Today was the last day of the Advanced Woodworking M-Term, and it was bittersweet. While I finished my wall boards today and I am excited to get back to regular classes, I will miss the hum of the Tinkeria vacuum and the smell of sawdust (the one-hour lunch is great too). While I met my goals for today by gluing the board batterns together, sanding, and applying finishing oil, I am going to use this blog to reflect on the term as a whole, and the many lessons that I took away from it. The most important lesson is patience, and while it seems basic, giving yourself grace and understanding that it is ok to make mistakes will make woodworking as a whole easier and less stressful, which is something I wish I had always understood during these two weeks. Practical lessons from this term involved the milling (smoothing) and resawing (cutting thinner boards from a thick one) processes, which can reduce the costs of wood, as raw lumber is cheaper than S4S (surfaced on 4 sides) lumber. Miter cuts (whether on the table saw or Miter Saw are also interesting to me, as I was always curious how angled cuts were produced, and they were very important for my personal project. The box project was a great first step to hone my previous skills from Design Tech and develop knowledge of cuts like Dados and Rabbets, which hold the box lid and connect the walls, respectively. Cutting Rabbets required the use of the router, which had challenged me during Design Tech and somehow felt easier during this coure which was a great improvement to see. My personal project was difficult to design and frustrating to produce, but I am proud of it and am excited to hang my boards above my bed. Overall, this M-Term was one of my favorites, and I hope that Mr. Grisbee develops similar terms in the near future. I would recommend this course to anyone interested in woodworking or crafting. Previous experience of some kind makes it easier to grasp concepts and familiarize oneself with tools. Overall, a great M-Term that reminds me of design tech, but better and more challenging.
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