Wednesday, April 02, 2025

Doing and making do.

As of today we're being hit with tariffs that will likely raise the prices on everything we buy or choose to live without. In the meantime, there is no better time to learn to make the things we need. 

In my woodshop I'm finishing a few things that are made to last a century or more, reducing our yearly investment in them. And we hope they'll be useful to users past the time generally allotted for things from the big box store that are making their way to landfills.  

When we make things for ourselves, we are also learning and growing ourselves. When we make things, whether a box, the table it sits on, or dinner, we're shaping the space around us and the neighborhoods in which we live. We thereby become better neighbors and better friends.

We may pay a bit more for hand crafted things that last and build the communities in which we live. Wisdom can come through the making of beautiful and useful things.

Not a bad deal. '

I learned yesterday about an article about making Legos that I wrote being published in Make Magazine, and an essay that I wrote that will be in The Hedgehog Review from the University of Virginia. I'll let you know when these are available for your viewing.

Make, fix and create...

Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Making round tenons on Shopsmith

This video is about using the Veritas tenoner and my 1948 model 10 E  Shopsmith to make round tenoned parts.

Make, fix and create...

Monday, March 31, 2025

Making half lapped dividers

This video is about making half lapped dividers for jewelry box drawers.

Make, fix and create...

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Hinges

Today in the small metals building at ESSA I made a box hinge, proving to myself I could make one. 

You could, too.

Make, fix and create...

Saturday, March 22, 2025

Assembling a "torsion table"

Assembling an "torsion table" made of white oak.

Make, fix and create...

Friday, March 21, 2025

tables

While it is obvious that children develop through certain stages when getting their teeth early in childhood, losing them at a later age and as permanent teeth replace them, the dates at which they do so, are not exact. 

While some toddlers take off walking at 9 months and some do so at 13 months is not a mark of shame or anything else when it comes down to the parenting of kids and what they'll become in later life. Your pediatrician will tell you that if you are listening. Kids develop more or less at all ages and the gulf between developmental landmarks widens despite the efforts made to pull loose ends together. So by the time they hit school age they're not alike. If you are lucky and have two, you'll soon learn they're not alike.

And yet, when it comes to reading, parents and teachers are having conniption fits if a child is not reading on schedule and as required for what the've gotta learn to do next. Poor kid! The pressure is on. You don't want to get behind the class, or let that happen to your kid.  Do you?

A big mistake folks make in education is a misunderstanding of the word "class". Just because students all fall upon a certain age range, does not mean they are at the same levels of readiness in reading or anything else. Class should be understood as an illusion. But I can assure you that all children are imitative. They do what they see others do, and if you are a reader, your child will become one also at the age most appropriate to them. Pressure needs not be applied. But read to your children.  Then take them to the wood shop so that they'll have something interesting to write about.

Today I've been in the shop assembling a couple tables and learning just a bit more of the process.

Make, fix and create...

Tuesday, March 18, 2025