I had an excellent opportunity this summer to teach over 200 students how to make their first turned pen using a lathe. My name is Tim and I work at YMCA Camp Collins in Gresham, Oregon, as the Maintenance Manager.
\nOur campers ranged from 6-14 years old, boys and girls, English and foreign speaking, and children with special needs. The students were excited to make a perfect pen, regardless of their age or ability.
\nBefore one assumes that I have many years of experience turning pens, I want to make it known that I turned my first pen 3 weeks before campers arrived at camp. The learning curve is very quick.
\nEach cabin of students (10-12 students) would arrive for a one hour session of pen making in which they would be divided into pairs. One partner would make a pen during the first class, and later that week the other partner would make their pen. I used 2 lathes to accomplish as much production as possible. The first lathe had the duplicator, and the other lathe was only for sanding and finishing.
\nBefore each class arrived I needed to prepare the wood blanks, which I cut from fallen trees on the camp property, then I would round all the edges on the lathe to reduce about 3 minutes off the overall time.
\nThe class looked something like this:
\nStudents arrive at 1:00
\nIntroduced myself and the tools and safety rules of the shop.
\nThe cabin divides into partners and numbers each group.
\nGroup 1 starts turning while everyone watches.
\nAfter turning (usually 6-9 minutes) I take the turned blanks to the other lathe and demonstrate sanding and finishing techniques.
\nOnce finished, we assemble the pens with the pen press.
\nGroup 2 starts immediately following the completion of Group 1 and then each lathe was in use for the remainder of the session.
\nSession 1 usually finished only 5 pens and the remaining 6-7 pens were finished during Session 2.
\nAll of the pens made were Slimline pens and were treated with Shellawax, then put into a plastic case to protect the pen.
\nCamp is finished for the summer and pen turning has already been put into next years list of events. Students and teachers alike had a great time making the pens and enjoyed starting a tradition.<\/p>\n
Tim Fast, Maintenance Manager
\nYMCA Camp Collins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had an excellent opportunity this summer to teach over 200 students how to make their first turned pen using a lathe. My name is Tim and I work at YMCA Camp Collins in Gresham, Oregon, as the Maintenance Manager. Our campers ranged from 6-14 years old, boys and girls, English and foreign speaking, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[27,28],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-school-woodworking-case-studies","tag-camp","tag-special-needs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/psischools.com\/public\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}