Had a wonderful day with my Grandson Oliver on Take Your Kid To Work Day. Why on earth would a kid want to go to an office with his dad to sit around and watch employees shuffle paper or have the task to file? He has done that before. Let’s have an experience with our hands and see how men work in a tough environment. So we went to the lumber mill where my friend Rob cuts giant tree trucks into natural edge table slabs.
Kid’s Dream Day
There are lots of large machines and moving pieces. Huge fork lifts, dump trucks, log carriers, log splitters and chain saws. There is the gigantic mulch mountain that is taller than the telephone poles. Climb to the top and run, fall and roll down. A mother’s nightmare and a kids dream. Wish I was young again. Probably would have broken a few bones on the way down.
Then there are the tree trunk with hollow centers. Great fun for a hiding place. Very difficult to keep the kid focused. Seriously, I do think he learned a lot and had a great experience seeing tree trunks being converted into furniture. He saw the saw mill that cuts the tree into slabs. Then they go to powerful and noisy machines that planes the slabs flat. Next is the kiln which dries the slabs to prevent cracking and finally the application of a protective finish.
Assignment
When we returned home he prepared an assignment of what he learned on Take You Kid To Work Day. He had examples of growth rings to determine the age of the tree, samples of different species to see the grain. The thing that excited him the most was finding and collecting antique nails from beams that were salvaged from a 1850 New York City building. Here is are some farm table legs that I made from vintage wood.
My studio is in Montvale, New Jersey, USA.
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