Sunday, November 02, 2014

More student boxes...

a simple miter jig guide and saw.
Students use tape to assemble and glue.
Simply lovely.
Richard Bazeley, in Australia has been making boxes with his 7th year woodworking students using a simple miter fence to guide in cutting parts to length. I like the simplicity of his guide. It would be relatively easy to make. I would have a longer fence so that a stop block could be used to control the length of the miter cuts, for as we know there are two ways that miter joints can be off. Either the angle or the length of the part.

In any case this will lead to more experimentation in the Clear Spring School wood shop.

It is my belief that no student should graduate from high school without making something beautiful, useful and that would last their whole lives long. What could be better to meet that goal than a wooden box? If that goal can be met without the use of power tools, then fewer excuses can be offered by school administrators who use student safety as their excuse and keep children in a bubble of inexperience.

Of course the true value of the student work is not in the object made, but in the student having made it. To have achieved success in making something beautiful and lasting would transform a young man or woman from being an idle consumer to a contributor of societal value. 

In my own wood shop, I have been making boxes, and yesterday I hinged and assembled 85 of the 120 boxes for my special gifts order.

My thanks to Richard, for sharing box making from down under.

Make, fix and create.

1 comment:

  1. I suppose this must be making the rounds in your profession but in case you haven't seen it, it slams international testing pretty hard:

    http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/nov/20/myth-chinese-super-schools/

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