My daughter came to me a while ago, and having been forced to take woodshop in school, she found she was liking it.
She decided to ask me if we could make her brother a Christmas present.
Sssh it's a secret.
Now as a dad with a newly teenage daughter, I was of course looking for a common activity we could do together, spend time, maybe share some anecdotal guidance.
So for an hour every saturday for a while now (since October), we've been crafting a frame.
She wanted it to be a good manly frame... so her plan was to make a wood frame, not overly sanded... sort of rough, and then to take a small chain that she had scavenged which turned out to be a timing chain off a dirt bike ... and outline the frame with it. At one point she was bartering with our friend to get a better chain, and ended up trading up.
She didn't even want all the grease off the chain, it had to be manly.
As the weeks progressed she started saying things like 'oh I know what that is, a bandsaw'
and... when I'd ask for a clamp she'd say 'spring clamp or C clamp?'
We'd chit chat about stuff and generally have a good time... good stuff, stuff I've been waiting for years to get to.
I've thoroughly enjoyed my time alone with the kids this week while Kendal has been gone. We've had some really good one on one times.
We sanded, we cut, routed, measured, glued, grinded, bent, mitered, drilled, stained, and wrapped.
Here's the finished project. But don't tell Calvin