Popular Woodworking 2004-06 № 141, страница 38

Great Woodshops

These cabinets (and another not shown) keep tools organized so they're always available. If a tool is being used or missing, it's obvious.All classes take responsibility for keeping tools where they belong.

Everything has its Place

Organization also plays an important role in the school's success. The facility is extremely tidy (compared to our shop), so it was pretty funny when the staff apologized for the mess during our visit.

The adage "A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place" should be hanging over the entrance door. Each machine, tool, jig and broom not only has a place where it belongs, but that place is outlined and labeled so that when the item isn't there, anyone can see what belongs there. Even the dado sets are hung carefully above the table saws, with each piece properly identified.

On our visit, Anthony Fortner, who has been a furniture instructor at Cerritos since 1996, showed us around. In addition to teaching, he owns and operates A. Fortner Woodshop, creating handcrafted Arts & Crafts furniture and cabinetry. He has worked on many Greene & Greene homes in nearby Pasadena, and built a commissioned piece of furniture for the Blacker House (a famous example of Arts-&-Crafts-style architecture owned by the city of Pasadena and operated by the University of Southern California).

To keep costs down, inventory organized and students productive, a vending machine offers many "last-minute" project supplies priced affordably so nobody has to make an emergency trip to the store.

Fortner first led us into the plain-looking industrial building. There you first come upon the bench room. On this day, the room was set up with 20 benches, along with a good selection of mini-lathes, for a class on turning bobbins (cylindrical spools or reels that you can wrap thread, yarn or rope around), taught by Valerie Simms and Stuart Johnson, both of England. The amount of light in the room is excellent and a TV camera and monitor are set up in the corner to ensure every student can clearly see all the the important steps, as shown in the photo on page 35.

As you move further into the room, a wall of blue cabinets on the left hides one of the most astonishingly organized displays of tool storage we've ever seen.

With about 60 to 80 students in the shop on any given day, organization and strict adherence to the rules is mandatory and important. Each tool has its location identified along with how many are supposed to be there. Each student is informed at the beginning of the program that if a tool goes missing, the entire class is responsible for

coughing up the replacement cost - and it must be paid that day.

Through a doorway to the left is an assembly room with low benches and side rooms. These rooms are for tool storage and maintenance. One item you don't expect to see here is a vending machine, but there it is in the corner. As you approach it you realize it doesn't dispense candy - it's stocked with European hinges, screws and "must-have" supplies so the students are never in need.

The program guards costs and adds efficiency by buying its supplies in bulk, storing them on site and making them available for the students to purchase. They also save time by employing a full-time maintenance technician for the tools and machinery, leaving the students (and instructors) time to concentrate on their woodworking.

Instructors have a teaching aide who is responsible for shop safety and selling lumber and hardware to the students for their projects. The aide also keeps track of tool maintenance - if any machine needs attention, it's logged and tagged for service.

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Popular Woodworking June 2004