What you'll do
Learn skills wood-workers use, such as measuring, squaring and cutting a board, sanding, drilling, and driving nails. Routers, joiners, table saws, tape measures, drills, sand paper and glue are some of the tools you will use to build projects of your choice.
Levels of learning
Get started with 4-H'ers in your area
- Find a club near you or contact your local 4-H office for more info.
Get started on your own
- National 4-H woodworking activity books (for sale)
- Woodworking project Hot Sheet from Iowa 4-H (free download)
Fairs and exhibits
- Make and finish a piece of furniture
- Build a tack box for your show animal project
- Make a toy train set out of wood
- Build a birdhouse or feeder
- Build a doghouse
- Make a design for something you would like to build - a table, a cabinet, or even a small building
- Create a poster on safety precautions when working with wood and tools
- Develop an exhibit on woodworking tool(s) and what they are used for
- Make an exhibit on various wood fasteners, where they would be used and why
- Create an exhibit on various woodworking techniques
- Make an exhibit evaluating the merits of different joinery
- Develop an exhibit on furniture repair
- Make an exhibit on “green” woodworking and sustainable wood types
- Create an exhibit comparing wood to synthetic replacements
What a judge is looking for (evaluation sheet)
Fair judging - what's that like?
Record keeping
Some counties require record keeping for fairs.
Future study and careers
Woodworkers, iron workers and sheet metal workers learn on the job or through apprenticeships. You might also study art at the University of Minnesota if you wanted to use these materials to make art.
Woodworkers make cabinets and furniture, sometimes using computers. Iron workers put large metal beams together to make new buildings. Sheet metal workers make or put together thin metal sheets, such as for heating and air conditioning ducts.
Reviewed in 2018