip them. There's a huge satisfaction in finding a solution to a problem or making a part from scratch.

Like you, my 2 kids have their own houses and quite capable in most cases of doing their own general repairs, anything more ambitious of course necessitates a 'phone call to dad. :roll:

My daughter has recently started using a scrollsaw after I gifted her my old one and has asked that I teach her to turn pens and my son has requested I leave my old K5 to him when I pop me clogs, not quite ready for that bit yet! :lol:
 
Aiden (Tiddles)'s reply is a good one; as an ex- teacher, I can see the justification from our lords and masters behind it. What Aiden might have added is that the modern taught methods are a) used by successful businesses- on a larger scale - to speed up production and thus make more money, so exposing pupils to them helps later when they enter the workplace. B) hand methods are slow- ask Custard!! - so there is a time pressure with 12-24 kids per class and maybe only 60-90 minutes per week to get the pupils the satisfaction of making summat? [Modern kids; instant gratification??]. Thus, quicker, more accurate, preparation is a boon.
There is also the subsidiary issue for smaller schools, that support technicians may not be full time for their department, may not even be wood-savvy, or may be absent altogether!
Finally, we live in a dynamic (meaning fast-changing) world. If we did not reflect the capabilities of said brave new world (sorry Aldous) to bright, enquiring young things, we might never see what they could make out if it and what discovery they might bring forth. I'm all for preserving hand methods and philosophy, but I personally believe those should be a choice after seeing what is contemporary best practice.

Sam, partial Luddite, partial arthritic, grateful for power tools.
 

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