My students need a planer. Our wood shop classes exist because all of our lumber is donated scraps from local cabinet shops. The scraps we get must be surfaced.
$799 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
For the majority of my students this is their first experience with power tools. Because we rely on scrap wood from local mill shops, the students have to do quite a bit of preparation on the lumber. They learn all aspects of preparing the lumber: dimensioning, truing, and planning for thickness.
They start out making keepsake holders and jewelery boxes.
These are more often then not the first complex projects the students have ever created. It is priceless to see the joy on a young face flush with the satisfaction on knowing they used professional tools and skills to create true craft pieces.
My industrial arts department draw students who love to explore and learn by doing. Solving a geometry problem in math class lacks relevant connection to their lives. Applying geometry to figure out the proper angles to cut the pieces for a six-sided jewelry box is second nature and just a part of the over-all process.
My Project
The scraps we receive from our industry partner is most often lumber that was not suitable for production work. It is usually too: too small, too checked, too warped, too bowed, too stained, or too defective. The thickness planer is the most used tool to prepare our stock. We receive a large majority of lumber from the ends of boards that have thinned and not come from the mill completely true. Commercial shops can't afford to wast too much time with them and the results often do not meet project spec's. Planners allow the students to take chipped, split, or rough wood to the point of premium material (on a small scale).
The planer will allow the students to create artisan quality projects.
Something we have not been able to do since the great planer malfunction of '13! We are making due with a drum sander but it is taking a heavy toll on our very limited resources. We have no material budget from the school and must rely entirely on student donations.
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