Shop Class

I was musing this morning about a shop class that I took in Bexley Junior High School. I can remember every item I made: a napkin holder, a grocery list holder that used adding machine tape, an inbox for my Dad's desk, a step stool for the bathroom. Okay, that is all I can think of at the moment. Maybe there were more. I cannot even remember if it was one year or two. I vaguely remember there were other things, but maybe not. There was also a drafting class taught by the same teacher. It was a very elementary class concerned with making three view drawings on objects not much more complicated than blocks.

There was one episode where we were drawing a block with a hole through it. The hole was perpendicular to one face, but the opposite face of the block was canted, it was not parallel. I think Mr. Ehrman was making this up as he went and not really paying attention. I say this because I noticed that on one of the views, the hole would have to be drawn as an ellipse, though I probably called it an oval then. Well, that was way beyond the capabilities of such an elementary class, so most of the class drew it as a half circle if they drew it at all.

Later on (after High School) I tried to drill a bunch of semi-intersecting holes in a one inch cube of aluminum. It did not work out to well. The holes were too small: the drill bit would bend when it encountered another hole drilled at right angles so it would not go straight through and the rigid pattern I was attempting to impose was destroyed. Even now, I think it would be a near impossible task. However, drilling a single large hole in each of three adjacent faces might work. A half inch drill bit is rigid enough that it will not flex much. The work piece would have to be clamped in place to keep the bit from wandering, the drill would have to advance slowly. Pilot holes that did not intersect at all would certainly help. The whole point of this exercise is to examine the curves made by the edges of the partially intersecting holes.

All the items I made have disappeared. It would have been nice to have them now, but that's the way it goes.