TSO-E: Riding! (into wood shortages)

It’s amusement park week and we are building big! We have everything from a roller coaster to a pirate swing to a spinning swing, and a ferris wheel. To give you a sense of the scale of these projects we have used every last 2X3 from all the 8-footers to all the scraps, plus two more lumber runs; we have pulled out every single tool in the shop, used jigs to help us cut the tricky cuts…and made some new ones for the even trickier ones. We have designed, built, tested, taken apart, redesigned, and built again. These projects are a true testament to the art of tinkering with a great deal of persistence, and a lot of laughter thrown in.

We leaned hard on learning the secondary tools hat have made a big impact on our progress this week. The circular saw, band saw, and drill press were critical to the success of the project.

We cut everything from supporting triangles, seat backs, and roller coaster cart walls with the circular saw; made some creative jigs for the bandsaw, and learned a lot about drilling holes in metal pipe, how to make a c-clamp out of two 2X3s, and drilled 2” holes in about 40 blocks for supportive ground stakes…..the amount of wood shavings from the drill press was impressive.

Of course, key to any solid project is the collaborative design process. Starting with the prompt, we move to individual drawings of ideas, to co-creating the first big idea design. Throughout the week, we pull out white boards, have impromptu planning sessions, and do a whole lot of math to get to the near final project. The phrase, “going back to the drawing board” carries a lot of weight around here.

We have worked hard, and laughed harder, made some pies and learned to lash. We have climbed out of our comfort zones and pushed ourselves to work harder than we ever thought we could.