Grandson Projects

  Unless you have grandchildren you will not understand this blog. You will not understand the joy that I feel when my Grandchildren want to build something in the work shop with their Opa.

 Keiran and Clara arrived last weekend for a three day visit, after they checked out their new bunk beds and played with the cats,  K decided that he and I needed to build a "cat castle" on which Jr. Cat could play.

 Kieran, who is six, designed this climbing thing on a piece of paper and then searched out the wood scraps with which to build this thing.

 Yes, it is ugly, and mostly not very square ( I opted not to interrupt the flow of work by constantly squaring up the stock, that involve power tools and all K can do is watch) but...Kieran drove all the screws to hold it together. He also learned about corner brackets and pocket holes. Further, I put 
some of this together with nails so that he had to drill pilot holes and then drive the nails with his condo hammer. 

  Our Grandchildren don't come here that often so there is not much continuity in Kieran's workshop education.  He began his workshop life helping Opa clean up, a job that his four year old sister has since taken over. We have worked on plenty of projects over the last two years and each time I try and introduce a new thing while re-enforcing known skills. It is pretty tough since a little kid wants thing to happen immediately. K is just now beginning to accept that glue takes time to set.  His initial solution was to tell me to use tape instead of glue.

 Now projects have a plan drawn, he is getting better at that and this time he talked about looking down from the top and from the side on the plan he drew. And he is getting so that he can swing a hammer, that is difficult because he hasn't do much to give him hand strength.

 On the next day we undertook another project. He said he would rather work in the shop than go bike riding since he could bike ride at home but there was no shop in which he could work. The second project was interesting for two reasons.  First he decided that it should be painted, usually paint is too slow and our projects go unfinished.

the green section is cargo bay doors that open!

 The bay doors were painted with a small roller, he then decided that he would go back to a brush, and like so many kids he likes black paint. 

 The second important part of this project was the cargo that he made.

 These are the missiles that are carried in the bottle rocket. K has carefully labelled them C for cruise, R for regular and the ones with wings are LR long range. What makes these little sticks of wood a break through is he cut them all from longer pieces by him self.

 We marked the length of the pieces with a tape measure and a square then we clamped the wood to the bench and he cut the pieces. I have been trying to figure out how to enable a small boy to cut wood and I finally figured out the solution.

Dovetail Saw

  This small saw and small pieces of wood meant that K was able to cut his own pieces of wood, then he drilled pilot holes for the cross pieces and we glued and nailed them together. 

 I know that this was a maudlin sort of blog entry for some, but nothing matches the joy and satisfaction of working in the shop with my Grandchildren. It brings back memories of the way I worked in my Opa's workshop with him, along time ago. 

cheers Ian (Opa)