Greensburg High School Shop Projects

WOODWEB Content Editor, Brett Hagstrom, Interviewed Peter Kern in June 2010.Peter Kern enjoyed wood shop class in high school and aspired to one day be a high school wood shop teacher. Fast forward to 2010 and Peter has completed his eighth year teaching at a high school wood shop. Peter is very happy teaching wood shop, however the last four years have been very tough due to events beyond his control. While completing his first year teaching at Greensburg in 2007, a tornado destroyed the town, including the school and Peter’s wood shop. The school wood shop program received a Most Outstanding Program award for Western Kansas just one week before, and suddenly he faced the task of rebuilding the program, literally from the ground up. Immediately after the tornado Peter started pulling machines and tools from the debris to rebuild the wood shop program. The shop program was retained after the devastation and Peter’s class managed to work out of two 7x14 trailers, one that was provided by Peter himself. A tarp was used for shade and a 100 foot extension cord was run from the math trailer to the shop to build shelves. Peter and his class built hundreds of shelves for the school, including his shop. After spending a semester in the 7x14 trailers Peter’s shop moved to a 40x80 building. Peter mentions that it was “an extremely tough year.” At the end of the first year Peter was able to get in touch with a fellow shop teacher he went to college with. Peter’s friend connected him with an outfit that arranged a donation of equipment that allowed his shop to get back to square one. This allowed Peter to set up the rest of his shop and finally get moving in the right direction.

Peter’s lumber is purchased from a company in Kansas City, Missouri. His shop includes basic equipment such as a radial arm saw, table saw, joiner planer, sanders, and lathes. Peter mentions that the toughest piece of equipment to replace was a Powermatic 22 inch planer.

Since the projects are build by students they're typically picked up at the shop. Occasionally Peter will deliver a large project or a project built for the community.

Hardwood is the predominant choice of lumber in Peter’s shop and oak is the most common species used. Peter mentions that the price of oak is very affordable and the quality is high. His favorite woods are walnut and cherry, although cherry can be difficult to stain. Occasionally alder is used as it is reasonably priced for Peter’s budget.

Peter’s students use some panel products, mostly for larger projects like nightstands or dressers. He mentions that it adds a nice stability and helps combat the humid summers and dry winters.

Projects ranging from desks, dressers, gun cabinets, and nightstands are built in the shop, however gun cabinets are the most common project.

The design process starts with students finding pictures of a potential project and coming up with a rough idea and developing sketches for the project. Dimensions are added as the project is drawn to scale. CAD is used to input the project specs before finally building the project.



Included are pictures of student projects built this year. Sorry about how messy the shop is. We don't have any room at all as we are constantly on top of ourselves. It makes keeping it clean a constant challenge, especially at the point in the year that these pictures were taken. Keep in mind that this is student work. There are some things that you or I might not choose to do or like. There are also screw ups and design flaws that truly reflect the ability and effort/intelligence of the student. The majority of the work I am proud of and I feel like our kids are getting an excellent experience here.