Picture (T) of foundry pouring molten metal into Steel fabricated into “I” beams and other steel products. Courtesy NZ STEEL
Picture (B) of products made from aluminium.
Kids going to school “win half the battle!”
New Zealand native wood is I contend superior to exotic timber varieties just look at New Zealand’s oldest native tree the Kauri known as Tane Mahuta, our new shoots in our schools some exotic some native, will rise as high as the Totara, but they and their community have to do the spade work now!
– Andreas Hagen
Reminiscing In my care free days at High School Mr Mckisock our High School Woodworking teacher told us all to make a sitting chair for School Certificate, I had a rebellious streak because Dad had told me to cancel my Chinese lessons that were every second week and focus on woodwork, during Woodwork class, I felt I could do both well, and the Woodwork class was not my thing, and so decided to rebel make what I wanted in Woodwork when the teacher said make a chair and I made a coffee table, using the argument, that you could sit on a coffee table, we used radiata pine timbers, but still I finished that coffee table, it was sanded down nicely tapered feet, made the legs interlocking wood with dowel joints he was a good teacher, used well selected timbers for us students to work with the appearance of the timber done nicely made sure I worked with the grain. From memory I got 50 or so percent something low in Wood Working for not listening, fair enough,
Tane Mahuta, the world’s largest Kauri tree
Courtesy Pinterest
But then towards the end of the year and the end of Semester on a Saturday we could take our creations back home, when I arrived at school I find my low scores but at the same time a man ignoring the chairs but measuring my table, he learns its my table, he offers me a job, I was already destined for IT Tertiary education at Manukau Institute of Technology, he asks me twice, I declined both times, then he asks if he can take the table I said it’s for the family. That was that, if only I had given Wood Working a chance, who knows we made earrings of wood and bone, pencil cases, mini pool tables, used a Dremel and band saw-reciprocating saw, we had all the tools, and no accidents, we were taught properly, Joseph the Father of Jesus was a carpenter it is an honest profession, if I could have my life over again I would have at least talked to the friendly guy offering me a job. We were in a safe pre-workplace environment which I would have missed out on, if I had absconded to the safety snug and warm of mums bed. But knowing dad, if he knew I was playing hooky he would have dragged me kicking and screaming and chained me to my desk and chair till 3PM. Attending school an imperative.
Another teacher at Edgewater College, we had a Social Studies teacher who, had driven his Volkswagen around the world including the USSR now CIS. The car had about 250,000 KM’s around the clock, we were his last class before retirement, he sold the VW to one of my students when he retired. The stories he told us kids about parts of his trip, combined by the class lesson, shame he retired, he had a lot of general knowledge.
In summary technically my table was the right answer but wrong approach, story of my life.
I loved engineering too we made a meat tenderiser our of aluminium learnt all about foundry work, engineering practice – Americans may know it as shop or metalwork, working off an engineering Engineers Almanac, Mr King, ex NZ Army, and I think probably a Vietnam/Korea veteran by his age, told us the story of Kiwi gunnery position was trained on other elements of the New Zealand army he with the lads had to move quick out of harms way – I never asked, maybe Vietnam mistakes like that happened in Vietnam – but he said it was at a NZ Army based like Linton or Waioru but you use live ammo offshore when in a wartime scenario otherwise you use blanks surely. It was a very good school Edgewater College, just some rough students (narcotics) but hey I survived. The Chemistry lab was the best bit but that’s another story the moral is, kids go to school, even if you just observe, something gets retained the bit by bit, you get the whole picture, sometimes the slow learners are the smartest because they have to process more and a lot of the high school education was probably a year too early for me for I was a year younger than the other kids, by nature of my birthday.
In summary technically my table was the right answer but wrong approach, story of my life, I should have done a table and a chair. I can be angry sometimes.
Picture (B) of products made from aluminium.
Furnace pictures representative – source Induction Furnace Manufacturing
- Fourth Estate News – Andreas Hagen
