Best selling wood projects - Visit to the Alexandria Seaport Foundation Virginia

Best selling wood projects

While in the USA in November, I was delighted to visit the Alexandria Seaport Foundation, in my quest to check out youthworking programs which use woodworking activities.
This pic shows me outside the ASFs floating office.


Some background info from their website:

Doing Big Things with Small Boats!
Through the building and use of wooden boats, the Alexandria Seaport Foundation helps at-risk youth turn their lives around and provides families, community groups, and schools with meaningful educational, social, and recreational experiences. Full-time apprentices earn their GED and prepare for a career in the building trades. The latest additions to our program include vocational training in green construction, a summer program, and an afterschool program.

Special thanks to the legendary Joe Youcha, the hands-on Executive Director of the ASF, for meeting with me and showing me around the workshops. An inspirational guy with a very exciting set-up. One of the wonderful things about this program is the use of volunteers from the community, who work alongside the young people as they build the boats together.


This pic shows Joe Youcha (right) chatting with one of the young participants, who was working on varnishing this beautiful wooden boat he had helped to build.

Prior to the Global Financial Crisis, the ASF had a very high success rate in transitioning the young participants into the mainstream workforce. With high unemployment in the USA now, these outcomes are more challenging to obtain - however the organisation through its wonderful commitment to its participants is exploring other creative ways to assist the trainees to find ways into the workforce with their woodworking skills.

There is a lot of complex maths involved in setting out the hull of a wooden boat. The ASF program has developed very effective ways of teaching mathematics to young people who may have been able to make sense of it in school.


This pic shows the guys working on the preliminary setting out being done for another boat hull.




Beautiful boats made in a very positive learning environment. This program was very exciting, and I was so pleased to be able to check it out!

The website for the Alexandria Seaport Foundation is definitely worth having a look at:

http://www.alexandriaseaport.org/



For more great info and pics about the ASF, check out the Meyer Foundation Annual Report via this hyperlink: http://www.meyerfoundation.org/annual07/seaport#/images/annual/seaport/sp10.jpg
Best selling wood projects

Read More..

Best selling wood projects - Another Successful Woodworking Activity with the Belmont Alternative Learning Program

Best selling wood projects

I recently completed my third program with the students at the Belmont Alternative Learning Centre. (BALC)

The projects I offer sequentially introduce new skills and reinforce previously learned skills, which the participants apply in the building of their projects.
Last time I worked with the BALC students, they each made bedside tables. This time, the project involved some more tricky skills and maths, as the participating students each made a bar stool. In addition to angled legs and components, this project included the upholstering of the tops, which the students also undertook themselves.

Making the Bar Stools.
The following sequence of pictures help tell some of the story:

The measuring, marking and preparation of the angled components required good accuracy.

The use of dowelling jigs still requires care and accuracy for a good result.

The glue-ups are always a high pressure event as we race to beat the fast drying glue!

Glue-ups are best done with people working in pairs. Once clamped up, the excess glue is cleaned up.

The glue-up takes place in two stages: the two ends are glued up first, and when these are dry they are then glued together. This glue-up has been completed and cleaned up.

The upholstered tops first needed their plywood bases to be prepared.

The plywood bases were glued to the 50mm HD foam, and then the surplus foam trimmed off.

Students next helped each other apply the 12mm peeled foam to their seats.

The surplus peeled foam was then trimmed from the underside.

The calico was then stretched over the foam layers and fixed to the underside of the base.

The final task in making the upholstered tops was the trickiest – fixing the black vinyl cover.
This required considerable patience to get the corners right!

The students applied Danish Oil to their completed frames.

Once the frames and seats were completed, they were screwed together, completing the project.

Some of the participants with their completed stools.

A great job done by the students. Well done, Gang!!

Each time we have worked together, the BALC students have used their basic woodworking skills and learnt and applied new skills. It is a sequential process. What will be make next time? It will be interesting to see... I suspect we may make something which will benefit the local community. A bit of carpentry. Lets see what happens next term!

Best selling wood projects

Read More..