Well in truth, not only woodworking, but metalworking skills… When my other half went to school a significant time was spent in woodwork and metalwork lessons. True, we have to fit computing in there somewhere today, but every time we have to do some DIY he laughs at the thought of those simple principles he learned at school, which come in so useful in our everyday life some many years on.
In fact he recalls with a smile that he built a canoe – a PBK10 he tells me! Importantly though, building the PBK (Percy Blandford Kayak) not only enabled him to learn canoeing with his school friends, but taught him how to cut wood from templates drawn on paper. To measure and cut simple joints and glue them, clamping them overnight so the glue would dry strongly.
Preparing the framework of the canoe for varnishing then (rather boringly) adding 6 or 7 coats of varnish before stretching the canvas over the frame and pinning it with small brass tacks, which often involved banging the end of ones fingers as often as the tack!
The skills learned in these endeavors though appear never to have been lost when he prepares woodwork for re-painting, or repairing a broken coffee table, or in an old cottage that we renovated, completely replacing the floor of the bathroom including replacing the flooring joists and floorboards.
Perhaps I am one of many who wonder how such wonderful talent will live on and reminisce on how helpful those skills are – or on the other hand is it just being done better and more efficiently by computer?
For the purpose of this little article though I found a photo of some of the late Percy Blandford’s plans on the Percy W Blandford page on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/42265674352/ and a nice photo of the finished article which was posted by Geoff Day.