[quote='29MurrayTub]It's ok to start with wood. Make little cars and trucks out of 2x4's and holesaw blanks. EDIT: Of course, you do the dangerous sawing and powertool stuff when he's somewhere else. Sometimes it's fun to take apart small motors, too. You can probably get an old Briggs from a lawnmower for free. Let him work the ratchet once you've broken the bolts loose. When he's older you can worry about putting things back together.[/quote] I started with model cars and stuff. I took my first carb apart at 7 or 8. An old carter bbs from an old flat six plymouth. Dad kept the pieces in a coffee can under his work bench for years. He gave it back to me to put back together a year before he died. I put it back together and it worked, we were both amazed! Yeah,old lawn mower engine and stuff a great to play with as a kid and they're expendable. Start him out young and he can drag lexus drivers over the coals for fixing them!LOL
my dad was not a very good mechanic,he messed with stuff all the time though,and he kept everythiny going somehow. he brought an old lawnmower home for me when i was 5-6,we didnt have a socket set but he had a few end wrenchs and a hammer,i wanted to see what was under that head and the fins on the head were in the way,so i broke them all off with the hammer and used the wrench to get the bolts out! my dad was happy that i got it apart! randy
I was about 10 when my dad had an old power reel type mower that the local handy man couldn't get to start. Dad had been a mechanic at a Ford place but was now employeed to cover the south half of the state for a Caterpillar dealer and was gone most of the week. The mower was pretty old so he bought another mower. Anyway he opened the single car garage (w/ dirt floor) and said to see what I could do. Long story short I got it running but lost a bunch of stuff to get it back on the mower. Now we call it bag and tag. My son, now 25, was about 10 when he spent a couple of weeks off and on w/ me overhauling a 9N tractor. Bag and Tag or put it back in the hole it came from. No he has a 55 Bel Air and I have a 56 Victoria that we wrench on together. Later TC
I agree with the idea of a real car part with fasteners loosened so it's easy to work on! Also, right outside of door in good weather, some milk crates and short planks as a life-size set of blocks...and a dolley or something with wheels to set them on so he strts thining about car building...
last x-mas i went to harber freight and got my daughter a small tool box with few few tools in it ,screw driver pliers ,hammer bla bla bla.i let her help manly just mess around it keeps her busy and she thinks shes really helping..i spent les than $20 she was thrilled.....and she has HER own tools....
i've got a 4 yr old and a 6 yr old boys who love to be in the shop with me so i took some old scrap metal and drilled a bunch of different sized hole in it and give them some bolts,washers ,and nuts and make them figure out what size wrenches they need.tighten and loosen all day long.
when i was youn my dad got an old lawnmore for me to ride around on i remeber my grampa putting a 4x4 on the clutch petal so i could reach it ,it set out side and always got water in the gas so i learned how to work on the brigs perty young also, it had a stright pipe that shot flames that was the coolest,
here is me... dad had to "add" parts for me to take off (anything with wires, etc. ) my car is on "the lift" with "customers" bikes waiting.
Also, on the more conventional side, get several of the little Lego car kits, scramble all the parts from the different ones, and add a hatful of extra components so he can create vehicles... As a lesson on aesthetics, get him one of the vintage car looking ones and show him how to correct the usual lego error of monting the front axle behind the radiator position...
I have been raising Danyelle sinse she was 1 by myself. She is in the shop or on the road with me. She asked me the other day what was a collection ? I said like my collection of hot wheels or your collection of hot wheels or dolls. She said when can I get a collection of tools ? She turned 4 aug 30 .. Here is some picts of her at buba's house last night at 12 ...
First off, if your area has an active group of HAMBers, take them with you to any and all get togethers. I took my oldest (5) with me to the cardboard cutting party last weekend, and he worked harder than I did! I also let mine grab a wrench anytime I'm doing something in the garage. The 2 year old had his Little Tyke's convert up on "blocks" when I changed my intake manifold on the beater Dodge truck I have last weekend. Him and his brother were taking turns "tuning it up" then "driving" it around the yard making all the "vroom vroom" noises and tire squealing they could. I dig it, the Mrs. don't. And, from first hand experience, a cheap tool set for the kids IS the best way to go! Jay
When I was 8, my dad came home from work to discover I had disassembled the lawn mower, engine and all! Hey, I had to know how it worked and that seemed to be the best way to find out. I didn't learn much about the mower or engine but it sure taught me how mad my dad could get! That weekend, he went over to see a friend of his and came home with 6 old, broken lawn mowers. "You can do what you want with these, but LEAVE THAT ONE ALONE!!" Smart guy, my dad.........
When mine was that age, we went to the Turkey Run in Florida and shopped for a pedal car project for him. It was awesome watching him bend down and check it out. We ended up finding a nice '60s Firetruck model that needed paint. I had it stripped, and painted flat black and white, like my '57 Chevy station wagon project. This part was NOT a father-son project. Truth is, I had it all done at a friend's shop. BUT, while I was out working on my project, Boy Wonder was next to me "working" on his with his toy tools. He could also work on it in the house when I wasn't around, and he could wash it in the yard. When we hit the cruise night in the '54 Buick, his car was in the trunk, and we'd pull it out and he'd back into the space next to mine and park it there for the night. Get him a car and get it "running" as quick as possible so he can enjoy it all the time. He's a kid...he won't like building it for more than a day. damn...that sounds kinda familiar... Brad
It's heartening to hear that it's not just me that has critters under foot. My boys have a workbench with a real vice, peg board, tools etc. The oldest (7) has been good with a hammer since about 2, so he tells me what timber he wants cut and then makes stuff out of it. He also paints and I let him do some striping the other day...we'll work on that. I have 2 problems. Generally they want to help me with my task, not their own that I give them and the little one (2 1/2) hates any noise. I can't drill, sand, hammer or anything, but he always wants to be in the shed. I quickly run out of quiet stuff to do. Great thread, Pete P.S. I am positive I completely disassembled a gearbox when I was 3.
Tried to make my little ones pediatrician smile the other week (didn't work)when he gave me a list of things to watch out for and keep out of the hands of my 3 year old. I asked him if it would be better to give them a 4" grinder instead of the 7"... My 4 year old girl is the trooper with a grinder in her hands (and mine),my 3 year old boy likes to scoot the 1/18th scale models around the garage floor and the 1.5 year old is under over and around ever part of the car. Mom doesn't dig it but hey, they're interested so they're out there! I guess it boils down to having them involved in everything, It's hard when time to work on the fun stuff is so limited but as has been said, if you get them involved and doing something, that time spent will be in their heads forever. My first promotion the first week on job came from sitting on the warehouse floor sorting the nuts and bolts that had been swept into a corner after the people tearing down the racks just chucked the "extra" bolts. The owner came and asked me what I thought I was doing... I explained that a 1" 1/4-20 bolts costs roughly 15 cents a piece and 1/4-20 nuts and lock washers are about 5cents. He looked puzzled until he saw the 3-5 gallon buckets behind me full of bolts, nuts and washers. I never thought I would appreciate my dad making us do that on Saturday mornings until that bump from the warehouse to the office. EVERYTHING EVERYTHING... take them to shows, take them to shops, take them to scrapyards, metal yards, junk yards, museums etc etc etc... I took my little girl to work this last week and then to the skatepark at lunch, now all she keeps saying is that she's going to work on cars and ride a skateboard...
I have a three year old and he is always wanting to sand my car If ever paint the thing I am in trouble! He also has a firetruck pedal car that he likes to wash! My earlest memory is when my pops was putting carpet in 70s wall to roof shag wagon. He stapled my diaper to the floor so I wouldnt spill his PBR!
My 11 year old stepson still doesn't have much of an interest or attention span for car projects, but every now and then he'll come out and spend some time in the garage with me. He does like to take stuff apart and I always have a parts car or bike around that he can spin some bolts off of. The trick, at least with him, is there needs to be a fairly quick goal. He'll get bored quickly if there isn't an end to the task and a new one to start - so I try to give him things that have a lot of pieces that come off easily. The first time he "helped" me with the car he was about 5 and I had just started dating his mom. I was putting an alternator in my wife's (then girlfriend) Jeep and he wanted to help, so I gave him a screwdriver and a BS job to do. I quickly learned you can't leave a five year old unattended with a large screwdriver. He was two feet away from me and somehow managed to completely destroy the Cherokee's grill before I realized he'd gotten bored of the job I gave him and decided to "help me take the front off". His favorite part of working in the garage with me though is getting to use the Goop to clean his hands. For some reason he thinks Goop is the coolest substance on the planet and since he equates it to greasy hands from working on the car he sees that as his reward for a job well done. Funny stuff.
I remember as a kid I always got to sort nuts and bolts, sweep the floor and even use the impact to change tires. My son is 5 and I'm sure he will start getting more exposure to the old tin. He's getting to the age where he likes the shows and lookin at the cars now. Here he is getting a Model T driving lesson.
Get'em out in the garage when their young.... My son went to his first car show when he was 2 weeks old. Been to everyone since. He's 18 now. He's had a 55 Desoto that he bought with his own $$ when he was 15. He is working on his grandpa's old Chevy pickup trying to get it back on the road. He is currently getting a 64 Caddy together for his winter car this season Biggest boner in the garage was when he was 4, he spraypainted the whole right side of my 48 Studebaker. (The car won one of the PPG paint awards @ the Nationals in '92). No real harm done, we got it all off with no damage.
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