Something exciting is happening in the West Kootenays. A married couple who are elementary school teachers are bringing metalworking to their school district. They hired me to teach them basic skills so they could, in turn, teach their students.
Skills Taught
Materials
bringing metalworking to elementary schools
These teachers, who already had woodworking, drafting, and craft-making skills, were keen to bring metalworking to their school district. They asked for a 7-hour course, and after discussing their needs, I designed a 2-day intensive sheet metalworking course to teach them basic skills.
After 22 years of teaching UBC students and faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, teaching is one of my favourite things.
a meaningful project is key
Together, we decided that fabricating animal silhouettes and sculptures would work well as projects for both their students and themselves.
It is always essential that the objects my students make are meaningful to them, no matter their skill level or age. These teachers chose to create tealight holders. I asked them to select, design and draw what they wanted to make. One chose the shape of a sunburst, and the other a bird.
basic safety and sheet metalworking skills
My course for these teachers included the following skills: safety, designing, layout and marking, cutting with a shear, cold chiselling, filing, bending, hole-making, soft-soldering, and finishing.
We decided that mild steel sheet metal should be 24-gauge steel to make hand-cutting easy.
Filing
Filing was a big part of this skill training and is an art in metalworking. When I did my machinist apprenticeship, I had to do six months of filing. The final test was filing .020" slots in a microwave research project. These slots had to be accurate within stringent design parameters.
By the end of the two days, these teachers were up to teaching basic metalworking to their students. Plasma-cutting was an extra skill I taught one of the teachers, even though it wasn't part of the curriculum for her students. Both teachers achieved a great deal due to the complexity of the projects they completed in 7 hours.
tools for their classrooms
In addition to teaching them, I curated resources so that when it came time to buy the tools for teaching, they would have a clear list of what to buy and where to buy them.
layout, marking & shearing
FILING
soft-soldering
plasma cutting
Are you curious about metalworking?
Most one-on-one classes are one day and no more than 3.5 hours. I work with people of all ages, and if you or your family are interested in learning metalworking, call me.