Summer Project Time

Summer Project Time

Welcome back!  I’m currently wrapping up my second year teaching a shop class at the high school level.   As I reflect back on this year I feel more confident as to what my class should focus on.  I inherited a f 5000 sf functional woodshop.  It’s been around for the last 60 years, and has support of the school, district, students and parents.  It’s well funded, updated and has pretty much every tool you might want for a woodshop.  This includes:

  • Two sawstop cabinet table saws
  • A miter saw station
  • 4 lathes
  • 3 bandsaws
  • 1 Planer
  • 2 epilog laser engravers
  • 2 router tables
  • 3 CNC routers
  • Fully plumbed dust collection
  • Sanding room, indoor storage….and lots and lots of hand tools
  • I’ve even got a 4’x4’ plasma table

Most small companies would envy the setup I’ve lucked into.  So that’s the problem?  Sounds like there’s everything and then some for a small/medium shop.  There’s nothing wrong with the tools.  They are great quality and provide a lot of diverse functionality.  The problem is the number in front of them.

When it comes down to it, I’m not a small shop.  In fact, if you substitute the word employee for student I have around 60 “employees” that have to function in this space daily.  Furthermore, they don’t specialize in one aspect/tool.  Devin doesn’t just work the miter saw and Emily the table saw, they both need to use both machines…often at the same time (and there are 28 other “employees” in the same boat)


Let me put it another way.  Imagine you’re teaching a math class and here’s what you have:

  • 4 pencils
  • 2 textbooks
  • 1 eraser

These could be the best quality pencils, books and erasers out there, it’s still not enough to provide each student with the materials they need.   We’ll throw in one more wrinkle to the above example and imagine the math teacher only has sheets of paper that cost $8 each.  Think of how those restrictions are going to change the fundamentals of how that class is taught!!  This is one of the fundamental differences in teaching a shop class, vs a more traditional academic course.  This is the reality of anyone who has ever taught a shop class.

So what’s the solution?  The Oprah answer would be the “Everyone gets a table saw!” solution.  Give each kid their own shop space and all the tools that they need.  This obviously falls apart right off the bat.  A shop with 30 table saws, 30 miter saws…it just doesn’t work.

How about project stations?  That could work.  Have kids rotate through various projects that require a variety of non-overlapping tool use.  That is, some kids are doing something that primarily uses the table saw, while others use the miter saw.  I’ve used this method and it can work.  However, it’s a lot to manage on the teacher's end.  Lets say you have 32 kids, divide them into 4 large groups of 8.  You need 4 projects that take about the same amount of time, don’t rely on the same physical needs/space and kids are trained to complete.  This can be done, but it’s limiting.

What often happens?  The kids wait…they stand in line or just wait for machines to open.  Any educator knows that kids without a specific task will find a way to fill the time…often with suboptimal results. 

Ideally, kids have direct access to a tool that can do multiple things.  My go to would be the table saw.  It’s my favorite tool in the shop because of the variety of ways it can be safely used.  You can crosscut, rip cut, bevel cut and build a jig that covers pretty much anything you need.  They also have built in safety features, such as the flesh detection system that sawstop employs.  But they are expensive!  Take up a lot of space and have a real learning curve.  Further, kids aren’t going to walk out of my class and go purchase a $4000 table saw for their own home use if they want to continue wood working.  Also, if we want to get shop based courses into more schools there can’t be a price tag in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Schools are always strapped for cash and so trying to fund a space like mine starting from nothing is pretty much a non starter.

Here is my problem  in a nutshell:

What setup/tool can I use that allows me to duplicate a lot of what the table saw accomplishes, but can scale to the needs of a shop both in terms of space and cost? 

 My answer for now….the circular saw!

What I’m going to build isn’t new.  You can watch lots of videos on circular saw sleds online.  Kreg even sells a prebuilt setup.  However, can I make my own that has the following design guidelines AND develop cost effective projects for students to complete during the year?

Design Guidelines:

  • Safe and easy to understand how to use
  • Cheap (need 8 of them with budget limitations) - $1000 (this is my yearly allotment for shop upgrades so I better make it count)
  • Flexible
  • Secure workholding (no hands!)
  • Cross cut (4’)
  • Rip cut (24”)
  • Easy measure & repeatable cuts
  • Taper Jig
  • Bevel

Material

  • Made from big box store materials (¾” plywood and aluminum rails)
  • Can process ¾” - 1.5” materials.  Basically fence boards and 2x4’s (more on material selection in another post)

Portable

  • The stations have to be able to be put away for other courses like 3D art that also use the shop space.


Here’s what I came up with.  This is actually my 3rd iteration of this build and I know there will be more modifications to come.  

Part of my class is teaching design, which these days translates to CAD.  I’m using Fusion 360, but thinking of transitioning to Onshape (but that’s a conversation for another time).  Right now I’m just trying to get a sense of what the layout could look like.  No matter how long I spend in the computer, I know I’m going to miss something and so I’m not too worried about final dimensions at this point.  The only thing that really matters right now are the fence width and height as I plan to 3D print some attachments to this and so I need final-ish dimensions here.

Let’s get to the build!  I’ve got a lot of ¾” plywood from our mini-golf build and so I’m hoping to repurpose that for these builds.  It’s not great quality, but it’s flat and pretty easy to work with.  Right now I’m going with the DeWalt circular saw.  I’ve already got a class set of DeWalt drills, which means I have the most important part…the batteries!  I’ll cross the Ryobi vs DeWalt bridge down the road.  Right now I just need a functional prototype I can pound on during the summer to see if it really works.


<<INSERT YOUTUBE VIDEO>>


Time to test!  The primary concern I have is around 3 types of cuts.  First is the cross cut.  I want students to be able to quickly set up accurate and repeatable cuts.  Hence, a ruler and stop block.  Cutting it in place provides a perfect distance from when I move the block.  The first two cuts are perfect at 2”.

Next, I need to try a rip cut.  I don’t have a great piece to rip, but I have an old sheet of plywood that’s longer than wide so it’ll do for now.  Easy to clamp, easy to measure and easy to rip.  So far this is 2 for 2.  

The last one I’m going to test now is a random cut.  This is at some angle across the board.  If I was using the table saw I’d have the kids pull out the taper jig s that’s what I’m calling this cut.  Again, easy to line up and easy to cut.  

At this point I’ve got something I can work with.  I don’t know how durable it is, but it seems safe, reliable and intuitive.  It’s also affordable.  I think I can get each for around $130 and that includes $100 on the saw!  They are also portable and easy to store.  This is huge as I’m not the only one in the shop.  There are definite limitations and a “professional” would just use the standard tools, however for getting kids familiar with processing wood and actually making things, this seems to have a ton of potential.

Up next is going to be project development.  I have a goal of 1 plank projects from standard materials like fence boards.  More to come on that down the road…

Here's a link to the build video:

https://youtu.be/-8cp6sWqkuM 

 

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