Our Work with the Centre Learning Community Charter School

"CLC Charter School is a public middle school serving students in grades 5-8 in Centre County and neighboring counties. They are a small and nurturing environment that emphasizes learning by doing. Their innovative, project-based, hands-on curriculum integrates real world skills and is a very good match with the DGWW philosophy.

Doing Good with Wood was invited to teach a wood shop class at the Centre Learning Community Charter School as part of their after school program. We worked with approximately 16 students after school on Tuesdays, with some students working with us for two hours and some for only one hour. We had fun, and made kazoos and a pretty cool color changing lamp. We also worked with one young man who wanted to only use hand tools. We helped him make a shaving horse (the bench-type tool he is sitting on in the photo below) which he will use to make wooden spoons and spokes for a 1/2 scale covered wagon. DGWW Mentors: David, John, Jan, and Kyle.

We did this for three trimesters, and it was a success for all concerned, but the work required to transport power tools and clean up eventually overpowered our enthusiasm.  We were reminded that there are several reasons that wood shop classes are held in a designated area.

 We were also asked to support a CLC student as she designed and built her "Capstone Project," a major undertaking that graduating students choose and complete with advice from others but while doing the work themselves.  

After experiencing our after school wood shop classes at CLC, Alex asked Doing Good with Wood to mentor her and to provide access to our shops and tools to make a longboard. A longboard, as name implies is a skateboard that is rather long — about 40 inches in this case. The extra length provides stability for long haul traveling, while shorter boards are better in terms of agility, and better for sharp turns and tricks.

Alex did some online research and selected a style, then DGWW went to Spectra Wood, the area’s number one manufacturer of fine wooden furniture. The people at Spectra Wood were very kind. They took me into the shop and showed me bins where they collect long thin pieces of scrap wood and let us take scraps that would otherwise have gone “into the chipper.”

Alex and her dad Bryan then made several trips to “DGWW HQ” where Alex selected her favorite boards, took them to DGWW HQ West (Glenn Johnson’s shop next door) and planed them to get perfectly flat edges to glue together. Then, Alex arranged them into a pattern she liked glue them up and clamped them tight while the glue set.

Then it was back through the planer to perfect the top and bottom, followed by tracing the pattern onto the slab and cutting to near the line with a bandsaw, and using an oscillating sander to bring the shape right up to the line.

Then Alex and Bryan installed the trucks, bearings and wheels, to make it a working longboard. Then we all went ]to The Rivet where DGWW Mentor Jan Dillon help Alex add laser cut graphics to the underside. Bryan and Alex then added a nice, durable finish, clear grip tape to the top, and put it back together. Project complete. Well done!.