Kibler kits

[2 shots]

In my work I have to train young highly intelligent people to do moderately difficult technical tasks. When I first started it was easy to get a trainee up to speed in a few years time but all of them had worked in the woodshop with their dads or did crafts with their moms etc. now its common to struggle to get these kids up to snuff and universally they all tell me they have never done crafts, fixed cars, mended clothes etc etc. lots of video games but in my experience that doesnt transfer over. These kids view their hands as mysterious lumps of clay at the ends of their wrists.

.     so.... its the parents fault as i see it. easier to have them  tied up on a game or computer

[DavidC]

Lack of confidence! Afraid of messing up a really nice product that costs them a fair amount of money. Many never had a father that taught them basic tool skills.

This is what really hits the mark, to me. These meaningless platitudes about "how young people ..." are always coming from a place of ignorance. I work with automation that tries to enable people with no prior manufacturing experience to step into the role of a dumbed down machinist. The number of applicants that have never used a hand drill used to surprise me, but enough of these people were well spoken and intelligent and most had the same explanation: they grew up with either a single parent who worked most of the time, or they grew up with both parents working and they lived in rented houses where they were discouraged or forbidden from doing repair work.

The housing market and high rent prices + the growing tendency for rented facilities to include all maintenance really deprives people of the OPPORTUNITY to learn skills that used to be common.

Plus the stock alone may represent 2.5 weeks worth of wage pay for many people, so it's tough to start taking a chisel you've little experience with, to a piece of wood you can't really afford to replace.

It all comes back to money, in some way or another.

[Stoner creek]

These are the same folks with a big honking 4x4 pickup that sets way up off the ground, buffed up muscles, and $15k worth of tattoos. …..and they don’t know how to fix a flat tire………
 Excuse me sir but how did you just drill that 1/16” hole???

[Stoner creek]

New rule!!!!
No “Man Buns” in my class!!!!!

[smart dog]

In my work I have to train young highly intelligent people to do moderately difficult technical tasks. When I first started it was easy to get a trainee up to speed in a few years time but all of them had worked in the woodshop with their dads or did crafts with their moms etc. now its common to struggle to get these kids up to snuff and universally they all tell me they have never done crafts, fixed cars, mended clothes etc etc. lots of video games but in my experience that doesnt transfer over. These kids view their hands as mysterious lumps of clay at the ends of their wrists.

Here you go. 
https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=74180.0

[J.M.Browning]

For some a kit of any sort is intimidating , uncharted territory, something they can only dream of doing . I feel very fortunate to have a shop full of projects some nights - most nights I can't wait for 5:00 am .

[Stoner creek]

In my work I have to train young highly intelligent people to do moderately difficult technical tasks. When I first started it was easy to get a trainee up to speed in a few years time but all of them had worked in the woodshop with their dads or did crafts with their moms etc. now its common to struggle to get these kids up to snuff and universally they all tell me they have never done crafts, fixed cars, mended clothes etc etc. lots of video games but in my experience that doesnt transfer over. These kids view their hands as mysterious lumps of clay at the ends of their wrists.

Here you go. 
https://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=74180.0

 Okay, and your point is??

[smart dog]

Hi Stoner,
My point is that there are young folks who know how to use tools and are not addicted to computer games.

dave

[Bob Roller]

I see just an overall lack in people of wanting to create or fix something .
The constant remarks I get when I show a project or how I do something is 'Why don't you just go buy one instead of wasting your time making one ',,and 'It's not worth my time to do something like that'.

My stepson put it well when he told me one time that world runs on a Credit Card, a Cell Phone and a Smile.
Have someone else do it, it's not worth the effort and your time.

I see it differently and am proud of that fact.
The loss of the overall general knowledge and skills to create, fix and maintain even the simplest things around us is sad.

The credit card,Instant and perpetual debt.I do carry one when I travel in case of major car trouble like a transmission going out
but never use them in casual low level purchases.Our oldest son married a lovely girl from the Phillipines and she had NO idea about credit cards and ran up debts they could not pay.Long story short,we paid them off and drained a lot out of our hard earned savings to save their car and house in Texas.These cards in the hands of the inexperienced are dangerous.
Bob Roller

[David Rase]

With woodshop, metal shop, home economics and auto shop all gone by the way of the dinosaur, most kids never get a chance to work with their hands unless they are given the opportunity at home.  My experience is that if you get the opportunity to let a kid make something with their own hands, most are in awe and want to do more.  They just need someone to take the time and plant the seed. 

[flatsguide]

With woodshop, metal shop, home economics and auto shop all gone by the way of the dinosaur, most kids never get a chance to work with their hands unless they are given the opportunity at home.  My experience is that if you get the opportunity to let a kid make something with their own hands, most are in awe and want to do more.  They just need someone to take the time and plant the seed.

That may change Dave. College is a waste of resources and young people’s lives...not all but quite a few. It is really being hammered home with the President wanting to bail out a lot of the graduates that can’t find a job or the best they can do is flip burgers. A lot of people see that and that may be the impetus to start bring back the trades in high school.
Cheers Richard

[Ky-Flinter]

........there are young folks who know how to use tools and are not addicted to computer games.
dave

I agree.  I'm at drag race with my son and two of his buddies this weekend.  They are all three 30-something.  They built their race car, made one-off parts for it, maintain it, tune it and race it.  There are a lot of other racers here of their age.  These guys, and girls, know how to do stuff.

Ron

[Dwshotwell]

Most of what’s been said is correct but there are also exceptions, and I know a few younger guys who were not interested in their teens but now as they mature they are showing interest in  woodworking etc. My son had no interest early on but put together a Kibler SMR over summer break and seemed to really enjoy it.

We’ve also got to remember that one generation complaining about the next generation is a pastime at least as old as human language.

[Old Time Hunter]

This post may have taken a turn toward complaining about the younger generation. I don`t complain about young folks not knowing much! If there is a will , they have time to learn. The ones that bother me are grown men with little to no skills! I work as a machinist / tool maker for a large automotive manufacturer, it has become VERY hard to find skilled workers!!! I learned machine work in vocational machine shop in high school. I was fortunate enough to have a father that was very skilled and gave me my first pocket knife at 5 years old, he taught me how to sharpen it at 7 years old and,  he never   sharpened it again. I now keep his sharp for him , he will be 90 in December. I make things now for my own sanity! I simply could not make it without making something ! It is in my DNA ! I can`t speak as to WHY people are the way they are , mostly it boils down to motivation as well as exposure to things "being made"

[Eric Krewson]

My bow making students are usually 40 years old or older, ineptness is not strictly an age thing, only about one out of a dozen of my students have the drive and tool experience to complete a bow without me telling them every single move to make and usually taking over the process so they can walk out of my shop with a finished bow. If I don't keep close track of them, they can turn a fine bow stave into firewood in a heartbeat.

One smart a$$ on another board saw me make the same comment and said; " there are no bad students, only bad teachers", yea right.

So, guys, we are all just bad teachers, "he says tongue in cheek".

I have told this story before but for those who haven't seen it;

My neighbor down the street asked me to help him get his garage door opener working, I took a look and determined the limit switches were out of adjustment. I asked him to get me a screwdriver, to which he replied " Hoss, if you keep something like that around the house people expect you to know how to use it". He didn't even have a screwdriver in his house, yep, they are out there.

[Jim Kibler]

Lots of good points have been made here.  We just keep trying to make them as easy as possible so everyone or nearly everyone can have great success. 

We try to be understanding, but admit it can sometimes be a touch frustrating. We have to remind ourselves that everyone has different strengths.  Katherine likes to remind me what it would be like if I was asked to be a counselor or something like that.  What a disaster that would be!

[Taylorz1]

I think the biggest issue is that Kibler hasnt released a Hawken kit yet. Once that is done I see the divides in our society closed, our nation mended, world peace, end to famine,  fuller hair and whiter teeth for all etc etc

[oldtravler61]

   Jim I think I have the answer... ( kidding ) but maybe you could carve a hand out of wood. Then ship it with each kit..?  That way they can be lead by your " hand "  so to speak...
 Yep I know I have a warped since of humor....

[Kmcmichael]

Counselor! If been an unlicensed counselor for at least 50 years.
Remember this phrase
   - Don’t be a dumb*ss
I told others this during my career.
I tell myself this each morning.
…it doesn’t always sink in.

[Bob Roller]

With woodshop, metal shop, home economics and auto shop all gone by the way of the dinosaur, most kids never get a chance to work with their hands unless they are given the opportunity at home.  My experience is that if you get the opportunity to let a kid make something with their own hands, most are in awe and want to do more.  They just need someone to take the time and plant the seed.

We had East Trades School here in Huntington WVa and the ONLY teacher that TAUGHT was Wendell Cornette who taught what was called Industrial math and from him I learned about precision measuring tools such as micrometers,telescoping gauges and the now seldom seen Vernier caliper in both decimal and metrics.The welding class "teacher" was Mr.Young who spent a lot of time swearing at us with an Irish accent.I never saw the machine shop "teacher" Mr.Bowman because he was  in the old forge shop playing cards and smoking and BSing with the janitors.The auto class was another wipe out and I was way ahead of that due to my job in a specialty garage and European car dealership plus the Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg/Marmon V16 and Pierce Arrow cars that came thru there.Meeting Bill Large was a big benefit as well and I owe him a lot in the learning of machine tools and materials.A 9 year period of time in the Army and National guard was added from 1954 until 1963.Full VA benefits I neither need or want now or later.I am a child of industrial America when a simple pack of sewing needles or a monsterous steam locomotive that could pill trains 5 miles long was made here along with the tools and machines to make them and a myriad of other made in the USA by American workers.Now 87 and wonder what's next and hope it works out.
Bob Roller

[Beaverman]

New rule!!!!
No “Man Buns” in my class!!!!!

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rfd]

Some folks have trouble differentiating 'tween a hammer and a screwdriver and should assess that lack before attempting a kit build, but yet they persist and *hope* they can stick together a rifle kit ... wrong.

Some folks who've built one or more of the offshore "screwdriver" kits think a Kibler kit will be about the same ... wrong ... but the Woodsrunner kit sure do come mighty close!

Jim's Woodsrunner kit is in a new class of trad ml kits - no one can even come close to what Jim has currently achieved.

Got my second Woodsrunner kit on order ... they's like them 'tater chips, can't have just one ... 

[Hungry Horse]

 I think the problem is not with Kibler kits at all, its with mankind circumventing natural selection. The ability to work with our hands is a survival skill that is not encouraged in the modern age. People that could not work with their hands at least on some level in the past, couldn’t survive. Proof of this is how often you see someone order something that will take at least two day to get in the mail, that they could make in a half an hour.
 O.K. I’ll get off my soapbox now, I got stuff to build.

Hungry Horse

[Beaverman]

I thank the lord that both my grandfather and my Pops took the time to pass their skills and had the patience to teach me the basics of hand tools at an early age and also the opportunity that the High School I attended in Chicago in the early 70's was called Lane Tech which was at the time  an all boys public high school of 4800 students, yea a small college size, every student had 4 years of required drafting, both machine and architectural, basic ed and shops to include basic wood, wood model building and wood cabinet shops, electric, welding, machine, foundry, print shop , auto mechanics, auto body and paint, during ww2 they had an avionics shop and taught plane mechanics, the school is still there, co ed and is now called Lane College Prep, all the shops are gone, the rooms are there, the machines are there and the doors to them locked, last shop teacher retired in 1997, it's a crying shame! I have grandkids close who their dad and I are passing the skills on to as we can, if you ever get a chance to listen to Mike Rowe here ,  he gets it too!