I'm with Dibs. Probably one of the last few to go to an old-fashioned school where they taught old-fashioned woodwork and metalwork - or at least they did, to me, for the first few years that I was there (it was a compulsory subject for the first and second years IIRC, then vanished from the timetable unless you took it as an option for O-level. Which nobody ever did, as my school was fiercely academic and even the "thickos" were expected to do "easy" - and supposedly useless - subjects like economics and computing). By the time it reappeared on the curriculum, it had morphed into "craft, design and technology", and shortly after I left the school the two magnificent rooms devoted to those fine subjects (the metalworking room included lathes and a forge) had both been gutted to be replaced by something entirely anodyne and useless. There a probably interactive whiteboards in there now, but no tools - and no skills being imparted.
I was reasonably good with the school woodwork, largely due to a perfectionist streak I once had. Metalwork I was less keen on, because it was dirty and the noises grated on me. But although the metalwork teacher was a competent craftsman and a mediocre teacher, he managed to not only keep control of a class of 30+ overly-imaginative boys, he taught me all I needed to know about technical and engineering drawing (a skill I rarely need given my day job, but completely invaluable when it is required). As for the woodwork teacher, he had the same 30+ strong group of lads *and* armed us all with chisels and *still* I don't recall one single safety-related incident, not even using the lathe (OK, he kept the panel saw locked away and for his exclusive use, but still, you have to admire the fact that as well as being a good craftsman he was a great teacher).
In fact, now I think about it I learned so much in those two classes that was genuinely useful that I must have been taught for more than the two years I remember. Either that or they packed a LOT of teaching into those two hours per week. OK, what I can make now is pretty rudimentary stuff compared to the majority, but my handmade game boxes get admiring remarks whenever I take a new one along to my board games club. I might have learned a bit more over the last 12 months or so working with powered machinery, but everything I've made so far has been made using designs and techniques that I learned at school 25+ years ago. Knowing that Henry the Navigator was a Portuguese sailor, or that the Lake District was formed by retreating glaciers, has turned out to be chuff-all use in the real world, but when I finish my current kitchen trolley project I'll be scoring real brownie points from SWMBO. All thanks to school woodwork lessons.
Anyway, here's the latest box. For a card game with about 1,500 cards. And yes, I'd do better if I was doing it again, but all the routing of dados to hold the cards drove me a little nuts.
