Now The Race Is On

  Once in awhile one of the grand kids

Evan planning on how we should proceed. 

will want some help with a project.  When that happens, there are two things that usually occur.    The first - which is a good thing - is that grandpa is totally elated that some one besides the cat wants to play in my wood shop with my tools.    The second - which could be a bad thing - is that the mother of the kid who wants to play with the tools in grandpa's shop will pull me into a corner by my shirt collar and whisper death threats into my ear.  Mostly letting me know that if there is any, I mean any,  of her child's blood on my shop floor  resulting from the use of power tools during this "working together time" there will be some repercussions.   

Evan working on the lathe

  So this is Evan who is eleven and he was given a block of wood and from that he is to build a pine derby race car.   Of course wheels came with that block of wood.    As a dad, this was something that I never got into with any of my three sons.    Most likely my bad.    I know I could have built them something, but me being younger back then took death threats from the wife a little more seriously.     While I don't want to see any of my grand kids get injured from a mishap in the shop, I think my daughter-in-laws would still let me live.    (I think.)

Evan sanding his parts.
(Hmm.    Do I see a potential full time sander in my future?)

   The initials for the club that Evan belongs to are "TNT".    Today I am not sure what the club's name is, but I remember him sharing that little tidbit.  So he wanted to build a car that looked like a stick of dynamite with wheels.   Of course these projects are suppose to be done by the kids themselves and we tried to honor that as much as possible.      I just tried to input some direction on what to do next  (and how to do it safely with the death treats still fresh in my mind.)

      Here is where maybe I crossed the safety line a little.    We spray painted the car part, but quickly moved the painted part and the cardboard under neath that part back into the garage so that we did not have to breathe the paint fumes.  I was concerned about those fumes, but at the time we placed the cat in a box in the shop thinking if the fumes were that strong the cat would pass out first.    (When working with grandpa in the shop one is taught about the value of having a cat around....Yep.)

   We made it without any injuries and for the most part we did it with hardly any glitches.  We had a fun time.    I can't wait till Evan wants to build something using the table saw....
Someday - maybe.

Congrats on that Trophy Evan.    Now we will have to build a shelf in your room to store this and other trophies that may show up in your future.