Wire Jigs: Follow Up

After presenting this topic during a session at the ICE Conference this year, a few new ideas for the wire jig emerged. Visit Wire Jigs to see the original post.

Younger students may not do as well with hammers and nails and/or some schools/teachers may not be willing to take on the injury liability. Why not replace the wood with Styrofoam and use golf tees instead of the nails? Students could use a hammer like plastic toy or even a small ball to “nail” in the golf tees. For complete safety, substitute pipe cleaners for the wire.

To prevent or cut down on the possibility of students hitting themselves with the hammer when nailing, use a clothespin to hold the nail in place. These can be purchased cheaply at a place like a dollar store. I observed students in class, on their own, come up with the idea to use pliers to hold the nail, but the concept of the clothespin seems like a better and cheaper answer.

Another topic that surfaced was that some teachers with young students would like to make the wire designs with their students. One option is for the wire jig project to become a collaborative project with older students making the initial wooden jigs and then working with the younger students to wrap the wire. This way the younger students are not actually nailing and are better supervised when wrapping the wire around the jig. A second option would be for the teacher to make the initial wire jig for the students to wrap around wire or pipe cleaners.

The wire jig can be hard to follow once it is created since one project can have several nails. Remedy this by writing numbers or drawing arrows or lines directly on the wood to connect the nails and facilitate completion.