Skills Week: Woodwork Workshop

The last workshop I attended during skills week was woodwork. Wood is a valuable material for architectural model making. It can be used to show the underlying structure of a building and the right kind can be easily manipulated, It can also add a visual appeal to your models.

Our instructor started by giving us the health and safely guidelines, instructions on how the machines work and also introduced us to different types of wood like plywood, MDF, chipboard etc. We were given a sheet of wood the start with and were asked to draw a circle using a compass. This was so that we could cut a circle out of the wood.

To cut the circle out, I used a machine known as a bandsaw. I first cut out the excess wood at the right side. I then placed my wood at an angle and carefully sawed off the bits while slowly moving the wood in a circular motion. I mistakenly cut into my circle but it is alright as it was my first time using the machine.

 

I then used the sanding machine to make the circle smoother.

 The next thing we attempted to do was to punch a hole in the wood using a bench drill. I lined up my piece of wood and turned the lever to create a hole. I flipped the wood over and repeated the action in the same spot and created a hole

We then used a machine for cutting more abstract shapes and curves unto wood. The instructor also introduced us to other machines such as the disc sander and the bandsaws used for larger pieces of work.

Lastly, we did some engraving on the wood using a pyrography machine. It comes shaped almost like a pen and all I did was adjust the temperature and started drawing on the wood. The machine burns wood so it gave out a burning smell which I extracted by pressing a button on the pyrography machine. 

This is the final design I did, I tried to fix the mistake I made on my wood with the design. After this we came to the end of our workshop. I think this activity was great to learn, I though about my original idea with the ankara patterns and how using pyrography might work. I thought of probably making the 'flower petals' of my building with wood and then engraving on it