First Wood Projects

[Radar67]

Does anyone remember what their first wood project was? Mine was a book case, made of pine. I built it in wood shop during the eigth grade. It currently sits in my daughters room with a myriad of collectibles, books and what nots on it.

Stew

[Dan_Shade]

i jigsawed my name out of a pine board in the 7th grade, made some bookends in the 6th grade. 

[mike_van]

I made a stretcher for a play in grade school. I'll never forget ripping a 6' 2x4 with an old handsaw to make the two sides, nailed an old canvas between them.  At least it didn't break during the play -  :D

[sawguy21]

I still have the bookcase I made (with my shopteacher dad's help) in about 8th grade. It has survived a lot of moves in the last 40+ years. Kinda attached to it.

[Patty]

My very first ever project was our front door just a few short years ago.

[Radar67]

Mike, I'll bet you was about wore out when you got done?

Sawguy, I'm sort of attached to mine as well. It spent a good bit of time with my mom, but found its way back to me.

Patty, I remember seening that door you made, it was very nice and has inspired me to make my own doors when I start my house.

Stew

[SwampDonkey]

Mine was a napkin holder in grade 5 and I have it right on my desk now. ;D But I built a pine bookcase also in eigth grade. I also have mine. I used it for years though in my bedroom. Soon after I made a bread knife I posted on the forum somewhere, made from a bandsaw blade.

[Radar67]

Yeah SD, I remember that knife too. Now I'm waiting for a band to break or wear out for a couple of knives and minurature lathe tools of my own.

Dan, you still got them?

Stew

[brdmkr]

Mine was an entertainment center.  I learned the hard way that panels should not be glued into the rails and stiles .  The first set of doors would have made a good set of wide propellors for an airplane :D

[beenthere]

I remember my first project, but not sure of the age (somewhere between 6 and 8 ). Was at my grandmothers, and she had some peach crates. I learned to remove the nails, straighten them (seemed to always have to use nails over, and would not have new nails to make projects with), and nail the boards together to make a toy, or try to add wheels from a junk wagon, and make a 'push car'.  The first one had ropes to steer, that wrapped around a wheel for steering. Problem, couldn't make it to steer right when turning right. Had to turn the wheel left to get the 'car' to turn right. Grandma also taught me how to hit a nail to steer it straight. Those little wire nails would bend easily, so hitting them straight was necessary. Great memories. First school project was building a hog feeder on a skid for the farmer where I worked, when I was a freshman. A huge project that consumed a lot of time. A good lesson not to take on something too large for the moment.  

[Tom]

Other than the boards that Mom let me drive 10,000 nails into, my first memory of making something was a rubber-band powered paddle boat.  It was a board with a pointed bow and a big notch in the back that had a paddle entwined in a rubber band that went from one side of the boat to the other.    It worked too. ;D

[pigman]

When I was about eight I built a wooden airplane that would fly. 8) It was a small block of scrap oak wood with a small board nailed across the top of it. I attached a string to it and it would fly if I spun in a circle fast enough. Couldn't fly if very long before I got dizzy and would fall. smiley_dizzy My first truly woodworking project was 45 years later when I built a boot storage box inside the backdoor.
Bob the woodworker

[Woodcarver]

My first project was a garden trellis that I made as a 4-H project when I was 12.
It's showing the effects of years in the weather, but it's in one of our flower beds serving as the support for a trumpet vine.  Maybe it will outlast me.  

[sprucebunny]

Tom, that's exactly what i made first; a paddle boat.

The second thing was shorty water skis with nothing but straps to hold your feet on. :D I'd never been waterskiing and really wanted to try it. Still want to try it but my knees don't. 

[Engineer]

I built a small shelf out of scraps of basswood that the local Stanley Tools plant donated to the school.  I got in trouble for it too because we weren't supposed to use the tools or wood without permission.    :  I was eight, maybe nine.

[sawguy21]

beenthere, I remember making those rope steer cars from a plank and an apple box. Got in trouble for robbing the wheels from my sister's doll carriage.The wheels did not hold up
well. ;D

[Corley5]

I built a bench for around the campfire at the old cabin when I was 9 or 10 ???  Made it out of scrap hemlock boards  and 2X4s that were leaning against the back of the woodshed and "recycled" nails from cans in the wood shed ;D .  It survived the elements for a long time but finally succumbed and was added to the burn pile at the new cabin not that long ago.  What's left may still be there.  Cool thread

[Don_Papenburg]

Can't remember my first project ,but I made one of those Tom boats with my Handy Andy tool set my cousin gave me when I was in first or second grade.  I remember disecting my thumb trying to cut a miter in a 2x4  the wrong way. still have the scar , my very first real honest to goodness scar.

[metalspinner]

This story might send me to the doghouse....

My first project was a treehouse in a big willow in the front yard. I think I was in the fifth grade. The willow split into two trunks from the ground.  My buddies and I put a ladder up to the first branch on one side.  Then a ladder up the second trunk.  Then a single board bridging the gap.  By the end of the summer, we had a full blown treehouse.  Dad checked out my engineering each night when he returned from work.  I need to call Mom to see if she might have a picture.

We would spend countless summer days in that tree.  We watch the fire fighters put the neighbors house out.  The fire started when a gutter guy used a torch to cut off the old gutters. We saw that, too. The police took our statement.

One fun thing to do at the time was to see how many hits it took to sink a 3 1/2" spike into the tree.  There must have been 1,ooo nails banged into it throughout the summer. :-[ :-\ There sure seemed to be alot of nails around the house back then.  Once while visiting the little town 20yrs later, I passed the old house for a look and the tree was taken down.  No doubt, why.  I felt so bad for the tree guy that dropped that tree. :-[

Now, everytime I go to pick up a tree, I ask if there were any little boys in the house during the lifetime of the tree. :

[CHARLIE]

I remember those rubber band paddle boats that Tom made cause I made one too. It would go the length of the bathtub. 8)  For a school project in 8th grade I made a model pioneer village by building log cabins and bridges out of toothpicks (I still have them but they aren't in good shape). My grandmother used to set the "village" up each Christmas. That same year I built a model sailing sloop (about 18 inches long) out of balsa wood. I made the sails out of part of an old bedsheet. I hung it in a box and painted it white. When it dried and I mounted them on the mast, they looked like they were full of wind. Then I built a glider out of balsa wood and rice paper. The wings were about 3 feet long.  I climbed up on our garage and launched it off into the backyard. It pretty much went out about 3 feet and straight down into the dirt.  

[ronwood]

Book self was my first project while in Jr. High

[tcsmpsi]

Wood Project.  Hmmmm...seems like my first personal wood project was a gun rack back in grade school years.

I suppose what I really consider 'first wood project(s?)' was fencing 3 acres, with cross fences, brood pens and sheds out of scavanged railroad ties and 2X6 green oak lumber when I was 12-13 (which was good experience to hire on my first paying carpenter job at 14), to accomodate an average of  about 450 swine creatures.  All was done with 1 hp (human power) hand tools.  That was pretty much a continual project as herds changed, etc.  Mostly registered Duroc, but had a few registered Land Race and Yorkshires, with a few of the original beginning stock of Pineywood Rooter crossbreeds.

Always kinda nostalgic when there is mention of scrounging building materials (and recycling nails ;)).  Yep, ain't nothing quite as pleasant for a young fellow than the constant search for railroad ties and carrying/dragging them through a muddy 12' deep ditch with briars 4-5' tall.  Wood Projects.   :D 

[Modat22]

My first wood project was a dinosaur made from elmers glue and toothpicks when I was around 8 years old give or take a year or two. Mom remembers more about it than I do. 30 boxes of toothpicks and I worked on it for a couple weeks, it was the only thing that would hold my attention longer than 10 minutes.

[Paschale]

It's hard to remember the very first project.  I suspect slapping together something into a toy.  I recall making some freighters out of wood after seeing some at the Soo Locks.  A very memorable project was from my Boy Scout days, when my patrol made a sled for the annual Klondike Derby.  Basically, we all were plopped onto a frozen lake for an entire day, and our sled had to store everything we'd need for the events.  We simulated rescuing someone from falling through the ice, and did some first aid drills. There was some ice fishing, and I think we even made some igloos.  And of course, each patrol had to put their sled through its paces by racing around a track.  One guy in the sled, and all the rest just trying to stay on their feet, pushing or dragging the sled around.  Lot's of fun!   ;D

Oh, of course there was the Pinewood Derby in Cub Scouts, and the rocket race, but it was always the dads that basically made those.   :D  I won the rocket race--got that balsa wood as thin as we could, and then dad had the trick of coating wax on the inside of the rocket so that the rubber band "engine" would have less resistance when it unraveled.  Worked like a charm!   

[SwampDonkey]

We used to make stick or sling shot guns. Sometimes a broken hockey stick sawed off to length, a clothes pin (or something secured to make a triger) and rubber tubing nailed down on the stick. Set a marble or rock in front of the rubber band and hit the trigger to sling shot the marble. I wasn't very successfull with mine, but I remember some of the neighbors being pretty crafty and their sling shots could lob a marble pretty fair. I remember finding an abandoned tire in the brush pile and taking the tube from it for sling shots and dad wasn't too impressed. Gee, just an old tire left out in a brushpile for years.  :

[Radar67]

SD, We used to make rubber band guns like that. We used and old mop handle for the body, rubber band a clothes pin down for the trigger, rubberband a series of bands to the end, and use the old pull tabs from coke cans for the bullet. Got pretty good with them after a while.  :D

Stew

[SwampDonkey]

Hmmm, an ash sling stick and an apple tree loaded with ripe apples.  ;D

[Don P]

The first I have a recollection of was dad showing me how to take some diagonal cutoffs and a couple of 2x2's to make a pair of stilts.  He gave me a quick lesson and set me to figuring out how to use them. I also kinda suspect he was keeping me out of the crew's hair for a few hours  :D.

[DanG]

I guess my first project came in Vacation Bible School, when I was about 8.  I'm not sure what the girls had for an activity, but all the boys were issued a little square of plywood that had the shape of a teapot traced onto it.  They had scrounged up all the coping saws they could find, and we set about sawing out these little teapots.  They even had a couple of hand drills so we could saw the inside of the handle out.  After we finished with the sawing, we sanded down the rough edges and shellaced  them, then added a couple of cup hooks.  It was proudly presented to my Mom as a pot holder holder, and she used it for years.  I don't know what ever happened to it. ???

It wasn't a half bad effort for an eight year old, if I do say so myself.  Sadly, I haven't progressed an awful lot in the succeeding 52 years. :-\

[Blake22]

I built a fire. ;D

[SwampDonkey]

Ya did good son. 

[onionman]

A ladder
guess I was 8 or 9 my Grand father was building a shed for the tractor and gave me
some wood to build somthing ( stay out of his hair).
We still use it out in the barn and every time I see all the bent nails in the rungs it reminds me  how hard dry white oak is...

[hobbySawyer]

I remember my first wood project as a young boy was a tree house. My pop was a home builder so we had plenty of lumber laying around .I can still rember the troble I got into for using some of my dads clear redwood for the project ;D. i think those parts of that tree house are still there after 30 years

[leweee]

We used to make stick or sling shot guns. Sometimes a broken hockey stick sawed off to length, a clothes pin (or something secured to make a triger) and rubber tubing nailed down on the stick. Set a marble or rock in front of the rubber band and hit the trigger to sling shot the marble. I wasn't very successfull with mine, but I remember some of the neighbors being pretty crafty and their sling shots could lob a marble pretty fair. I remember finding an abandoned tire in the brush pile and taking the tube from it for sling shots and dad wasn't too impressed. Gee, just an old tire left out in a brushpile for years.  :

SD....your dad was not impressed with all the windows you broke    

[SwampDonkey]

  smiley_angel01_halo