fandomhigh | Shop Class; Tuesday, First Period [09/03].

Despite the fact that it had not at all been an issue all the previous times she'd taught this class, Amaya still couldn't shake that slight feeling of 'is this really a good idea' of having shop class first thing in the morning, where a bunch of sleepy kids might be operating heavy machinery, but it gave her an excuse to have a huge samovar of coffee available to them, about half of which she was probably drinking herself. Not that she was barely early for her, she just really liked coffee.

"Morning, everyone," she greeted the class with a nod and taking note of familiar faces and new ones, "and welcome to Shop Class! I'm Amaya Blackstone, your instructor, and I've been teaching this class for way longer than I care to admit." Which wasn't even that long, but, to be fair, teaching was something she had once upon a time filed in the Never Gonna Happen, Bud cabinet, so this was all still a bit weird for her. "Please, help yourself to some coffee if you like. It's early and we're working with heavy, dangerous, and sharp things in this class a lot, which means you'll likely want to be good and awake unless you maybe were planning on losing one or two fingers. Speaking of which, that's our first order of business: safety. We have a wide range of personal protection materials that you will be required to wear for most of these projects, no ifs, ands, or buts! If there is an issue regarding any of them, we'll get it resolved, but I expect everyone to have at least their eye protection and a pair of work glovves in this class, sometimes an apron when we're working with hot metals and a hard hat on occasion. If you've got steel toed boots, that's not a bad idea, either. Today, it'll be just gloves and goggles, because we'll be working with a jigsaw, which is a tool we'll use quite a lot in the class.

"Now, the jigsaw can be pretty simple to use if you're used to working with machines like this, and pretty easy to pick up on if you're not as familiar." With that, she gestured them all to follow her over to one of the lathe work stations and started in on showing them how to use it, easily able to shout her instructions over the sound of the whirring blade as she demonstrated.

"We've got both hand jigsaws and table mounted ones; the first will give you a little more freedom, but the second is a bit more controled. Feel free to use whichever you're more comfortable with, and if you're a little squeemish about either, let me know, and I'll walk you through it. Now, since it's the first week, our project using these bad boys is going to be cutting out letters for a wood sign with your name on it, and, once you've finished, we're going to use those as a way to introduce ourselves. And here's the best way to do that."

So she went over the process, explaining that she'd be using her A as an example: start with a stencil for your name, writing it out as big as you like, either onto the wood directly or, if you like, on paper, and then you can glue it down so it sticks and you can use that as a guide as well. Then time to saw those letters out! She did the outside of the A with the table-mounted saw, and then demonstrated with the hand-held to get the little bit out of the middle of the A. "Once your letters are all cut out, we've got sandpaper to make the edges all nice and smooth, and you can hit them with a little varnish if you want them to look a little shinier, and, while that's drying a bit, you can cut out what you'd like to use for a base to mount the letters on. Sand up the board a little, then we'll get out the wood glue to attach our letters. Usually, wood glue'll take a bit to dry, but I've got you covered. See those clamps over there by the heat lamps? Should be able to fit these signs right under there, clamp it all at once, and the heat'll make it stick quicker so we're not waiting all day. And, if you find yourself waiting for the others to finish up theirs, there's some paint and things you can decorate them with, if you'd like.

"Any questions? If so, please ask, because a five second question is much easier than a five finger accident. But, if not, let's get started, shall we?"

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There's a wide variety of woods to choose from, and plenty of jigsaws to go around. Just make sure you've got your safety equipment on first, and then have at it! Get to making those letters! And apologies to those of you with longer names!

Well, now, this seemed simple enough. Wayne had even done a good deal of woodworking recently, on his trip home last week, when he just up and rebuilt the entire produce stand because Katy mentioned it was looking a little junky.

So he set to work with the determined focus of a man who liked nothing better than setting out to make something and then successfully making it, made just that much smoother by the fact that he knew these sorts of tools and worked with them on the regular.

This class would be good for him.

This class would be his Zen.

Norman had, true to form, made two of these cutouts, because he had a first and a last name, and he was confident enough now with the jigsaw that he figured he might as well go for broke and do the whole thing. He considered making a few more for his friends, just as nice little surprises, but there really was only so much time in a class period and he wanted to make sure he had his actual assignment nice and sanded and painted up, too.

Maybe he'd ask Amaya if he could come in after classes to work on this stuff, again. He always enjoyed that.

Mae's name was nice and short, which was good, because it was definitely going to take her multiple attempts to make it at all legible.

At least she was still having fun? That was what that maniacal laughter meant, right?

Hey, Amaya would much rather that kind of maniacal laughter be present when Mae was just cutting through wood rather than something else.

Sorry not sorry, trees.

Grog felt so badass with the gloves and glasses on, and he was totally ready to--carefully--fire the jigsaw up when the one small flaw in this assignment hit him.

"Uh." Yes, it was embarrassing to not know what letters to cut out, and he suddenly felt a lot less cool.

And, well, you knew what they said: the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and Amaya had definitely been excited to see where all that big energy was headed, only to watch it come skittering to a halt. Her head tilted a little and, after looking around to see that everyone else was mostly on their way to getting started without a hitch, she headed on over to Grog's worktable.

And it really hit you how big he was once you were giving him your undivided attention and standing much closer. Still nothing on a bridge troll, but that'll still be a crick in your neck after a long conversation.

"Everything alright?" she asked.

He really wanted to use all that big energy for something good!

"Uh, well, you see, I'm not from around here." That, at least, wasn't an outright lie. "So I don't know exactly which of the letter things I should be cutting out."

He was fully prepared for her to laugh, but maybe she'd think he was just not used to Earth writing or something?

"Well," noted Amaya with a faint grin, "I don't think anyone's really from around here much at all, but, either way, there's no problem there at all! You could basically cut whatever you'd like, as long as oyu feel it represents you enough to introduce yourself by. Want to cut just a circle? Go for it! Maybe a shield, or a sword? Whatever strikes your fancy, really!"

Daventry, for the most part, was a fairly learned kingdom, but it wasn't uncommon to come across someone who really needed to rely on the pictures. And around here, who even knew how most people managed to magically seem to use the same or similar alphabet, even?

"Or, if you'd like," she offered, "I could show you what your name would likely look like in the letters that they use here? And then, that way, you'd even have the sign to keep as a reference for next time."

Edited 2019-09-04 02:29 (UTC)

The thought of cutting out a cool-looking sword was tempting but... "Could you show me what my name looks like? It's Grog, it's not very long." He knew that much at least!

There would be plenty of time for cool-looking sword things later, after all!

"Oh, Grog's not very long at all!" Amaya said, though she was wondering who was running around naming their giant children after the cheap swill they served pirates back in Llewdor, and also biting back any questions of whether or not he happened to have a sister named Brandy. "Here," she reached for one of the large pieces of paper available if anyone wanted to make stencils before cutting, and also a pencil.

"So then what you're going to have for the letters they use here is going to be a G--" and she wrote that out, followed by the others at pace, "an R, an O, and another G. Just like that! The Gs'll probably the hardest, so it's a good thing you've got two, so that means extra practice."

She held the pencil out...and a little up...for him to potentially take. "Did you want to try writing them out bigger for the sign based on my letters there? Just copy 'em down just like that, only bigger."

She offered up another grin. "Can't imagine bigger'd be much a problem for you to handle, eh, Grog?"

Simon took a breath as he geared up with the goggles and gloves, then stepped up to the mounted jigsaw to get started. He'd used one before, both at school and at home, but not enough to really be confident with one.

In the end, some of his lines were a little shaky, but he had a perfectly acceptable name cut from the wood.

Shop Class; Tuesday, First Period [09/03].

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