Rotary tool bits

This is a small set of bits for rotary tools. I bought the bits from eBay. The wood is a small branch that was lying around. It was cut and shaped by Sven -Erik.

Kids workshop at the Club

It was great to have Charlotte and Sven-Erik with us the last month. One of the things that we did was a children's workshop. I have not used hand tools a lot.
Getting the club ready for the workshop involved cleaning it up and getting it into some kind of order. Sven did a lot of the cleaning... We got rid of four mice, one rat, two bats, and I had displaced three squirrels from the club. We managed to get them out without any harm on both sides.
We made numerous trips to shop for hand tools. We visited HMS tools and Kwality Plywood in Vellore many times, and had great shopping trips. We stocked up on hand tools such as mini hacksaws, hammers, files and hand drills.
Below are some of the photos of the first workshop with Sven, where we made name boards. We used finger jointed rubber for the base and some plywood beading (supposedly sourced from China) for the letters.
There was a lot of prep work that was needed to be done to get the boards and the strips ready for the letters. It was fun and a learning experience.

Planning out the layout of the name board

cutting out the beading strips using a small jig that Sven made. The work tables came in handy. 

The mini hacksaws were really useful

Fixing the letters with fevicol

A woodworking club in Javadhi hills

Sven and I were privileged to be involved with setting up a woodworking club in Koviloor, Javadhi hills. This was possible due to the efforts of Dr. Anu Rose and the CHAD team as well as the Don Bosco group who have been working with the children in Koviloor. We started  out on a Saturday morning. There were about twenty enthusiastic children there from the ages nine to fourteen. We made two sets of the alphabet as well as the club sign. We returned in the afternoon after lunch. All of us (Sven, Charlotte, Basalel and I) had a wonderful time. We hope this initiative will carry on. We hope to train volunteers from Jawadhi in the club so that they can carry on teaching the kids there.

The children made a large sign for the club. Made with plywood beading and finger jointed rubber. Finished with liquid paraffin

Translating for Sven at the beginning of the workshop

A sample of the letters we made

The rat race!

We had stored a lot of wood in a room in the club. As it was not touched for some months, there were rats, lot of them. More specifically mice.
Sven and I got rid of most of them. We laid out a maze to guide them to the door. It worked... well kind of....

In memory of the rodents we so unceremoniously displaced, Sven made this...