Boy’s Projects Lost
It should be noted that I created 22-Boy’s Projects myself using my own images. However, I experienced a glitch on my website which resulted in the lost of all of the images I used to illustrate these projects. I was unable to find these lost images back in my archive files in order to replace them. But the main principle here is that we can create projects for boy training for various age groups to develop the masculine thinking of these boys. Our boys can even become beneficial to their parents at home – as they create or fix or organize things at home – which are needed by their parents.
PVC Splash Guard
One of the projects I made for home kitchen use was a PVC sheet splash guard to place behind the stove top. This material would catch grease splatter while cooking but it was easy to clean off with just a sponge. This could be one of many boy-projects that could help their mother in the kitchen by making custom-made items to solve problems she has in the kitchen.
Custom Made Storage Shelves
I also made my own shelves that fit within a specific space but these shelves held food and products all the way up to the ceiling. These shelves were custom made and fit the available storage space in our pantry so that my wife could organize and store all of the various food products she needed for cooking. Our boys can be taught how to make custom storage space for their mothers as well. I even placed storage around the washing machine so she could place cleaning supplies there with a large shelf over the washer and dryer for needed storage. Life was much easier for my wife when she had an organized place to keep everything she needed for home management. Our boys can do the same for their parents at home with specific projects that would be helpful at home.
PVC Power Tool Storage Boxes
One of the projects I made was tool boxes out of PVC sheet for power tools. This can greatly help organize their fathers tools because these are stackable and clear so the contents are easily seen. These projects utilized a pattern taken from a cardboard box which was disassembled and laid out flat for a pattern. But this pattern could then be adjusted to make it longer or more narrow or wider etc. So the boy could cut out and fabricate a clear tool box with a folding lid that closes. This can be made as a custom size so that it will hold the power tools. Attachments within this box can be made to hold accessories like grinder heads or spanner wrenches needed to change grinder heads. These boxes can also hold drill bits needed specifically for pop-rivet holes or accessories used with a heat gun or spare blades for a jigsaw that are kept in the same custom storage box together with that jigsaw. The beautify of these custom made boxes is that boys can help their father organize his shop and tools so that his father can immediately grab one or more of the boxes to take with him for needed repairs. One overriding principle that we want to teach boys is that time is valuable. If they can organize and store their tools in proper manner they will not waste time trying to find misplaced items. This will keep them from running to the store in the middle of a job only because they cannot find an important tool or accessory.
Safety Equipment Organization and Storage
This principle also applies to safety equipment. One example of this is when I attached some bird-screen under the roof of my porch to keep birds from entering my outdoor shop area. I used self-drilling screws to attach the screens to a sliding door rail. However when the screws penetrated the track then they hindered the door rollers that passed within the inside of the track. I only needed to grind off the protruding tips so the door would close without hinderance. But I had misplaced my welder cap – which I wear under my face shield. This cap is made of cotton so it burns slowly and keeps welding sparks or hot grinder metal from burning the bare skin. Since the overhead job only took a minute and I wasted a lot of time trying to find the missing cap – I just placed the shield on my head without a head cover underneath it and began my overhead grinding. But I happened to have a red hot piece of metal land on my unprotected head. It burned through my hair and burned a hole in my scalp! That was pretty stupid to go without head protection – just to save a few minutes looking for a lost welding cap. It took time for that wound to heal and that mishap was certainly not worth saving the time trying to find the lost protective gear. Unless a shop is organized (and everything is kept in its proper place) then there will be trouble when doing a job – if you cannot find the protective gear when you need it.
Another example of this was my own father who kept his bench grinder in his outdoor machine shed on his farm in Nebraska. He had some protective googles hanging on a nail but they would get dirty and birds dropped mess into them from the nests they made above that post. So he just squinted his eyes (half closed) and proceeded grinding without eye protection. But one day he got a hot molten spec of glowing metal in his eye. It produced terrible pain and the shard of metal was struck into his eyeball like and arrow! If he would blink then it would cause great pain and he had to go to the eye doctor to have it removed. This accident – not only caused pain but it wasted a lot of time going to the doctor and recovering from the injury. Just putting on a face shield before grinding could have saved him both time and pain from this terrible mishap.
Just organizing a shop to have clean and available safety equipment is essential and our young boys can make custom projects to help their fathers organize their own home shop so that they can find tools and needed safety equipment immediately whenever it is needed.
I once severed the tip of my finger when I slipped with a box cutter. The blade hit a blood vessel and it was losing a lot of blood fast. The only way I could stop the bleeding was that I had a strip of rubber-band handy and I wrapped the first joint below the severed blood vessel and this stopped the bleeding until I made it to the doctor’s office. At the doctor’s office they had to burn the wound shut to stop the bleeding and then it healed normally after that. Therefore we can train our boys to assemble a useful [first aid kit] as part of shop safety so that if they or their father has an injury then they have what is needed to treat the wound or stabilize it until they can reach medical help. We can have basic things included in the kit to cover just about any situation that might be imagined. This is part of having a shop that is organized and has safety equipment and first-aid kit available and each boy can be trained how to use these first-aid items in an emergency – so as to treat themselves or their father if mishaps occur.
Boys Providing Solutions to Home Problems
We have plans to have senior male mentors (who are experienced in the trades) who can train our boys in trade skills (according to their own age bracket). Boys can bring problems from home and they can be mentored on how best to create a solution or custom made item to solve that problem.
Home Repairs for the Elderly
Also we can do free maintenance service work for the elderly and turn it into a boy training experience. Many elderly people are barely surviving on government support and often have high medical expenses. There are elderly people who have no funds for house maintenance. Some have leaking roofs and some have leaking plumbing or dysfunctional toilets or cracked and leaking tiles in their bathrooms. But they have no funds to repair them. Under our program we can raise money from donors for the materials to repair these things and then utilize these repairs as an opportunity to teach our boys some man skills. Later in life our boys will be able to fix or repair or create their own household projects after they have their own home and family to care for.