The Woodshop is a Playground

An excellent day in the shop today, I had a goal of building a saw till in a day. Why make that goal? No reason other than to challenge myself a little. I did fall short of the goal by half. If I can put another full day in tomorrow I will most likely be finished. Do I feel like I failed? No, I got a lot accomplished and I probably could have gotten farther but I took quite a bit of time to work with my "apprentice."
Infinity just turned eight and shes been coming to the shop with me more and more often. Unfortunately there are good stretches of time where I am doing something repetitious, like cutting dovetails, and there are no tools to hand to me or additional questions to ask, and boredom takes over. Ive gotten her started with a small piece of pine and working at a saw bench to "practice her saw cuts"
I had her mark out 1 inch increments with a ruler, pencil, and speed square, and practice cutting on the line. I showed her how to hold the saw, I made one cut to demonstrate, and I let her go at it. Over the last two trips to the shop shes made a couple over a dozen practice cuts, each time comparing her cut with my first one. By half way through today she was consistently cutting reasonably square cuts. I had to take my pull saw back to cut some dovetails so I traded her for a cheep Stanley short construction saw I keep for remodeling/home repair jobs, and after I showed her the difference in how a push saw cuts and to use a shallower entry angle. Within a few minutes she had it rocking. Kids are frickin amazing man, just a little bit of work and the muscle memory is there.
I did make some progress on the saw till as well, but Im feeling a bit worn out this evening and I think Ill just let some pictures tell the rest of the story of today in the shop.

Cheers.
Oldwolf

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