What I did over Christmas Vacation

[Brent Stout]

Before Christmas I had my group of Venture Scouts in my shop to make Christmas Presents for their Mothers. We took two Saturday mornings to do the projects, the first day we cut and glued the staves for the turning blanks, the second Saturday we showed the boys how to use a wood lathe. While some of the boys were on the wood lathe, the others were at my farm shop using the forge to make a BBQ fork for their Dads.
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I had so much fun turning the little treasure boxes with the boys that I looked for another project to do on the lathe. I found some pictures of christmas ornaments on the http://marleyturned.com/ website, and decided to try a few. I ended up with 18 wood christmas ornaments on the tree for Christmas. (They’re kind of habit forming) Here’s a few of them.
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[Norm Zax]

Well done! ...on all accounts.

[John Keeton]

Brent, working with youth is the ultimate in public service. Looks like you were able to expose them to the wonderful world of woodworking in a great way - with some really fine results. Nice boxes, and some really nice Christmas ornaments. And, yes, they are addictive!! I just ordered some kits to make some more of the ones done on a mandrel.

Welcome to the creek, by the way!

[Roland Martin]

Brent, your selfless dedication to youth is priceless. It takes patience to do what you did, unfortunately, not everybody has what it takes to pull this off. Great looking boxes & ornaments as a bonus.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Bet the scouts had a lot of fun turning the boxes and using a forge! What a great experience for all of them!

Nice work on everything! Great looking ornaments! I know they can be addicting - just make sure you don't try any of those little birdhouse ornaments - they are even worse!

[Jeff Nicol]

It looks like you were busy and the boys had a blast creating gifts for their parents. It is always nice to see the older experienced turners sharing the craft and their tools. It is a super thing that you did!

Jeff

[Bernie Weishapl]

Brent the turnings look great but better yet your time with the youngsters is even more priceless.

[Mark Hubl]

Nice work Brent. I am sure the boys had a great time and learned much. I bet the boxes will be treasured by the mom's for a long time.

[Greg Just]

What a great project. My son is in Scouts and I have thought of arranging a similar activity perhaps through the local turning club.

[David E Keller]

Great idea and great execution.

[Baxter Smith]

Great idea! Some of those boys will probaly be turning long after your gone because you took the time now.

[Jack Gaskins]

Looks like you had a great time. Wished I had the turning experience and the time to teach some teenagers woodturning but it would be hard for them to hold a gouge and an XBOX controler at the same time :D.

[Brent Stout]

Thanks for all the nice comments! It’s always interesting working with the boys, they usually complain at first, “were going to do what?” but after they get started you can’t stop them. Several of the boys told me later that they really had fun working on the projects, they especially liked the reaction from their parents when they showed them what they had made.

Some of the boys were very talented with the lathe, after showing them what to do, they went right to work, and wanted more when the project was done, others took a lot more patients, a simple cut that can be done in a few seconds took one boy over a half hour to get right. It’s tempting to take the tool and do it myself, but I’m glad I waited, especially when his mother told me how proud he was of his project, in fact, he gave it to her a week early because he couldn’t wait for Christmas. One of the boys is a Foreign Exchange Student, and he mailed his box to his mother in Germany.