ROGERS CITY - Woodcrafters at Rogers City High School have a new tool for cabinet making, thanks to a student fundraiser and a donation from a local organization.
Two members of the city's Optimists Club watched as students in Mandy Munger's woodworking class shaped cabinet parts on a new shaper Wednesday afternoon. The machine cost around $1,600, and was purchased mostly with funds the school's industrial arts club raised by selling citrus fruit. A $500 donation from the Optimists Club helped make this wish-list tool a reality.
Previously, Munger's students had used a router to cut the curves on cabinet panels and the grooves in their framing pieces. The process was tricky, and the router wasn't designed for this intense use, she said. With the shaper, "there's a lot less vibration and a lot less chatter," Munger told the school board Monday.
The router still will be used for other purposes, like cutting decorative edges.
"Basically, the shaper is going to allow us to expand our knowledge and projects we're able to build, and it gets us up to standard for what industry uses for cabinet making," she said, adding it's also safer for her students to use.
The shaper will give Munger's students a new edge in the Michigan Industrial and Technical Education Society's yearly competition, she said. Students build their industrial art projects and bring them to the competition to be graded. This year, the regional tournament will be hosted at RCHS in May.
Also at the meeting were three officers of the school's industrial arts club, and one brought a cabinet he built with the help of of the new tool. Mark Rhode, in his senior year, is in his second year of class with Munger, and demonstrated the curved edges of the raised panels on his cabinet.
The next day, Optimists Club members Michael Marx and John Krajenta watched Rhode and others demonstrate the shaper's use. Rhode and club officers Nick Kamysek and Ken Wirgau took turns with Chase Grulke and Sloan Kowalewsky, all seniors, in changing the tool's cutting pieces and showing what they can do.
"I'm just glad that the Optimists Club has the resources to help out," Marx said.
The benefit for Munger's students is obvious, he added.
"They're working with their hands. It's a little bit different mindset than what the focus has been on lately," he said, referring to recent drives to academically prepare students for college and careers.
Munger and her students also talked about how the shop's router would frequently quit in the middle of a cut. Despite being what Munger described as "fairly heavy duty," the motor on it wasn't strong enough for long cuts and repeated use. In her seven years as the industrial arts teacher, she'd been replacing the router nearly every year.
"The router used to throw out massive amounts of sawdust everywhere," Grulke said. "You'd be covered and you couldn't breathe." Now in his fourth-year woodworking class, he said using the shaper "is just so much easier."
Jordan Travis can be reached via email at jtravis@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5688.