My own sons were long grown and gone before I got much chance to put together a decent wood shop.
But I am about to 'inherit' a boy just entering his teens. His Dad, a friend of mine, died almost 2 years ago and lately the boy has been drifting enough to worry some of the adults who know him. So his uncle asked if I would try to show him the ropes in a woodshop. In turn, his Mom asked if I would help him with his math.
He and his uncle will be here in a few days to begin and I'm wondering where I should start ...
I have spare PPE and some of the guys introduced him to welding last fall, so he is not a complete dufuss when it comes to following instructions -- in fact, he helped feed stock for me while I was working a crimping press to build a LONG wrought iron fence. He'll do what he is told.
I have probably a ton (literally) of poplar 3x3x42's (shipping dunnage that has been jointed and planed) and 2-300 sq ft of cdx rejects (also dunnage) before we start touching the 'private stock'.
I also have roughly two cords of turning logs in various local hardwoods that we could re-saw for project wood.
I want to work math, especially geometry and trig, into the projects so that they serve as tools to teach much more than slap-it-together wood work. I mean, I could cut the pieces of a birdhouse from a plank, give him a hammer and some nails and walk away ... but all he'd learn from that is to hate wood working.
I'd like to involve him in the planning part of setting up a cut on either the table saw or the bandsaw ... including starting with a mis-aligned machine (miter gage with the pointer moved?) and trouble-shooting the resulting error.
I dunno ... mostly I'm just thinking in print, trying to get the creative juices flowing ... it has been a long time since I've had a boy under my wing.
The thing is ... although I have worked as a die-maker, I only have a couple years in the woodshop myself. Thus "The List" of what I don't know dwarfs the list of the things I am certain about. I can show him the math okay ... but I am still puzzling out the order of operations.
Y'all jump in here with your suggestions and thoughts just whenever you feel like ... I'm all ears.
Bill