This is initially going to sound crazy but here goes.
Grade school kids brooms "huge vacuum cleaner" (their term for "dust collector").
Now the words - kids, cleaning, dusting - and the phrase "tidying" up don't normally go together - when they're at home. But in a SHOP...
Maybe it's ALL THAT POWER - dust collector's muted roar, the sound of a large volume of air being sucked into a four inch hose, the way things magically disappear as the end of the hose approaches them or the sound of small pieces of all sorts of things rattling their way through the pipes on their way to who knows where.
All of my "stationary" tools are on wheels and normally reside against a wall. They get pulled out when used and push back when done - leaving wood residue behind them. Out of sight, out of mind. But, after a kid, or a team of kids have sucked everything that they can reach into that four inch hose, they start looking UNDER and BEHIND things.
In BIG VACUUM CLEANER mode, kids become prospectors searching for the Mother Load. Discovering all the sawdust that collects under a cabinet saw is a cause for squeeling rejoicing. That will prompt a search through my "sticks and dowel" storage tubes for an arm extender to get to the otherwise inaccessible sawdust. And like gold miners, they'll stick with "the gold vein" until it's all gone.
When they discover more "treasures" behind the tools on wheels they'll hound you until you move them out of the way so they can continue their prospecting.
After finding and taking care of everything the dust collector can handle, they find brooms and start sweeping small to medium cut offs into two or three piles - to be gone through for later "glue stuff together, use your imagination, sculpture/projects" The rejects go in a scrap box for kindling and "the good stuff" goes into each one's large zip lock stash bag.
When "the room full of heavy stuff that generates sawdust" has been picked clean they move on to the "quiet gluing and bug spitting room" (bug spit to them is shellac to the rest of us - but bug spit sounds cooler). Here they can't use the HUGE VACUUM CLEANER - they know curlies will clog it up (earlier learning experience) - so it's brooms and brushes. The interesting curlies get saved for a future creative project and the rest get stuffed in a "fireplace fire starter stuff" bag. All those little pieces that dovetails and tenons create are each examined carefully for some wonderful use, the rejects going in a kindling box.
As a bonus for me, they also find every nut, bolt, screw and anything else I'd dropped and couldn't find. Those go in the "stuff that was found and will be sorted out and put away later" can. One of these discoveries will prompt a "what's this and what's it for" question and one of my "too much information" lectures. I've learned to pay attention, so when their eyes start to glaze over I let them get back to The Hunt.
In less than an hour the cleaning tornado moves on, other games to play. I'm left with a nice clean shop (it's still cluttered but relatively clean) bags of kids project parts, a bag of fire lighting curlies and a box of kindling. I'm also exhausted and inspired.
Exhausted because I've had to mediate at least a dozen "he got to vacuum for 10 minutes and I only got to vacuum for a minute", "I found that first and she took it", "why can't I use the push broom this time?", "she says this is from a pin socket and I say it's from a tail socket" disputes.
Exhausted because I've had to watch them like a hawk to keep them from bumping their heads while crawling under power equiptment searching for treasure, trying to move a wheeled cart supporting a disk and spindle sander away from the wall to get to who knows what behind it ...
The inspiration comes from listening to all the wonderful ideas they have for a piece of scrap they found and saved.
Inspired because they got me to look for useful stuff in what would otherwise be "just scrap".
For those who'e had their teeth on edge, worrying about kids in the shop:
The sharp handtools are in wall hanging tool cabinets behind a SCMS station and are out of reach of kids and, with the doors closed - out site, out of mind.
All power tools are unplugged, and those that can be "locked down" are locked down BEFORE the human tornadoes get started.
I've got one of those powerful magnates on a stick things and use it when emptying the cyclone garbage can - finding the iron bearing parts that shouldn't have been vacuumed up in the first place.
To date there's been only one injury. While crawling around under the sliding table of my combination machine (a Robland X31 for the curious) looking for more sawdust to vacuum up, and despite my repeated "watch your head" warnings, one girl tried to get up while under the sliding table and dinged her eyebrow.
That prompted a "que tip and peroxide - neopsorene
- big gauze eyepatch with four big pieces of tape to hold it in place - just for dramatic effect - medical emergency production with an audience enjoying every act of the three act drama, The star of this production, with her "eye make up" was in all her glory, basking in the attention of her fans - "Does it really hurt bad?" - "You gonna have to get stitches?" - "Think you'll lose your eye?"
Of course the tape and the gauze came off before she went home and her "gaping wound" lost some of it's shock value - a shiny neosporened eyebrow just isn't all that noteworthy.
Maybe, in addition to eye protection, ear muffs rubber gloves and safety glasses, I should add a helmet or two.
Nothing to buy, no slick jig or fixture, no new use for an existing tool- a single, free in terms of dollars, shop improvement. Clean shop and another one of those priceless experiences.
charlie b