Do you still have any of your early projects?
I found this box, a couple of days ago, my dad helped me build it in
1966. When 1/4" plywood was 1/4" and the brads that continue to hold this together were only put in with a hammer. We had just moved into a new neighborhood and scrap lumber was everywhere. All cuts were made with an old B&D jig saw IIRC. Any way probably my first keep'r. I think I was 11. :~)
This might help.
One more note. I used that box to carry my slot car and controller to the slot car track. ;~)
Leon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
I have an ugly lamp turned on the lathe in Jr High shop class. My dad had it in his office for many years, after he passed on and my Mom moved to a smaller place I ended up with it.
I was probably 12 when I made it. I credit that shop class with starting my interest in woodworking, altho I've since learnt that almost everything we were taught wasn't really correct (a combination of making it simple enough for our age, and keeping us away from chisels and similar sharp things).
John
Leon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
I might have one of my earliest somewhere. It was a wall sconce (sp?) candle holder type deal. I remember all the details of its construction, after all it was just two boards, two screws, and a lesson in shop safety I'll never forget. The scar has faded, but I never let my skin get close to sanders (especially belt sanders).
Interesting thing about this post is that I built two more wall sconces today. Same basic construction, but these I'm going to paint. They're going to hold speakers for a surround sound system.
Puckdropper
By any chance was it Pasadena Slot Car Raceway? Home of multi world record holder P.A. Watson?
I raced there when my kids were young, but it was clear across town. He moved to Katy and we raced there more. PA currently has one heck of a nice place with a King, Hillclimb and a 1/32 club track in West Oaks Mall at the corner of Westheirmer and Highway 6. Just in case you get tired of making sawdust some evening and want something else to do. :)
Regards, Roy
Somewhere in my parents house in White Hall is a cookbook holder I made for Mom in wood shop, circa 1958.
The birdhouse I made her in metal shop was too big to get out the shop door, so had to sell the metal back to the shop teacher.
First lesson in planning ahea d.
No, It was Big 8 Raceway on SPID in Corpus Christi, Texas.
I recall visiting a track in or around 1965 when we visited Houston. The place was HUGE. I live relatively close to West Oaks Mall but seldom go in there. I was unaware they had a track.
Did you survive the sanding unscathed? ;~)
Good topic - thanks Leon. We still have an elm night table and a small pine bookshelf .. ... neither is a source of great pride .. but - - it's been quite a journey - from then - to now ! My woodworking started in a high-school night class -
- Scarborough Ontario ~ 1981. ,.. since then - I've been on-and-off - folk toys, birdhouses, etc .. it's small potatoes - but a great hobby ! John T.
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Nothing way long ago, no. Except some hand tools I bought in 1943.
The oldest made stuff I can think of is some rope stropped blocks circa
1970. Also a couple of belaying pins. The blocks are used sometimes, the pins not so much so. There is also the bed we sleep in every night but that's only 30 years old.
I have that beat by a few years -- I still have a turned maple/walnut lamp which I made in shop class so that would have been circa 1961 or 1962. Other than that I guess the earliest 'real' project would be QS fir box I made around 1983. It has stained end caps but is otherwise finished natural; all of the joinery is concealed tongue-and-groove router stuff with absolutely no fasteners anywhere. Actually, it isn't too bad looking despite using too-thick stock from big-box-store stair tread material because I had no planer (and no plane beyond a Stanley block plane) at the time.
On Saturday, September 26, 2015 at 5:24:03 PM UTC-5, Swingman wrote: r Mom in wood shop, circa 1958.
I laughed so hard I thought I was going to fall off the couch! Too damn fu nny. I was picturing a Gary Larson style cartoon with a puzzled Karl stand ing in from of a mini bus sized bird condo next to a front door with the ca ption being, "First lesson in planning ahead."
My Mom still has something I made for her when I was about 8 in '65. Prett y crude, but it was a recipe holder that was made from some 1/4" plywood sc raps that my came from who knows where. I actually made it because I wante d to give Mom something I made, and I wanted to use my wood burning set. S he has it at the senior center where she lives and I chuckle when I see it. Built with only a saw and hammer, and one piece of sandpaper my Dad let m e have. I burned "RECIPES" on it in some kind of homemade script I thought looked fancy. I still remember how many nails I bent getting them into th at plywood, and how stressed I was that I almost didn't get all of RECIPES burned on the box since I didn't really have any idea of spatial relations.
Robert
I'm still laughing. With out a doubt building something too big still haunts me to this day. There is one piece in particular that would have been given away about 5 years ago had it not been for the insistance of
2, 23 year young men that could conquer any task with enough applied testosterone.
Tough times! That and being "tardy". ;~)
So was that for a really big bird?
Spent the weekend out of town, 45th class reunion, so I'm just now respondi ng.
Other than building fences, repairing barns, etc., my first project was a s ide table, in 9th grade Industrial Arts class. I had no idea what a dowel rod was, then, so on the top of the legs, I carved a dowel protrusion on t he end of the legs, to fit into the tables' hole. The teacher made a poi nt of showing the class what I did. I don't think the table exists anymor e. I think I tossed this table in the fire about 7 yrs ago, when cleaning out the old barn.
I do have my first picture frame, though. It holds a pic of my Dad, who p assed away when I was young. The picture hangs in my old shop. I need t o place it in my newer shop.
On behalf of a non-participant, here, Mom was (girls were) not allowed to t ake shop, when she was in school. She had to wait for her brothers to fin ish the class, before walking home with them. She was able to sneak a proj ect in, while waiting. I'm thinking 1942 she finished high school. She m ade a small book case for her books. She still has the book case.
Sonny
Leon wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
We built a shed in one of the high school shop classes. I remember asking the question about whether it would fit out the door. The door was 10', the shed base (no walls yet) slightly bigger. Don't know what we would have done if we couldn't tilt the thing...
Puckdropper
My Earliest was a chicken coop up against the shop. I was 5 or 6 likely six. I got my drill press / drill / table saw / all in one machine from a newspaper add with the money Granddad left me. I still have parts for it, the all metal high speed motor finally died and I was glad. Holding a high speed drill with your hand and the bearings were 50+ years old took some steel.
The one Mom was proud of was maybe 10/12 somewhere in there when I took a single horn side of a dear rack and mounted it to (threaded the bone!!!) the top of three offset and decreasing diameters of turned oak wood. Then I put Mahogany varnish. It sits in my workroom as both Mom who used it for her necklaces dad kept his bola ties. I use it as a hat rack now.
It was my first turning project - bolt through the center except for the small one that was a face plate screw affixed.
Mart> Do you still have any of your early projects?
------------------------------------------------------------- Our 60th was this month.
Lew
You gotta admit that word doesn't sound good to a six year old coonass kid who'd never heard it before ... shame on that poor SOB.
Mom decided at one time to raise parakeets, and had about a dozen. Grandiose schemes gang aft agley ...
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