![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Centerpiece/Legacy
Jul. 20th, 2017 05:23 amTwo days ago, my grandson and I began assembling the workbench which will become the centerpiece of the basement workshop that I've recruited him to help me build.
Its design originated back in the early 1990s with a pair of experimental aircraft builders, Bob Waldmiller and Norm Howell, who wanted a durable but portable table for the fabrication and assembly of their homebuilt aircraft projects.
For our purposes, I've made a few modifications to the design to reflect its more permanent, less mobile place in our shop.
For instance, I've added a curb along its back edge to prevent tools and hardware from falling down between the table and the basement wall where it will be more or less permanently stationed. I've also incorporated a backing panel behind the single, lower shelf for the same purpose.
Due to my recent illness, and our initially intermitent work schedule, the many pieces that my grandson had measured and marked, based on the shop drawings I'd made up to guide his work, had been standing in neat stacks on the baseent floor awaiting assembly.
Up to now, they'd been cut on the table saw by me and then pre-drilled on the drill press by him to facilitate, and enhance the precision, of their assembly. And, as I said, we started that part of the process two days ago.
Last night, as a result of our last two days of work, the table was still upside-down on the saw horses, but very nearly complete. And I anticipate that today we'll be installing the shelf and standing it upright.
Just before I went to bed, I texted my grandson to tell him that I hadn't been able to resist a couple of late evening trips downstairs to admire our work and to say how much I appreciated his help and how pleased I am with the progress he's made in learning the necessary skills to accomplish this.
This Friday, because of the added hours, I'll be paying him double what he's taken home in any previous week. But what I really hope he'll be taking with him is a new confidence in his abilities and an understanding of what it means to put them to positive, constructive use.
Something he'll hopefully still have long after the school clothes which he intends to buy with his earnings have been consigned to the thrift shop and the grandfather who helped acquire them has been likewise recycled in the natural scheme of this life...
LPK
@Dreamwidth
7.20.2017
Its design originated back in the early 1990s with a pair of experimental aircraft builders, Bob Waldmiller and Norm Howell, who wanted a durable but portable table for the fabrication and assembly of their homebuilt aircraft projects.
For our purposes, I've made a few modifications to the design to reflect its more permanent, less mobile place in our shop.
For instance, I've added a curb along its back edge to prevent tools and hardware from falling down between the table and the basement wall where it will be more or less permanently stationed. I've also incorporated a backing panel behind the single, lower shelf for the same purpose.
Due to my recent illness, and our initially intermitent work schedule, the many pieces that my grandson had measured and marked, based on the shop drawings I'd made up to guide his work, had been standing in neat stacks on the baseent floor awaiting assembly.
Up to now, they'd been cut on the table saw by me and then pre-drilled on the drill press by him to facilitate, and enhance the precision, of their assembly. And, as I said, we started that part of the process two days ago.
Last night, as a result of our last two days of work, the table was still upside-down on the saw horses, but very nearly complete. And I anticipate that today we'll be installing the shelf and standing it upright.
Just before I went to bed, I texted my grandson to tell him that I hadn't been able to resist a couple of late evening trips downstairs to admire our work and to say how much I appreciated his help and how pleased I am with the progress he's made in learning the necessary skills to accomplish this.
This Friday, because of the added hours, I'll be paying him double what he's taken home in any previous week. But what I really hope he'll be taking with him is a new confidence in his abilities and an understanding of what it means to put them to positive, constructive use.
Something he'll hopefully still have long after the school clothes which he intends to buy with his earnings have been consigned to the thrift shop and the grandfather who helped acquire them has been likewise recycled in the natural scheme of this life...
LPK
@Dreamwidth
7.20.2017
