Thursday, November 29, 2007

I had a very busy morning in the Clear Spring School woodshop, preparing materials for lessons. the short story class in high school is making book racks for the books they are reading, so this afternoon we met to cut the mortises in the quartersawn white oak ends. Tomorrow morning the rest of the high school students who are studying critical thinking and debate will make 3 x 3 cubic block puzzles as shown at www.johnrausch.com. I cut up small 7/8" cubes of walnut, cherry and maple and the students can choose which of several puzzles to construct. Tomorrow I'll have photos. The puzzle cubes are easy to make. I planed down material to 7/8" thick, joined the edges straight and then ripped them into 15/16" strips. After planing the stock to 7/8" thickness in both dimensions, I used a sled and stop block on a table saw to cut the cubes to exact lengths. Tomorrow the students will sand their blocks, arrange them into an interesting patterned cube, then select the parts, tape them together and glue them into various shapes.

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