Wood is an amazingly versatile, practical, yet beautiful material. A skilled craftsman can use wood to fashion just about anything. As a woodworker or carpenter, you will find no end of useful, valuable, and fun items you can make yourself, from wood.

Requirements

  1. Do the following:
    1. Explain to your counselor the most likely hazards you may encounter while participating in woodwork activities, and what you should do to anticipate, help prevent, mitigate, and respond to these hazards. Explain what precautions you should take to safely use your tools.
    2. Show that you know first aid for injuries that could occur while woodworking, including splinters, scratches, cuts, severe bleeding, and shock. Tell what precautions must be taken to help prevent loss of eyesight or hearing, and explain why and when it is necessary to use a dust mask.
    3. Earn the Totin' Chip recognition.
  2. Do the following:
    1. Describe how timber is grown, harvested, and milled. Tell how lumber is cured, seasoned, graded, and sized.
    2. Collect and label blocks of six kinds of wood useful in woodworking. Describe the chief qualities of each. Give the best uses of each.
  3. Do the following:
    1. Show the proper care, use, and storage of all working tools and equipment that you own or use at home or school.
    2. Sharpen correctly the cutting edges of two different tools.
  4. Using a saw, plane, hammer, brace, and bit, make something useful of wood. Cut parts from lumber that you have squared and measured from working drawings.
  5. Create your own carpentry project. List the materials you will need to complete your project, and then build your project. Keep track of the time you spend and the cost of the materials.
  6. Do any TWO of the following:
    1. Make working drawings of a project needing (1) beveled or rounded edges OR curved or incised cuttings, OR (2) miter, dowel, or mortise and tenon joints. Build this project.
    2. Make a cabinet, box, or something else with a door or lid fastened with inset hinges.
    3. Help make and repair wooden toys for underprivileged children OR help carry out a carpentry service project approved by your counselor for a charitable organization.
  7. Talk with a cabinetmaker or carpenter. Find out about the training, apprenticeship, career opportunities, work conditions, work hours, pay rates, and union organization that woodworking experts have in your area.

Resources

Scouting Literature

Drafting, First Aid, Forestry, Home Repairs, Model Design and Building, Painting, Pulp and Paper, and Wood Carving merit badge pamphlets

Books

  • Adkins, Jan. Toolchest. Walker, 1984.
  • Bramlett, Tim. A Kid's Guide to Crafts: Wood Projects. Stackpole Books, 1997.
  • Creative Publishing. The Complete Guide to Easy Woodworking Projects. Creative Publishing, 2003.
  • Fine Woodworking. The Basics of Craftsmanship: Key Advice on Every Aspect of Woodworking. Taunton, 2003.
  • Fraser, Aime. Getting Started in Woodworking: Skill-Building Projects That Teach the Basics. Taunton, 2003.
  • McGuire, Kevin. Woodworking for Kids: 40 Fabulous, Fun & Useful Things for Kids to Make. Sterling, 1994.
  • Nelson, John R. American Folk Toys: Easy-to-Build Toys for Kids of All Ages. Taunton, 1998.

Videos

  • Basic Carpentry. D.I.Y. Video, 1985.
  • Easy Woodworking Projects. D.I.Y. Video, 1985.
  • Small Shop Projects: Boxes. Taunton Press, 1990.
  • Woodworking Made Easy With Hank Metz, Vol. 1: Biscuit Joinery Techniques. Easyway Ventures, 1996.