Cabinet-making students take the time to ensure their pieces are just right
Staff writer
Marion High School sophomore Austin Pedersen faced a dilemma on Thursday.
The glass top to the baseball memorabilia case he was building fit into the oak frame he cut, but the glass was loose and it had a tendency to wobble.
It was a minuscule problem — something only Austin or a professional would notice — but Austin had spent his own money on the materials and he wanted it to be perfect.
Teacher Roger Schwab counseled Austin on the deliberation and he knew that if he cut too much, his student would have to start over with a new piece of wood.
“Do you feel lucky, punk?” Schwab said to Austin, as if he was Dirty Harry challenging a thug on the streets of San Francisco.
Trusting his instincts, Austin returned a piece of oak to the circular saw for the second time that day.
He set the machine at an angle to cut an infinitesimal sliver from the top part of the wood. After measuring carefully and bringing down the blade for two practice strokes, he quickly lowered the spinning saw against the wood.
The deliberation took minutes; the act took less than a second.
Austin carried the piece of wood back to its counterparts around the glass at a separate table. The pieces fit together with minimal spaces at the corners. The glass barely budged. The cut was a success.
Schwab fosters these types of decisions every day in his cabinet-making class.
“You get to learn that a one-sixteenth of an inch makes a difference,” senior Adam Cope explained. “You learn how to be a perfectionist.”
A realist, Schwab understands that most of the students in his class will move on to careers that do not involve constructing furniture. His goals for the class are simple — he wants the students to work together despite differences that may exist in their personal lives and he wants them to understand that quality matters in any profession.
For safety reasons, Schwab does not allow students to operate the varieties of table saws without a partner.
“How do you get along with other people?” Schwab asks all his students. “How do you meet expectations?”
For quality, Schwab has observed that because students purchase their own materials and choose their own projects, they often push themselves to put in the extra work to make their project perfect.
“It’s getting the idea of giving 100 percent,” Schwab said.
In search of a challenge, freshman Aaron Moelleker decided to make a candle box. A candle box is about the size of a planter; it does not feature the mass of the entertainment system that senior Matt Sprowls is building or a soda bar that senior Les Riggs is constructing. The box’s diminutive size makes the project more difficult. Every piece that fits together is cut at 7.5-degree angles. The box also utilizes two separate sliding sections, intricately cut and constructed.
Aaron had the majority of the pieces cut on Thursday.
“It should not have taken me this long,” he said. “I didn’t want to do an easy thing.”
“He hasn’t gotten real mad yet,” Schwab added.
Adam is building a porch swing partially because his parents said they wanted one and because it is the first swing in 11-year history of Schwab’s cabinet-making class. While not as complicated as the candle box, Adam has put a lot of thought into the swing. He pointed out the grain patterns in the back section of the swing, which was already complete on Thursday. Although they were constructed from different pieces of wood, he matched the bars of the swing to complement one another.
“Some of its not as complicated as you thought,” he said. “Some things that I thought would be easy took more work.”
The time and care that students put into to their projects are worthwhile — Schwab knows many former students who continue to use footstools and other items built in his class.
“When he’s old and gray and tired, he’ll be sitting on that porch swing,” Schwab said giving Adam as an example. “A lot of this stuff they’ll have for years.”