Skills training questions

[Phil Hansen]

If this is the wrong forum please move.
Thanks.

I live in South Africa and when I grew up I attended woodworking classes
throughout Primary and most of High school. Would of loved to carry on but my preferred subjects did not include woodwork.

In those days we had a thriving apprentice system with technical schools as feeders. This provided a wealth of qualified artisans.
Our "new government and constitution" deems this a waste of time and effort.
Result: No qualified artisans just people who claim they are 'X Y or Z".
It also does not provide anybody at school the opportunity to try out any hand skills.

My thoughts:
I now live in a rural community and although there are a few high class schools around none of them provide any hand skills classes.
There must be a good few kids from those schools as well as the other rural schools who would like to learn hand skills even if only for recreation.

I am think of providing some classes.
I was at one stage a professional trainer in an Industrial Training Centre before the collapse so do have training experience.

My question: (sorry but this is rather broad)
I am looking for some sort of starter curriculum.
Are there any guidelines as to what is suitable for different age groups?
Any suitable projects?
Are these projects age related?
Hand tools only?
My workshop at the moment will accommodate 2 students at a time.

Thanks for any input and comments.
Looking for ideas as I am not sure where to start.

Phil
workshop @ skilphil dot co dot za

[Callan Campbell]

My vote is to start with hand tools since they'll require the least amount of room, and less money to either buy or maintain. Gaining hand tool skills before operating machinery is also a traditional training method for many apprentice programs.
As for ages, everyone is different. Some are more mature at a younger age, and some people I encounter would give me pause to have them around sharp tools at almost any age.:rolleyes:
Look to your own culture and how people start training their children for tasks and needed skills. Every country is a bit different.
Projects: Something that is usable right away is probably the easiest to start with. One gets an instant amount of satisfaction when you're using something you made on a daily, or almost daily basis. So, along those lines, Tables, small and large.
Stools, short for reaching tall cabinets or objects just out of reach and taller versions for sitting at a table or counter space.
Small items for storage, boxes or maybe a shoe shine box
Kitchen items like cutting boards, spoons or other items
As skills and money allow, larger things like Beds, Dressers, Chests.
The wood you have available can dictate what you'll make easily too.
Hard tropical or what we here in the States would call "exotic" wood might be your simple local tree, which you can buy easily enough but which also dulls hand tool edges easily cause it's some tough stock and laughs at hand saw blades. You'll figure this all out and decide if you want a few machine tools to deal with some of the roughing out of pieces to speed things up or save on sharpening time.:D
Good luck in your worthy search for starting this program.:):)

[Phil Hansen]

Good luck in your worth search for starting this program.:):)
Hi Callan,
Thanks for your thoughts.
I do have a fully equipped (hand tool & machine tool) workshop so board preparation is not a problem.
I would use our local pine which is easy to get and easy to work with.
The whole idea still needs a lot of planning and has to be set up properly to be acceptable and creditable.
Never know it might work.

Phil

[Dave Lehnert]

I thought I would toss this in because it's FREE on the web. The book is also available for sale on Shopsmith web site.

It is a basic woodworking course covering about everything in power tools.

Click on the links to the left of the page.

http://www.shopsmith.com/academy/welcome.htm

As a side note, I would be interested in what brand and type of tools are used in South Africa.

[Phil Hansen]

Thanks Dave,
have downloaded some and will go through them later.

As far as tools are concerned the majority is Taiwanese or Chinese.
You can get JET stuff but a lot more expensive. Hand tools are Stanley, Irwin,
Marples and a lot of poor quality eastern ripoffs.

My tools are mainly old. Ranging from a 1941 Tauco (Delta export arm) bandsaw, Rockwell drillpress,
Redstar RAS, Tauco lathe, Powermatic jointer, Rockwell disc/belt sander, Myford metal lathe.
Only the cabinet saw and planer are modern.
My smaller tools range from DeWalt, Makita, Ryobi, AEG, Metabo and Festo.
Again there is a lot of cheap and nasty stuff around.
My hand tools are Marples, Disston, Spear & Jackson, old Record planes,
Starret, Estwing, Moore & Wright with some newer stuff.
HTH

Phil

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Phil,

Here's a site I like even though a lot of the articles are very old, they are very informative IMHO.

http://www.evenfallstudios.com/woodworks_library/woodworks_library.html

[Phil Hansen]

Thanks Ken,
Some old stuff but interesting. Hand skills do not change much.

Found an interesting forum "Woodworking Teachers Network"
It seems that the non providing of hand skills training is universal.

Does everybody want to be a computer nerd or accountant/lawyer?
Think not.

Phil

[Dave Lehnert]

Phil,

Here's a site I like even though a lot of the articles are very old, they are very informative IMHO.

http://www.evenfallstudios.com/woodworks_library/woodworks_library.html


Hey Ken,
Thanks for the link. I love the reprint series from Lee Valley. This will pass the time for sure.

Not to get off subject but is this something that could be downloaded to a Kindle of like reader? Kinda been interested in that device.