OT - and very personal *LINK*
Hoa Dinh
>Hi All,
I got on the family's PC tonight and found out that my son had not logged out yet. He was working on the first draft of his writing assignment. I share it here on this Hand Tools forum because my son used mainly hand tools in his birdhouse project (except for the pneumatic brad nailer). Below is what I found - still very rough, but bring tears to my eyes nonetheless.
Follow the link at the bottom of the post for a photo of my son with his project. The birdhouse had just had a coat of primer. It's not very clear in the photo, but the birdhouse consists of two parts that can be separated for cleaning inside. Below the round entrance is a piece of "perch" dowel.
-- Hoa
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A cool breeze of air rustled through the doorway and past me. I was in my dad’s workshop, and for the first time, I would start a project and complete it myself! I had a large board of plywood and many smaller ones, and beams of maple were stuck into a cart. Not only would I turn these pieces of wood into a birdhouse, but I, as I found out later, would learn about patience, diligence, and hard work.
I was very excited, of course. It was a warm summer, and outside, the cool breeze skipped through the branches of the great redwoods and the small bushes. Inside the workshop, the faint smell of wood and machine oil mingled and surrounded me. My small workbench stood next to my dad’s workbench, and the two workbenches resembled each other like father and son.
Now I was about to start. I carefully read the instructions in my birdhouse book and marked the dimensions faintly onto a great slab of maple wood. Then, I pulled a utility knife, guided by a long ruler, across the wood. The score stretched across the wood faintly. This marked the beginning of the project, and I was going to start sawing.
I clamped the wood, and my vise made a merry clinking sound like a bell. The two small metal jaws came together and squeezed the wood. Then I clamped a straight, long stick of wood to the board. With my hand saw, I slowly cut down the score. After a few minutes, my right hand got tired and I was inclined to rest, but my persistence pushed me on. Using my left hand, then both hands, I cut carefully until the blade hit the mark on the end of the wood. Then I repeated the same thing for the other side of the triangle I was trying to cut. Finally, I finished cutting that triangle. I rotated the wood and repeated the whole process. Now I had two triangles for the front and for the back.
Luckily, I had some pieces of wood just the right size for the roof, so I didn’t need to saw the wood again. Then, I planed the wood. This was a quick process, only taking about five minutes. Thin shavings crept through the mouth of the hand plane and soon, the wood was smooth.
After the parts were ready, I started to assemble the pieces. As I was preparing the glue, my dad attached the compressor to the pneumatic nailer. I was already about to apply the glue when my dad warned me that the glue might be too dry before he could prepare the nailer. I had to wait, but the patience paid off. Soon, I was driving the nails through the glue and into the wood. Finally, the birdhouse was completed.
This birdhouse was not just any project. Although very simple in design, the birdhouse taught me that in any project, there were three fundamental requirements – patience, persistence, and hard work. These three values were the requirements of any project. Not only did I learn that, I also had a proud feeling that I had gone through every step of the project myself.
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First Complet Project
