I have the makedo and the screws are legit amazing. I never imagined that they could possibly work so well. It's one of those things I always recommend to other parents.
The very real downside is that your kids become attached to their creations. So you end up with a house perpetually full of cardboard and fighting a constant battle to part with some of it.
In one of my art history classes we learned of a Bauhaus (or Dada?) artist that would stack their old belongings into the corners of their apartment and then plaster over it in order to reduce the clutter in their home. Might be worth trying out.
FWIW, my kids never took to the screws, but are still ridiculously attached to their creations.
I strive to be open and honest in my parenting, but these battles just don’t seem worth everyone’s investment. A box spaceship that hasn’t been touched in a week is quietly “disappeared” to the basement, and if it’s not inquired after by the end of a month it goes to recycling.
This just creates trauma that leads to more hoarding behavior as they try to keep things from disappearing in the future.
Instead, you need to complete the lifecycle of a creation. They should know things they make won’t last forever, and you need to encourage the destruction when the time comes, and after that, they can create a new thing to fill the void, and the cycle continues.
Agreed. I know a hoarder (self-described, accurately) who traces it all back to her mom secretly throwing away her toys. She became highly defensive of her "things", to a ridiculous (three houses filled) extent.
My mother, OTOH, while not the greatest in the world, would ask me to choose which toys were being donated to "other children who don't have any" (Goodwill, probably). I keep things longer than I should, but can throw away the unused from time to time, keeping my house sort of tidy-esque, kinda.
Yup, too many parents just buy mindlessly for their kids without thinking of the exit plan for all this stuff, preferring to just throw it away when their kid doesn’t notice. This gets rid of the garbage but then your kid is left with the impression they can just consume endlessly and there’s always room for something else, they never go through the process of getting rid of things.
I like the little tools, and actually the price for them isn't so bad (8 pounds, but if on a budget, that kind of saw is on AliExpress for 1 euro).
The price for the little plastic screws seems a bit nuts though (40p/unit), but I understand it's a razors-and-blades sales model. When I was in primary school, we used those brass split pin fasteners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_fastener) for the same thing. You can even buy metal two-piece "mother and child" rivets 1/4 that price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/316963279193, but they need a punch and driving it with a nice safe plectrum-style tool is maybe a little fiddlier. Blunt-ended plastic drywall screw-in fittings are also very similar and run about 5-10p each in boxes of 100.
There seems like a limited age range where a "Scru" is OK but a split pin is not (I know I used them at school almost immediately, and I started at the age of 4). The scrus get tighter, I suppose.
Thanks for introducing me to this. I hadn't previously considered there was a range of tools for kids to work with cardboard. It makes perfect sense.
I'm excited to try some of these with my kid. Paired with the Microbit and bag of various motors, LEDs and sensors, she can really start expanding her projects and imagination. I love it.
When I was a tyke I had a powertool set that worked on 1/8-inch balsa wood (not easy to find!). It was powered with a 12V radio battery, and Could Not cut fingers. There was a drill (spade bit, so it sucked), a circular saw, and another tool I have forgotten.
Pulled it out decades later for my niece to play with.
This, however, has more input material than 1/8th inch balsa. And thus, more outputs possible.
Is anyone else bothered by hyperspecific products like this? 95% of what it does can also be done by scissors for 5% of the price and 10x the lifespan.
Cutting thick cardboard with scissors is a good way to hurt yourself.
You need some strength and a sharp blade to cut cardboard with scissors, for a child, it can mean going full force. And the more strength you use, the less control you have, increasing the chance of hurting yourself. That's also the reason why dull knives are considered dangerous. Scissors are for paper, not cardboard.
This tool looks much more controllable, which means it is safer, even before considering the intrinsic safety of the mechanism, more precise, and more fun to use.
I remember cutting chart paper (thin card stock), then corrugated cardboard which was easy unless you were cutting perpendicular to the grooves and finally heavy card which, I agree was finger bruising. There's also some amount of fun in improvising tools from what you have around you. I'm wandering dangerously close to the "back in my day" territory but nevertheless. I think there's a place for childrens tools that are close enough to the real deal but still safe. However, going too far away from the real deal makes it just a toy.
I got my son some balsa, sandpaper and a sharp knife. I also got him a pair of gloves which were resistant to the blade. Showed him how to use all of those and he's quite good with his hands. Carved a few trinkets for his friends.
I remember an article about, I think the Inuit, exposing their kids to cutting tools early on in their lives. Can't find the link. Perhaps there's some kind of optimal point in between that balances between "real" and safe.
With proper education, children (obviously) are safe around tools... Louis Braille notwithstanding. We've had sharps for 40,000 years. Use this one. Don't touch that one until you're bigger. Same as crossing the road: small ones OK; big ones DO NOT GO THERE.
The problem lies in the words "proper education". Dropped off at school is not sufficient, so kids get blunt scissors that will barely cut.
I thought left-handed scissors are some bullshit sales tactic to eke out some extra cash out of clueless people, until I saw someone on HN explain why "handedness" of scissors is a thing - and then I finally connected the dots and realized why my (then) 4yo daughter is struggling with scissor crafts so much. Got her a pair of left-handed scissors and, lo and behold, her cutting improved on the spot.
(We then bought some more and gifted them to her kindergarten, to make sure she and other left-handed kids have a pair when needed, because the idea was new even to some of the personnel there.)
The thing about being left-handed, is that as you get older, you generally become reasonably proficient at doing things right handed, because the world is built for right-handed people, but from my experience, never quite get the same level of control.
I do quite a few things right handed, some I only do right-handed; and interestingly, I have more strength/power in my right arm/hand but have more control with my left.
Left-handed scissors are something I've known about ever since I can remember, but given how infrequently I use them, I've never bothered to buy a left-handed pair, and continue to just struggle along the couple of times I do need to use them.
My kids seem to switch back and forth between left and right, but they're still young, so I'm keeping an eye out for either of them being left-handed so I can help make things easier for them (an excuse to get some left-handed scissors perhaps?) if it does turn out to be the case.
My house has a number of left-hand scissors for me and my wife, but only since half a decade or so. For most of our lives right-handed scissors dominated, and no one ever seemed to care in schools etc., whereas we did get left-handed fountain pens at some point.
My son, fortunately for him, is right-handed. I have no doubt that this saves him a lot of frustration.
If you are left-handed and reading this, get yourself some nice left-handed scissors. Trust me.
> no one ever seemed to care in schools etc., whereas we did get left-handed fountain pens at some point.
Older generations were actively trained to 'become' right-handed. My father at school used to get slapped on the hand with a ruler by the teacher, whenever he took his pen in the left hand.
> whereas we did get left-handed fountain pens at some point
Writing was the bane of my life in high-school, where they insisted we use fountain pens; I had no idea left-handed fountain pens existed. Even with a more suited pen, I imagine it wouldn't resolve the issue of running your hand through the wet-ink you've just laid down.
That was some decades ago now, and I intend never to write with one again, so there's that.
EDIT: I just realised I still have my the last fountain pen I used at school (25+ years ago?) in my pen-holder and grabbed it, it's a Parker Frontier, steel with "gold" accent/clip. I still have a strange fondness for that pen despite not ever wanting to write with it again.
I think it was one of those phases education went through. My writing isn't bad even, but that is despite some of the pedagogical approaches in vogue at the time. I remember getting a left-handed work book for practising the loops and waves in the first grade as a step before actual writing, and the approach used went so far as to demand left-handed children write with a backwards slant! Pure lunacy for kids learning to write. I never accepted that idea and just went on smudging my paper until ballpoints took over.
Now I write using a Japanese Kurutoga mechanical pencil. No pens for me if I can help it.
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it doesn’t take into account how annoying other methods can be. Or how tools open up possibilities.
I can beat 10 egg whites by hand. I’ve done it several times. But it sucks. A handheld electric beater is fairly cheap and way better. You know what’s even better? A stand mixer that cost several hundred dollars.
Is it worth it? If you bake a lot it’s worth it.
This biggest problem with this kids toy is that it’s for kids and cost ~$250. It’s really an adult toy or something for the classroom.
If it was half the price, I’d pick one up, have bit of fun and on sell it or donate to other families.
I like it from the standpoint of kids not being afraid of power tools. Plenty of adults would never do woodworking because the tools seem too scary. Teaching kids that power tools don't need to be scary as long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own IMO.
The best advice I ever got re: power tools from an old shop teacher was that before throwing the switch and powering up a machine, to count to 10 on one's fingers under one's breath while reviewing every aspect of the planned operation, and all the forces involved, reminding oneself that one wants to be able to repeat the count in the same way after the switch is turned off.
That said, I think it's best to maintain a healthy respect for, and even to a reasonable degree to be afraid of the machines and the forces which they can exert.
I feel like you want to teach that they are dangerous and can be used safely when careful. A woodworker I know almost cut their finger clean off despite having years of experience.
A British magician called Paul Daniels managed to slice some fingers on a table saw. He had been making his own tricks gear for decades.
Safety thinking can slip - you only have to cock up once when you are pushing an amorphous mass into a blade spinning at say 3000 rpm and lose concentration.
Table saws, band saws etc and the like are dreadful.
My wife manages to make a simple drill/driver somewhat dangerous to the point that I have to sometimes fake a reason why husband should take over (yes I am very careful - she's generally sharper than the tool in question!)
"Teaching kids that power tools don't need to be scary as long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own IMO."
True but real safety first thinking is not something that a purchasing decision will fix.
I have a scar on one of my fingers that was caused by a broken broom! How bloody naff is that but it bled like buggery and a 1" flap of finger flapped for a while and needed stitches at A&E (for Americans - that's where you pop in and a few hours later pop out, all patched up without a credit card being involved).
I wasn't wearing gloves. I am a first aider, H&S rep for my company (my company - I care about my troops) and so on. I was sweeping my drive with a broom with a hollow metal tube handle and it partially snapped and hinged and caught my finger and partially sliced a lump. Oh and I am the fire officer and even my house has a multi page fire plan.
I own a plethora of torture devices - a table saw, multiple chain saws, chisels and the rest. I have skied for four decades and drive a car/van/lorry.
Safety first thinking doesn't mean that you escape all of life's efforts to kill you but you do get a better chance of avoiding damage.
A power tool that promises safety might be missplaced. However, this one does not missrepresent itself. It does what it does and it does it well.
For me, I will be digging out the hand cranked jigsaw when I show the grand kids how to chop off their fingers: A fret saw. However that thing looks like a great introduction to dealing with power tools.
You don't need power tools for most of woodworking anyway. That's a ridiculous excuse to avoid it. I've built furniture and framed buildings almost entirely with hand tools.
I started with power tools. Moved to hand tools for a year or so when I moved houses and still had my table saw, etc. in storage.
Now that I my power tools are back in the garage — I can't quit the power tools — right back relying on them. I just couldn't plane quite as nice as my joiner (and certainly not in one pass). And sharpening the hand tools...
I earnestly want to do more hand-tool woodworking. I keep thinking that, as I get older, I'll eventually full in on hand tools. But at 61 years old ... not yet.
Consider table saws. SawStop built its brand on not cutting fingers off, which is scary enough. But it turns out that kickback causes a lot more injuries and that's not really addressed well by any tools.
There ought to be a market for MEs to design power tools that are safer for consumers. So where is the obviously-named "KickStop" table saw? Maybe the decline in the middle class makes that market too small to consider such improvements.
Safe is a function of training and guards and competence when using a tool and above all an awareness of the forces involved and how to position oneself so that should something go wrong, one will not be in the line of movement of potential projectiles. This means that the first thing one must ask oneself when walking up to a tool is, "Am I well-rested, and sufficiently clear-headed and well-versed in this operation that I will be able to focus on using this tool safely?"
Sawstop wouldn't have a business model if tablesaw accidents were tried by a jury of shop teachers whose awareness of this is brought into focus by a career of explaining how to safely use power tools (see my post elsethread).
The saw stop creator patented and tried to license his tech (not make a saw,) the major manufacturers didn't want to pay the license fees.
I sort of get it, for actual job sites using dimensional lumber you're going to have the saw in bypass the entire time because the wood is wet, making the safety moot so the market is there for hobbyists but not pros.
First thing the "pros" do is remove the guards. I've never seen a guard on a jointer or a shaper at a pro shop. The products fit the demand in the market.
I'm a pro. I'll agree about guards on a table saw. The ones we get in the USA are without exception crap. I haven't used a Wadkin or European style saw. I can only assume that as much as they must cost to make, there's some merit to them. A riving knife is a really nice feature and I wholeheartedly recommend leaving it in.
Shapers are a mixed bag. If you're running enough straight stock making moldings, you've probably got enough featherboards and/or hold downs if not a power feeder set up that you'd really have to try to get hurt. For smaller jobs or curves work, it's a tossup, but yeah, a lot of it gets done without a guard.
Jointers I'm going to disagree with you: I pretty much refuse to run without a guard. Except for rabbeting, I haven't found a good reason to do so. I have done so in other shops, usually on machines so old that the guard was lost 50 years ago and is irreplaceable. Generally though, if I don't see a guard on a jointer in a shop, I'm pretty wary about what else might be being treated a bit too casually. A guard on a jointer is an easy win with very little downside.
The expensive saws in the US come with good guards. However there is no way you can put a $300 guard on a saw and sell the whole saw for $100. Thus cheap saws get cheap guards that get removed (if they are even installed). Stick with hand tools until you can afford the expensive saws with good guards is my advice.
The above is about table saws. There are other power saws you should consider instead that are cheap and work. However there is a reason the table saw is considered the king of so many woodshops and until you get a good one you will be compromising ability to do some common jobs. Just because everything can be done with a rock to high doesn't mean most people are willing to do that and I don't blame them: a table saw should be in your plans or shop if you are a woodworker.
Out of curiosity: who does make a table saw with a decent guard in the non-industrial price range? Even Powermatic and SawStop ship with guards that suck.
For the record, mine is a Unisaw from the late '70s. I've got an original Delta sliding table for it that greatly improves dealing with any wide pieces, but it's definitely not the equal of a Felder, for example.
I would be hard pressed to justify the space for a euro-style slider. I usually have the sliding table off unless I am doing a job that requires it because of the floor space it takes up.
I don't know - I've never had the budget for a nice saw. I've come close a few times, but something else comes up.
If you are spending $2000 on a saw spending $300 on a third party guard to go with it isn't such big deal. The cheap saws often are not even strong enough to attach the nice guard if you would spend the money.
I’m pretty sure a nibbler will not wear out anywhere as quickly as scissors.
It can allow young children to work independently so you’d have to factor in cost of supervision with the scissors.
Main problem with it is that it is more expensive than many real nibblers designed to cut steel, I guess for now that it is niche and designed for classroom use. Mass market it and I think it could easily come down to $50.
It is not easy for children to cut cardboard with scissors. I'd say that remains true at least until age 10. Some younger may be able to manage a small amount of cutting but would get tired quickly.
I volunteer with scouts, kids aged 5-8. We ran a cardboard based activity with the makedo stuff. We tried to supplement with scissors, they were not effective.
Cutting cardboard in straight lines with scissors is easy, but cutting convex curves other shapes is really not, especially if you want to avoid bending it and collapsing the corrugation. Personally I use a knife, but obviously that isn't suitable for very young kids (not hugely safe for me either lol, I almost cut the end of my thumb off not too long ago...)
Not at all; you've missed the point. Everyone knows you can cut a box with scissors. The point is that you can't cut a board with scissors. This is a basic woodworking skill, and I think it's great if you can come up with a way to safely get kids accustomed to what those tools can do.
Are there all that many parents who want to teach their kid woodworking, but can't use the classic teaching method of taking them to the workshop and handing them a coping saw under careful supervision?
I mean, I'm sure there's a handful of parents who value woodworking skills but do no woodworking themselves - but are there enough to support a whole product category of $250 cardboard tools?
Depends on the age. I've had my 4yo in my garage with me at times. And while he's "helped" me with a few things, it generally consists of me holding the tool with his hands on the handle as well. His strength, dexterity, and simply small size prevents him from really getting much out of it other than a sense of participation. Valuable, but he's not learning anything.
When he's older and bigger, then using real tools will be more practical, and we can using the real thing. The risk will be more manageable then.
At this stage however, this chompsaw looks appealing. Instead of disappointing him when he wants to drive and having to diplomatically explain that he lacks the strength and coordination to use the actual tool, I can just hand him this. Give a bit of instruction, and then let him experiment. That feeling of "hey, I'm doing this myself" is exciting to him and gives him a sense of accomplishment.
Long story short, I see this as a product aimed at a younger audience who aren't old enough to take the lead (with guidance) in the workshop yet, but want the feeling of doing it themselves in a safe way. I like it.
Yeah, the price is certainly a deterrent. My kids are tweens/early teens, almost aging out, and while they still like making things with cardboard, not sure I can justify that kind of investment for what is really a relatively simple tool. I mean, my 3D printer barely cost more than that, and that's a high-tech precision machine.
I actually think this isn’t really an “at home” toy. A couple of these in an elementary classroom or a library or even a community maker space, make a lot of sense, since the building material is basically free.
Agreed. It's like that old Russia-America joke. When they go to space they find out pens don't work because of gravity. Americans spend millions developing a pen which works without gravity while the Russians use a pencil.
I don't like Russians, but it's so stereotypically American to over-engineer a complicated alternative to scissors.
It wasn't the Americans who spent millions. It was a single American: Paul C. Fisher who spent it own money because he thought Astronauts should have a good pen to use in space. His pen was so much better than the pencils used by both the Americans and Russians that both immediately switched to using his pens.
And just like the old joke your are missing important practicalities.
Pencils in space were terrible. Small chunks of carbon absorber of and getting in electrics was bad. Pens were a huge improvement.
Likewise I can't only presume you haven't ever cut large quantities of corrugated cardboard with scissors or ever seen a child struggle with the task. This device looks to be a massive utility increase for cardboard cutting for children.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather teach how to use a knife safely? And a cut from a blade is a lesson to be learned, hopefully only once.
Edit: Oh and if anyone's looking for the tool name, it's called a nibbler. This one is just table-mounted, there are power tool and unpowered versions ofc.
> And a cut from a blade is a lesson to be learned, hopefully only once.
A cut from a simple blade (that can't chop your finger off) can be anything from easily healed to going through just the right part to limit the dexterity for life if you're unlucky. There's lots of time to learn using a sharp knife when they have great fine motor skills already.
"The nibblings are collected in a bin below, allowing you to recycle the waste."
In my area, this type of waste is not accepted in the recycling. Just like you can put paper in recycle, but you can't put shredded paper. This would work pretty well in the compost pile though.
Yeah, this is 100% wish-cycling -- and honestly, the total amount of shavings you'd be throwing away after using this device heavily wouldn't even amount to a single small cardboard box.
I took out my comment calling it wish-cycling propaganda as a selling point, and decided to be less cynical. Anytime I see that kind of obvious play on the recycling heart string as a selling point just makes me throw up a little and roll my eyes all at the same time. The marketing department just goes overboard and nobody calls them on it
Recycle is more than just the municipal recycling stream, you can use that kind of shavings for some things. For example use glue to add fur to a cardboard creation.
The common definition, “Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose or to fulfill a different function.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse Reusing grocery bags as trash bags is the same item in a new context.
Old tires to footwear is recycling even if you can see the old tread pattern you don’t have a tire at this point it’s a new item, or as I suggested cardboard crap waste to fir on a piece of artwork. The difference is you’re modifying the underlying item for use as part of something new.
It can feel like a grey area. Upcycled is often used when much of the original item remains, but shredded cardboard isn’t really cardboard as it lacks some of its fundamental properties arising from the 3D structure.
For 250 dollars I'd expect a motor you can barely hear, not one that needs hearing protection! And at least a partly alloy case.
Proxxon is a fairly pricy German mini-tool brand, has a far smaller addressable market (i.e. serious miniature hobbyists) and can still sell you a made-in-Europe MP 400 Micro Shaper, a mini router table, with 10 cutters, for about 200. The manual says it's 104dBA, but this video indicates it's actually fairly quiet in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpmzqvHqQM0
My five year old played with this quite a bit at Maker Faire last year. He picked it up quite well. I had it in my mind to get him one for his next birthday but forgot until I saw this post. His school has Makedo tools and he likes them. So the combination might be something that he'd use on a semi-regular basis. We have no shortage of "material" being delivered.
It’s basically a tabletop router for cardboard. That’s super cool. The free motion in two dimensions is better than what kids usually get with toy saws and drills.
Routers are great tools but very powerful and finicky. This turns a router into a finger-safe jigsaw, which is a great idea.
It's not quite free motion in two dimensions. The mechanism is a nibbler, not a router. I.e. you can do 90 degree turns just fine, but you can't go sideways. You need to turn the cardboard to make a turn.
The article starts by dismissing scrollsaws as "pretty darn dangerous", but that's a pretty big stretch. They're less dangerous than a sharp kitchen knife. You want to talk to your kids and watch them closely the first couple of times they use it, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any accounts of serious injuries caused by scrollsaws.
This toy doesn't seem bad as a crafts tool that buys you several quiet weekends, but at $250... that's actually more than a miniature desktop scrollsaw (Proxxon 37088).
I don't have direct experience with a scroll saw but I own (well, made) a bandsaw and it's my favorite power tool. There's a lot you can do with it but more importantly, it's incredibly safe: The blade stays in one place and will never jump out at you or throw your workpiece into your abdomen. If you let your mind wander, you might end up with a cut on your finger. But that's about it. It's pretty much impossible to lose your finger to a bandsaw unless you have permanent nerve damage or are doing your woodworking on meth.
> If you let your mind wander, you might end up with a cut on your finger.
If you let your mind wander you might lob off a finger before the pain signal reaches your brain. Band saws are safe in that they are largely unlikely to do anything unexpected. They are very dangerous in that they seem so safe.
No one is going to messing around with a table saw. The danger is obvious. It's very tempting to be unsafe around a band saw since it seems so safe.
If you want to see some scary stuff go look up how bandsaws are used in slaughterhouses. They'll use them to lob a whole cow in half in under a second. Now imagine what it'll do to a finger while you're looking the other way.
Usually you aren't feeding wood into a bandsaw at the rate they're feeding cows into a bandsaw at a slaughter house though.
Apart from being a complete dunce, the usual way to get cut with a bandsaw is to be feeding with too much uncontrolled force and hitting a soft spot in the wood or running the blade out of the wood.
But yeah, when I'm teaching, the safety talk includes the line "Every piece of meat you see in a butcher shop was from an animal that was cut up with a bandsaw."
If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous band of razor blade.
I think we largely agree on the dangers of a bandsaw to be honest. The only disagreement seems to be how likely it is for a skilled operator to fuck up. Which is for sure debatable unless someone drags in statistics, but given the context I still feel like calling a bandsaw safe in the context of a childrens toy is reckless at best.
> If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous band of razor blade.
Yikes, that does sound like the sort of machine I'd not even want to be in the same building with. I sure hope they don't ship those blades coiled up like they do with regular bandsaw blades. You'd need a bomb difusal robot to unpack that safely!
I think being aware of becoming complacent is a really good point. If you're doing a bunch of really repetitive work, it's a good idea to take a break and get your head back in the job at hand rather than letting it wander.
I'm fortunate in that I'm self-employed and get to arrange my work to switch things up as needed. I'm also not usually making a million of anything that would demand doing the same operation for extended periods. I realize that not everyone working in wood has these advantages.
Yeah I thought it was really cool until I saw the price. Its a toy and costs more than most real tools. I cant help but think everything is a cash grab aimed at the rich nowdays. Maybe it really does cost that much but all I see is some plastic and a <$5 wholesale motor.
And its cutting cardboard. When I was 12, I used an XActo blade for that, and they are definitely under $10. I don't know exactly prices now because I buy hundred packs of craft blades for like 20. This "product" is silly.
That would be overbearing and cost you a lot of time. Kids want to do things on their own, they would lose interest if there's someone looming over them all the time.
Personally I often prefer to introduce new activities just at the point where I'd feel comfortable leaving them unsupervised (once they've learned it).
A major goal of parenting is to guide your children to independence. This is a sort of negotiation between you, reality and the child. While it can be heartbreaking when they come to you with injuries, you can't watch them all the time (and it's not healthy to try).
If you introduce an activity "too early" such that you always have to supervise, it has some advantages for child but can quickly become a drain on you (they want to do that $thing again but you have other stuff to do) and they feel less independent because they always need your help to do it.
What our family looks out for a lot is "cliff edges". This is where an activity or situation has a high / unreasonable risk vs benefit, and the harm happens quickly and is surprising. These require special attention. Once kids know where the "cliff edges" are they can explore more safely.
But these specific tools are similar in that they can't cut skin so they are completely safe for kids, and can make curved shapes in cardboard relatively easily (more easily than scissors at least).
This could be "bad, actually" if it gives an incorrect impression that power tools are unequivocally safe, rather than somewhat risky but usually safe when used correctly.
You're right, but one presumably would still teach kids to treat this tool with respect. And given that, it seems safer to me as this won't hurt them when they get careless (as kids are wont to do). That way you get a chance to reinforce the safety lesson before they graduate to the dangerous stuff.
I'm finding that a lot of parenting is teaching my kid that safety is something you have to do, and risks are something you have to look for and understand. For example, brushing your teeth is usually safe, but you shouldn't brush your teeth at a dead sprint down the stairs.
Not sure why you've been downvoted so heavily. That seems like a misuse of the downvote purpose.
But yes, I kind of agree with other commenters here in that maybe teaching absolute respect of a knife/table saw/power tool and its power to maim is a really important lesson that this sidesteps?
For similar price you can get a metal nibbler. Which is a handheld powertool designed for cutting metal sheets using a similar mechanism. They should definitely have more than enough power for leather although the cleanness of cuts will depend on sharpness and tolerance of blades. You might want to also look into electric shears.
I suspect you could probably work with pretty heavy leather, since the 3mm cardboard it's designed for is going to be pretty comparable to 5-6oz.The bed size might be too small for typical panel sizes though.
That thing would be useful for cutting leather to a pattern. Jigsaws just move the leather up and down, leather is too flexible for routers, scissors don't work well on thick materials, and knife work takes a lot of skill.
I'm looking at getting a SawStop table saw so I can teach my child woodworking with slightly more peace-of-mind that if something goes wrong, they'll be less likely to lose one or more fingers. Kids get distracted, they forget what rules you've taught them in the past, accidents happen.
This is also a tool I'll consider purchasing to provide my child an introduction to the concepts before graduating to the bigger, louder, stronger wood saws.
There's an interesting planet money podcast[0] about SawStop and why it's not a bigger thing in the world. TLDR: the big power tool companies didn't want to pay to licence the tech, so evidently came to some mutual agreement to ignore it as a feature to save customer fingers.
A small oscillating scroll saw is pretty safe for kids, I used one a lot when I was a kid. Of course it's not impossible to hurt yourself with one, but losing a finger is quite unlikely. Very different animal than a handheld jigsaw, those still spook me (and aren't very good anyway, IMHO)
Yeah, if they're going to market this as kid-safe, they need to have videos of what happens when child-size fingers are intentionally fed into the machine, when hair is intentionally fed into the machine, etc.
Almost by definition, you cannot presume (as a product designer) that children will be capable of thinking of their own safety; which is not the same as a parent who knows their child, making the decision to expose their child to developmentally-appropriate risk
I'm a pretty OK machinist, but not a professional. My reaction is to think about long / loose hair, long sleeves and loose clothing, and (unlikely for kids) neckties. Those would be of concern for any open blade cutting machine, grinder, etc.
My kids just take paring knives from the kitchen when they want to cut cardboard. More dangerous, but cheaper. Though they've probably destroyed $250 of knives... Hmm.
Have you tried using scissors to cut corrugated cardboard? Especially trying to cut curves? The difficulty seems self-evident.
For straight lines you need something like a box cutter -- with scissors it will neither be easy nor particularly straight. While for even medium-sized curves or smaller details you really do need something like this.
uh? We used to have a jig or scroll saw when we were kids, it could cut thin plywood, but you could put your finger on the blade when it was working and it wouldn't hurt at all.
The scroll saw seems like about the safest power saw that a kid could use. But every one I've ever owned/used could definitely cut human flesh. Maybe someone could come up with one that has a very limited range of motion, so that it works like a cast saw / oscillatory multi-tool, where the teeth movement is so small that it is within the elastic range of your skin.
It had was a combined jig saw, lathe, drill press, and disc sander.
Now, I don’t know much about modern scroll saws, but the “blade” on this thing was more like a thin, round file. Perfectly adequate for something like popsicle stick thick wood. It more ground it’s way through wood than actually cutting it.
I think it would take some pressure to really hurt a finger. I can say there was no real bloodletting on my projects.
The drill bits were pointed, flat pieces of metal. It was all designed for really soft wood.
Yes—startling, but not catastrophic. I first used something like that at age 6. It probably COULD cut flesh if you really tried, but it would take some determination, and just the specter of damage was enough to keep me on good behavior.
I remember it as helping me develop a healthy respect for tools, and also to relate to the material world as something I can manipulate rather than something to be passively consumed. And to manage risks, and confront my fears.
My kids (8, 10, 12) have all used my scrollsaw with supervision without issue. Jigsaw is a bit more sketchy and reminds me of most the injuries I've seen in the shop around handheld router after the cut is complete. My lathe is the kids favorite tool to be honest.
Yeah, I am trying to re-arrange my house so that I can make and store and set up and use a spring pole lathe (bodge for the Brits) --- seems a nice fit for kids (and great exercise!).
Scroll saws operate at 400-1800 strokes per minute with metal teeth that can absolutely cause serious injury - please don't test this safety assumption with children.
Scroll saws, unlike more common woodworking power tools (table saw, bandsaw, router, joiner, planer), is one of the only tools that touching the blade does not typically cause an injury.
That's incorrect. A scroll blade is just like any other saw blade, but moves up and down many times a minute. It will 100% cut you if you touch the front of the blade.
No, not all saws are the same and treating your tools like that will cause injury to yourself. Different tools have orders of magnitudes of different consequences when a blade is touched.
I've worked in multiple production and educational woodshops. I've touched running scrollsaw blades and even touched a running table saw blade and seen live a hand into a joiner. These things are no where close to being the same.
Neat!
Would make a nice pairing with:
https://www.make.do/
which is sold by Lee Valley: https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/home/toys-and-games/cra... (an excellent company to do business with).
A prototype of this was on Reddit/Imgur a while back:
https://old.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/9en02z/kids_table_saw/
with instructions on making one w/ a parts list at:
https://imgur.com/a/kids-table-saw-2cg0HJB
I have the makedo and the screws are legit amazing. I never imagined that they could possibly work so well. It's one of those things I always recommend to other parents.
The very real downside is that your kids become attached to their creations. So you end up with a house perpetually full of cardboard and fighting a constant battle to part with some of it.
In one of my art history classes we learned of a Bauhaus (or Dada?) artist that would stack their old belongings into the corners of their apartment and then plaster over it in order to reduce the clutter in their home. Might be worth trying out.
FWIW, my kids never took to the screws, but are still ridiculously attached to their creations.
I strive to be open and honest in my parenting, but these battles just don’t seem worth everyone’s investment. A box spaceship that hasn’t been touched in a week is quietly “disappeared” to the basement, and if it’s not inquired after by the end of a month it goes to recycling.
This just creates trauma that leads to more hoarding behavior as they try to keep things from disappearing in the future.
Instead, you need to complete the lifecycle of a creation. They should know things they make won’t last forever, and you need to encourage the destruction when the time comes, and after that, they can create a new thing to fill the void, and the cycle continues.
Agreed. I know a hoarder (self-described, accurately) who traces it all back to her mom secretly throwing away her toys. She became highly defensive of her "things", to a ridiculous (three houses filled) extent.
My mother, OTOH, while not the greatest in the world, would ask me to choose which toys were being donated to "other children who don't have any" (Goodwill, probably). I keep things longer than I should, but can throw away the unused from time to time, keeping my house sort of tidy-esque, kinda.
Yup, too many parents just buy mindlessly for their kids without thinking of the exit plan for all this stuff, preferring to just throw it away when their kid doesn’t notice. This gets rid of the garbage but then your kid is left with the impression they can just consume endlessly and there’s always room for something else, they never go through the process of getting rid of things.
I like the little tools, and actually the price for them isn't so bad (8 pounds, but if on a budget, that kind of saw is on AliExpress for 1 euro).
The price for the little plastic screws seems a bit nuts though (40p/unit), but I understand it's a razors-and-blades sales model. When I was in primary school, we used those brass split pin fasteners (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_fastener) for the same thing. You can even buy metal two-piece "mother and child" rivets 1/4 that price: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/316963279193, but they need a punch and driving it with a nice safe plectrum-style tool is maybe a little fiddlier. Blunt-ended plastic drywall screw-in fittings are also very similar and run about 5-10p each in boxes of 100.
There seems like a limited age range where a "Scru" is OK but a split pin is not (I know I used them at school almost immediately, and I started at the age of 4). The scrus get tighter, I suppose.
Thanks for introducing me to this. I hadn't previously considered there was a range of tools for kids to work with cardboard. It makes perfect sense.
I'm excited to try some of these with my kid. Paired with the Microbit and bag of various motors, LEDs and sensors, she can really start expanding her projects and imagination. I love it.
I really wish that Nintendo had teamed w/ these folks for Nintendo Labo.
that looks awesome. thanks for the link
Cool!
When I was a tyke I had a powertool set that worked on 1/8-inch balsa wood (not easy to find!). It was powered with a 12V radio battery, and Could Not cut fingers. There was a drill (spade bit, so it sucked), a circular saw, and another tool I have forgotten.
Pulled it out decades later for my niece to play with.
This, however, has more input material than 1/8th inch balsa. And thus, more outputs possible.
Is anyone else bothered by hyperspecific products like this? 95% of what it does can also be done by scissors for 5% of the price and 10x the lifespan.
Cutting thick cardboard with scissors is a good way to hurt yourself.
You need some strength and a sharp blade to cut cardboard with scissors, for a child, it can mean going full force. And the more strength you use, the less control you have, increasing the chance of hurting yourself. That's also the reason why dull knives are considered dangerous. Scissors are for paper, not cardboard.
This tool looks much more controllable, which means it is safer, even before considering the intrinsic safety of the mechanism, more precise, and more fun to use.
I remember the feeling of bruising my joints with scissors as a kid.
I remember cutting chart paper (thin card stock), then corrugated cardboard which was easy unless you were cutting perpendicular to the grooves and finally heavy card which, I agree was finger bruising. There's also some amount of fun in improvising tools from what you have around you. I'm wandering dangerously close to the "back in my day" territory but nevertheless. I think there's a place for childrens tools that are close enough to the real deal but still safe. However, going too far away from the real deal makes it just a toy.
I got my son some balsa, sandpaper and a sharp knife. I also got him a pair of gloves which were resistant to the blade. Showed him how to use all of those and he's quite good with his hands. Carved a few trinkets for his friends.
I remember an article about, I think the Inuit, exposing their kids to cutting tools early on in their lives. Can't find the link. Perhaps there's some kind of optimal point in between that balances between "real" and safe.
With proper education, children (obviously) are safe around tools... Louis Braille notwithstanding. We've had sharps for 40,000 years. Use this one. Don't touch that one until you're bigger. Same as crossing the road: small ones OK; big ones DO NOT GO THERE.
The problem lies in the words "proper education". Dropped off at school is not sufficient, so kids get blunt scissors that will barely cut.
See, it builds character!
Kids get really dull scissors, shared with other kids. Of course they’re difficult to use.
Doubly so if you're left-handed.
I thought left-handed scissors are some bullshit sales tactic to eke out some extra cash out of clueless people, until I saw someone on HN explain why "handedness" of scissors is a thing - and then I finally connected the dots and realized why my (then) 4yo daughter is struggling with scissor crafts so much. Got her a pair of left-handed scissors and, lo and behold, her cutting improved on the spot.
(We then bought some more and gifted them to her kindergarten, to make sure she and other left-handed kids have a pair when needed, because the idea was new even to some of the personnel there.)
The thing about being left-handed, is that as you get older, you generally become reasonably proficient at doing things right handed, because the world is built for right-handed people, but from my experience, never quite get the same level of control.
I do quite a few things right handed, some I only do right-handed; and interestingly, I have more strength/power in my right arm/hand but have more control with my left.
Left-handed scissors are something I've known about ever since I can remember, but given how infrequently I use them, I've never bothered to buy a left-handed pair, and continue to just struggle along the couple of times I do need to use them.
My kids seem to switch back and forth between left and right, but they're still young, so I'm keeping an eye out for either of them being left-handed so I can help make things easier for them (an excuse to get some left-handed scissors perhaps?) if it does turn out to be the case.
My house has a number of left-hand scissors for me and my wife, but only since half a decade or so. For most of our lives right-handed scissors dominated, and no one ever seemed to care in schools etc., whereas we did get left-handed fountain pens at some point.
My son, fortunately for him, is right-handed. I have no doubt that this saves him a lot of frustration.
If you are left-handed and reading this, get yourself some nice left-handed scissors. Trust me.
> no one ever seemed to care in schools etc., whereas we did get left-handed fountain pens at some point.
Older generations were actively trained to 'become' right-handed. My father at school used to get slapped on the hand with a ruler by the teacher, whenever he took his pen in the left hand.
> whereas we did get left-handed fountain pens at some point
Writing was the bane of my life in high-school, where they insisted we use fountain pens; I had no idea left-handed fountain pens existed. Even with a more suited pen, I imagine it wouldn't resolve the issue of running your hand through the wet-ink you've just laid down.
That was some decades ago now, and I intend never to write with one again, so there's that.
EDIT: I just realised I still have my the last fountain pen I used at school (25+ years ago?) in my pen-holder and grabbed it, it's a Parker Frontier, steel with "gold" accent/clip. I still have a strange fondness for that pen despite not ever wanting to write with it again.
I think it was one of those phases education went through. My writing isn't bad even, but that is despite some of the pedagogical approaches in vogue at the time. I remember getting a left-handed work book for practising the loops and waves in the first grade as a step before actual writing, and the approach used went so far as to demand left-handed children write with a backwards slant! Pure lunacy for kids learning to write. I never accepted that idea and just went on smudging my paper until ballpoints took over.
Now I write using a Japanese Kurutoga mechanical pencil. No pens for me if I can help it.
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it doesn’t take into account how annoying other methods can be. Or how tools open up possibilities.
I can beat 10 egg whites by hand. I’ve done it several times. But it sucks. A handheld electric beater is fairly cheap and way better. You know what’s even better? A stand mixer that cost several hundred dollars.
Is it worth it? If you bake a lot it’s worth it.
This biggest problem with this kids toy is that it’s for kids and cost ~$250. It’s really an adult toy or something for the classroom.
If it was half the price, I’d pick one up, have bit of fun and on sell it or donate to other families.
I like it from the standpoint of kids not being afraid of power tools. Plenty of adults would never do woodworking because the tools seem too scary. Teaching kids that power tools don't need to be scary as long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own IMO.
The best advice I ever got re: power tools from an old shop teacher was that before throwing the switch and powering up a machine, to count to 10 on one's fingers under one's breath while reviewing every aspect of the planned operation, and all the forces involved, reminding oneself that one wants to be able to repeat the count in the same way after the switch is turned off.
That said, I think it's best to maintain a healthy respect for, and even to a reasonable degree to be afraid of the machines and the forces which they can exert.
I feel like you want to teach that they are dangerous and can be used safely when careful. A woodworker I know almost cut their finger clean off despite having years of experience.
A British magician called Paul Daniels managed to slice some fingers on a table saw. He had been making his own tricks gear for decades.
Safety thinking can slip - you only have to cock up once when you are pushing an amorphous mass into a blade spinning at say 3000 rpm and lose concentration.
Table saws, band saws etc and the like are dreadful.
My wife manages to make a simple drill/driver somewhat dangerous to the point that I have to sometimes fake a reason why husband should take over (yes I am very careful - she's generally sharper than the tool in question!)
"Teaching kids that power tools don't need to be scary as long as they're used safely is a worthwhile output on its own IMO."
True but real safety first thinking is not something that a purchasing decision will fix.
I have a scar on one of my fingers that was caused by a broken broom! How bloody naff is that but it bled like buggery and a 1" flap of finger flapped for a while and needed stitches at A&E (for Americans - that's where you pop in and a few hours later pop out, all patched up without a credit card being involved).
I wasn't wearing gloves. I am a first aider, H&S rep for my company (my company - I care about my troops) and so on. I was sweeping my drive with a broom with a hollow metal tube handle and it partially snapped and hinged and caught my finger and partially sliced a lump. Oh and I am the fire officer and even my house has a multi page fire plan.
I own a plethora of torture devices - a table saw, multiple chain saws, chisels and the rest. I have skied for four decades and drive a car/van/lorry.
Safety first thinking doesn't mean that you escape all of life's efforts to kill you but you do get a better chance of avoiding damage.
A power tool that promises safety might be missplaced. However, this one does not missrepresent itself. It does what it does and it does it well.
For me, I will be digging out the hand cranked jigsaw when I show the grand kids how to chop off their fingers: A fret saw. However that thing looks like a great introduction to dealing with power tools.
The first step to respecting power tools or firearms is fearing what they can do when mishandled.
You don't need power tools for most of woodworking anyway. That's a ridiculous excuse to avoid it. I've built furniture and framed buildings almost entirely with hand tools.
I started with power tools. Moved to hand tools for a year or so when I moved houses and still had my table saw, etc. in storage.
Now that I my power tools are back in the garage — I can't quit the power tools — right back relying on them. I just couldn't plane quite as nice as my joiner (and certainly not in one pass). And sharpening the hand tools...
I earnestly want to do more hand-tool woodworking. I keep thinking that, as I get older, I'll eventually full in on hand tools. But at 61 years old ... not yet.
Quite right until you discover a router ...
Router is a very dangerous tool, and it will steal from you the joy of creating profiles by hand with moulding planes, one of the most rewarding things in woodworking. This book is a great guide: https://lostartpress.com/products/mouldings-in-practice?srsl... You can get by quite well with a rabbit plane and 3/8" hollow + round and 5/8" hollow + round places. I prefer the HNT Gordon Planes, beautiful hand made planes from australia: https://www.heartwoodtools.com/hntgordon/hollow-and-round-pl...
Yet you still probably wear clothing made by industrial looms, using machine-spun thread, instead of retting your own flax in a pond...
A bit half-assed, wouldn't you say?
> the tools seem too scary
They are too scary.
Consider table saws. SawStop built its brand on not cutting fingers off, which is scary enough. But it turns out that kickback causes a lot more injuries and that's not really addressed well by any tools.
https://www.sawstop.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulvP8Vv9SrE
There ought to be a market for MEs to design power tools that are safer for consumers. So where is the obviously-named "KickStop" table saw? Maybe the decline in the middle class makes that market too small to consider such improvements.
Safe is a function of training and guards and competence when using a tool and above all an awareness of the forces involved and how to position oneself so that should something go wrong, one will not be in the line of movement of potential projectiles. This means that the first thing one must ask oneself when walking up to a tool is, "Am I well-rested, and sufficiently clear-headed and well-versed in this operation that I will be able to focus on using this tool safely?"
Sawstop wouldn't have a business model if tablesaw accidents were tried by a jury of shop teachers whose awareness of this is brought into focus by a career of explaining how to safely use power tools (see my post elsethread).
> So where is the obviously-named "KickStop" table saw?
It's called a riving knife?
The saw stop creator patented and tried to license his tech (not make a saw,) the major manufacturers didn't want to pay the license fees.
I sort of get it, for actual job sites using dimensional lumber you're going to have the saw in bypass the entire time because the wood is wet, making the safety moot so the market is there for hobbyists but not pros.
First thing the "pros" do is remove the guards. I've never seen a guard on a jointer or a shaper at a pro shop. The products fit the demand in the market.
I'm a pro. I'll agree about guards on a table saw. The ones we get in the USA are without exception crap. I haven't used a Wadkin or European style saw. I can only assume that as much as they must cost to make, there's some merit to them. A riving knife is a really nice feature and I wholeheartedly recommend leaving it in.
Shapers are a mixed bag. If you're running enough straight stock making moldings, you've probably got enough featherboards and/or hold downs if not a power feeder set up that you'd really have to try to get hurt. For smaller jobs or curves work, it's a tossup, but yeah, a lot of it gets done without a guard.
Jointers I'm going to disagree with you: I pretty much refuse to run without a guard. Except for rabbeting, I haven't found a good reason to do so. I have done so in other shops, usually on machines so old that the guard was lost 50 years ago and is irreplaceable. Generally though, if I don't see a guard on a jointer in a shop, I'm pretty wary about what else might be being treated a bit too casually. A guard on a jointer is an easy win with very little downside.
The expensive saws in the US come with good guards. However there is no way you can put a $300 guard on a saw and sell the whole saw for $100. Thus cheap saws get cheap guards that get removed (if they are even installed). Stick with hand tools until you can afford the expensive saws with good guards is my advice.
The above is about table saws. There are other power saws you should consider instead that are cheap and work. However there is a reason the table saw is considered the king of so many woodshops and until you get a good one you will be compromising ability to do some common jobs. Just because everything can be done with a rock to high doesn't mean most people are willing to do that and I don't blame them: a table saw should be in your plans or shop if you are a woodworker.
Out of curiosity: who does make a table saw with a decent guard in the non-industrial price range? Even Powermatic and SawStop ship with guards that suck.
For the record, mine is a Unisaw from the late '70s. I've got an original Delta sliding table for it that greatly improves dealing with any wide pieces, but it's definitely not the equal of a Felder, for example.
I would be hard pressed to justify the space for a euro-style slider. I usually have the sliding table off unless I am doing a job that requires it because of the floor space it takes up.
I don't know - I've never had the budget for a nice saw. I've come close a few times, but something else comes up.
If you are spending $2000 on a saw spending $300 on a third party guard to go with it isn't such big deal. The cheap saws often are not even strong enough to attach the nice guard if you would spend the money.
The guard on my table saw mostly serves as a reminder to keep my fingers away from it. I don't expect it would actually prevent any sort of injury.
I’m pretty sure a nibbler will not wear out anywhere as quickly as scissors.
It can allow young children to work independently so you’d have to factor in cost of supervision with the scissors.
Main problem with it is that it is more expensive than many real nibblers designed to cut steel, I guess for now that it is niche and designed for classroom use. Mass market it and I think it could easily come down to $50.
It is not easy for children to cut cardboard with scissors. I'd say that remains true at least until age 10. Some younger may be able to manage a small amount of cutting but would get tired quickly.
I volunteer with scouts, kids aged 5-8. We ran a cardboard based activity with the makedo stuff. We tried to supplement with scissors, they were not effective.
Also, scissors tend to crush cardboard at the cut. This looks like it is not doing that.
Cutting cardboard in straight lines with scissors is easy, but cutting convex curves other shapes is really not, especially if you want to avoid bending it and collapsing the corrugation. Personally I use a knife, but obviously that isn't suitable for very young kids (not hugely safe for me either lol, I almost cut the end of my thumb off not too long ago...)
Convex curves can be approximated by a series of straight cuts tangent to the desired arc. It's concave curves that are difficult.
Ah yeah, I meant to say concave.
If convex curves are too hard, just make a concave curve and keep the other side.
I am not sure if this is board stretcher-level pranking or actual advice. Bravo!
The problem of course is that often one side of the curve is mangled/distorted from fitting the tool into it --- guess which one it usually is?
Not at all; you've missed the point. Everyone knows you can cut a box with scissors. The point is that you can't cut a board with scissors. This is a basic woodworking skill, and I think it's great if you can come up with a way to safely get kids accustomed to what those tools can do.
Are there all that many parents who want to teach their kid woodworking, but can't use the classic teaching method of taking them to the workshop and handing them a coping saw under careful supervision?
I mean, I'm sure there's a handful of parents who value woodworking skills but do no woodworking themselves - but are there enough to support a whole product category of $250 cardboard tools?
Depends on the age. I've had my 4yo in my garage with me at times. And while he's "helped" me with a few things, it generally consists of me holding the tool with his hands on the handle as well. His strength, dexterity, and simply small size prevents him from really getting much out of it other than a sense of participation. Valuable, but he's not learning anything.
When he's older and bigger, then using real tools will be more practical, and we can using the real thing. The risk will be more manageable then.
At this stage however, this chompsaw looks appealing. Instead of disappointing him when he wants to drive and having to diplomatically explain that he lacks the strength and coordination to use the actual tool, I can just hand him this. Give a bit of instruction, and then let him experiment. That feeling of "hey, I'm doing this myself" is exciting to him and gives him a sense of accomplishment.
Long story short, I see this as a product aimed at a younger audience who aren't old enough to take the lead (with guidance) in the workshop yet, but want the feeling of doing it themselves in a safe way. I like it.
$250 though. Ooof.
Yeah, the price is certainly a deterrent. My kids are tweens/early teens, almost aging out, and while they still like making things with cardboard, not sure I can justify that kind of investment for what is really a relatively simple tool. I mean, my 3D printer barely cost more than that, and that's a high-tech precision machine.
I actually think this isn’t really an “at home” toy. A couple of these in an elementary classroom or a library or even a community maker space, make a lot of sense, since the building material is basically free.
I mean, it's a specialized $250 toy, I'm sure it has a very narrow audience! I'm just saying: it's not a scissor replacement.
Agreed. It's like that old Russia-America joke. When they go to space they find out pens don't work because of gravity. Americans spend millions developing a pen which works without gravity while the Russians use a pencil.
I don't like Russians, but it's so stereotypically American to over-engineer a complicated alternative to scissors.
It wasn't the Americans who spent millions. It was a single American: Paul C. Fisher who spent it own money because he thought Astronauts should have a good pen to use in space. His pen was so much better than the pencils used by both the Americans and Russians that both immediately switched to using his pens.
And just like the old joke your are missing important practicalities.
Pencils in space were terrible. Small chunks of carbon absorber of and getting in electrics was bad. Pens were a huge improvement.
Likewise I can't only presume you haven't ever cut large quantities of corrugated cardboard with scissors or ever seen a child struggle with the task. This device looks to be a massive utility increase for cardboard cutting for children.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather teach how to use a knife safely? And a cut from a blade is a lesson to be learned, hopefully only once.
Edit: Oh and if anyone's looking for the tool name, it's called a nibbler. This one is just table-mounted, there are power tool and unpowered versions ofc.
You can introduce this way before you can trust a kid with a knife sharp enough to cut cardboard and they can use it way more independently.
> And a cut from a blade is a lesson to be learned, hopefully only once.
A cut from a simple blade (that can't chop your finger off) can be anything from easily healed to going through just the right part to limit the dexterity for life if you're unlucky. There's lots of time to learn using a sharp knife when they have great fine motor skills already.
"The nibblings are collected in a bin below, allowing you to recycle the waste."
In my area, this type of waste is not accepted in the recycling. Just like you can put paper in recycle, but you can't put shredded paper. This would work pretty well in the compost pile though.
Yeah, this is 100% wish-cycling -- and honestly, the total amount of shavings you'd be throwing away after using this device heavily wouldn't even amount to a single small cardboard box.
I took out my comment calling it wish-cycling propaganda as a selling point, and decided to be less cynical. Anytime I see that kind of obvious play on the recycling heart string as a selling point just makes me throw up a little and roll my eyes all at the same time. The marketing department just goes overboard and nobody calls them on it
> and nobody calls them on it
This is so low on the long list of bad things in the world that it isn't worth the calories burned to type up a callout.
> I took out my comment calling it wish-cycling propaganda as a selling point, and decided to be less cynical.
Good call. I thought the comment as you wrote it was perfectly good & useful.
Recycle is more than just the municipal recycling stream, you can use that kind of shavings for some things. For example use glue to add fur to a cardboard creation.
That’s a good example of reuse, not recycling.
Recycling means making new cardboard or paper out of old material.
The common definition, “Reuse is the action or practice of using an item, whether for its original purpose or to fulfill a different function.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse Reusing grocery bags as trash bags is the same item in a new context.
“Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycling
Old tires to footwear is recycling even if you can see the old tread pattern you don’t have a tire at this point it’s a new item, or as I suggested cardboard crap waste to fir on a piece of artwork. The difference is you’re modifying the underlying item for use as part of something new.
It can feel like a grey area. Upcycled is often used when much of the original item remains, but shredded cardboard isn’t really cardboard as it lacks some of its fundamental properties arising from the 3D structure.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. That is an ordered list, you move to the next step only after you can done everything you can in the previous step.
If it is clean, can't you also compost it?
Or, you know, just bin the 1/2-ounce of shavings.
I’ve got one, my 3yr old loves it and uses it with supervision to make large pieces of cardboard into smaller pieces…
A warning, it’s a bit loud, definitely invest in kid’s hearing protection to wear when using it.
For 250 dollars I'd expect a motor you can barely hear, not one that needs hearing protection! And at least a partly alloy case.
Proxxon is a fairly pricy German mini-tool brand, has a far smaller addressable market (i.e. serious miniature hobbyists) and can still sell you a made-in-Europe MP 400 Micro Shaper, a mini router table, with 10 cutters, for about 200. The manual says it's 104dBA, but this video indicates it's actually fairly quiet in practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpmzqvHqQM0
Even so, hearing loss is irreversible --- best to begin a life-long habit of wearing PPE with this tool.
For $250, it was not worth it even before you told that.
My five year old played with this quite a bit at Maker Faire last year. He picked it up quite well. I had it in my mind to get him one for his next birthday but forgot until I saw this post. His school has Makedo tools and he likes them. So the combination might be something that he'd use on a semi-regular basis. We have no shortage of "material" being delivered.
Looks a lot like my glass grinder. Nice idea but only cuts cardboard and $249 is crazy expensive.
This thing is so much fun. My friend's children have one. I was like, "Get the heck out of the way kid. This thing is mine now!"
It’s basically a tabletop router for cardboard. That’s super cool. The free motion in two dimensions is better than what kids usually get with toy saws and drills.
Routers are great tools but very powerful and finicky. This turns a router into a finger-safe jigsaw, which is a great idea.
It's not quite free motion in two dimensions. The mechanism is a nibbler, not a router. I.e. you can do 90 degree turns just fine, but you can't go sideways. You need to turn the cardboard to make a turn.
The article starts by dismissing scrollsaws as "pretty darn dangerous", but that's a pretty big stretch. They're less dangerous than a sharp kitchen knife. You want to talk to your kids and watch them closely the first couple of times they use it, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any accounts of serious injuries caused by scrollsaws.
This toy doesn't seem bad as a crafts tool that buys you several quiet weekends, but at $250... that's actually more than a miniature desktop scrollsaw (Proxxon 37088).
I don't have direct experience with a scroll saw but I own (well, made) a bandsaw and it's my favorite power tool. There's a lot you can do with it but more importantly, it's incredibly safe: The blade stays in one place and will never jump out at you or throw your workpiece into your abdomen. If you let your mind wander, you might end up with a cut on your finger. But that's about it. It's pretty much impossible to lose your finger to a bandsaw unless you have permanent nerve damage or are doing your woodworking on meth.
> If you let your mind wander, you might end up with a cut on your finger.
If you let your mind wander you might lob off a finger before the pain signal reaches your brain. Band saws are safe in that they are largely unlikely to do anything unexpected. They are very dangerous in that they seem so safe.
No one is going to messing around with a table saw. The danger is obvious. It's very tempting to be unsafe around a band saw since it seems so safe.
If you want to see some scary stuff go look up how bandsaws are used in slaughterhouses. They'll use them to lob a whole cow in half in under a second. Now imagine what it'll do to a finger while you're looking the other way.
Usually you aren't feeding wood into a bandsaw at the rate they're feeding cows into a bandsaw at a slaughter house though.
Apart from being a complete dunce, the usual way to get cut with a bandsaw is to be feeding with too much uncontrolled force and hitting a soft spot in the wood or running the blade out of the wood.
But yeah, when I'm teaching, the safety talk includes the line "Every piece of meat you see in a butcher shop was from an animal that was cut up with a bandsaw."
If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous band of razor blade.
> Apart from being a complete dunce
Or growing complacent.
I think we largely agree on the dangers of a bandsaw to be honest. The only disagreement seems to be how likely it is for a skilled operator to fuck up. Which is for sure debatable unless someone drags in statistics, but given the context I still feel like calling a bandsaw safe in the context of a childrens toy is reckless at best.
> If you want to see something truly terrifying, the ones they use to cut up foam are big enough to cut a massive block of foam, and the blade is just a big, continuous band of razor blade.
Yikes, that does sound like the sort of machine I'd not even want to be in the same building with. I sure hope they don't ship those blades coiled up like they do with regular bandsaw blades. You'd need a bomb difusal robot to unpack that safely!
I think being aware of becoming complacent is a really good point. If you're doing a bunch of really repetitive work, it's a good idea to take a break and get your head back in the job at hand rather than letting it wander.
I'm fortunate in that I'm self-employed and get to arrange my work to switch things up as needed. I'm also not usually making a million of anything that would demand doing the same operation for extended periods. I realize that not everyone working in wood has these advantages.
You've never seen the blade of a bandsaw break? Throwing the blade at you is definitely one of the bandsaws failure modes.
Yeah I thought it was really cool until I saw the price. Its a toy and costs more than most real tools. I cant help but think everything is a cash grab aimed at the rich nowdays. Maybe it really does cost that much but all I see is some plastic and a <$5 wholesale motor.
And its cutting cardboard. When I was 12, I used an XActo blade for that, and they are definitely under $10. I don't know exactly prices now because I buy hundred packs of craft blades for like 20. This "product" is silly.
Cutting cardboard in a nice shape is difficult with a knife IMHO.
> less dangerous than a sharp kitchen knife
Which is less dangerous than a dull kitchen knife.
https://yakushiknives.com/blogs/yakushi-blog-all-thing-knive...
I've been cut way more often and more seriously with sharp knives than with dull knives.
Everyone says this thing but I suspect it isn't true at all.
> watch them closely the first couple of times they use it
How about every time?
That would be overbearing and cost you a lot of time. Kids want to do things on their own, they would lose interest if there's someone looming over them all the time.
So much for parental supervision, huh?
You would be amazed how many kids end up in A&E due to this mentality.
> cost you a lot of time
Welcome to parenting.
Depends on the child and the activity right?
Personally I often prefer to introduce new activities just at the point where I'd feel comfortable leaving them unsupervised (once they've learned it).
A major goal of parenting is to guide your children to independence. This is a sort of negotiation between you, reality and the child. While it can be heartbreaking when they come to you with injuries, you can't watch them all the time (and it's not healthy to try).
If you introduce an activity "too early" such that you always have to supervise, it has some advantages for child but can quickly become a drain on you (they want to do that $thing again but you have other stuff to do) and they feel less independent because they always need your help to do it.
What our family looks out for a lot is "cliff edges". This is where an activity or situation has a high / unreasonable risk vs benefit, and the harm happens quickly and is surprising. These require special attention. Once kids know where the "cliff edges" are they can explore more safely.
>an oscillating cutter that's safely tucked beneath a puck-like protrusion
If it's an oscillation cutter it doesn't need to be that tiny, it can protrude just like a real band saw, it won't cut meat
Everyone has dust collection in their wood shops now because wood dust is a Class 1 carcinogen.
Can it do more than cardboard? Can it saw through plywood? Then it could replace the jigsaw.
This is very cool. The price point puts it beyond the toy category though. Maybe that will come down. Great idea.
250$ for anyone else wondering
For the price you could get five of these cardboard cutting tool kits. https://www.make.do/products/makedo-discover
If the only goal you have is cutting cardboard there are obviously more cost-effective ways to do that.
But these specific tools are similar in that they can't cut skin so they are completely safe for kids, and can make curved shapes in cardboard relatively easily (more easily than scissors at least).
This could be "bad, actually" if it gives an incorrect impression that power tools are unequivocally safe, rather than somewhat risky but usually safe when used correctly.
You're right, but one presumably would still teach kids to treat this tool with respect. And given that, it seems safer to me as this won't hurt them when they get careless (as kids are wont to do). That way you get a chance to reinforce the safety lesson before they graduate to the dangerous stuff.
I'm finding that a lot of parenting is teaching my kid that safety is something you have to do, and risks are something you have to look for and understand. For example, brushing your teeth is usually safe, but you shouldn't brush your teeth at a dead sprint down the stairs.
Not sure why you've been downvoted so heavily. That seems like a misuse of the downvote purpose.
But yes, I kind of agree with other commenters here in that maybe teaching absolute respect of a knife/table saw/power tool and its power to maim is a really important lesson that this sidesteps?
I help run a Makerspace, will definitely be looking into this. Great idea. I know many adults that should start out on such a tool!
If anyone in here buys it anyway, they could test if it works with leather, too. That would open up a lot of additional projects.
For similar price you can get a metal nibbler. Which is a handheld powertool designed for cutting metal sheets using a similar mechanism. They should definitely have more than enough power for leather although the cleanness of cuts will depend on sharpness and tolerance of blades. You might want to also look into electric shears.
I suspect you could probably work with pretty heavy leather, since the 3mm cardboard it's designed for is going to be pretty comparable to 5-6oz.The bed size might be too small for typical panel sizes though.
That thing would be useful for cutting leather to a pattern. Jigsaws just move the leather up and down, leather is too flexible for routers, scissors don't work well on thick materials, and knife work takes a lot of skill.
My wife bought one of these. First one arrived was dead on arrival, but the second works great!
> The nibblings are collected in a bin below, allowing ...
...the child to spread them all around the house!
I wanted this but the price seems way high.
By the way, could this concept be scaled up to cut wood?
Indeed it can:
https://www.rockler.com/power-tools/routers/router-tables/ro...
Alternately, have a robot control the motion?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNC_router
> the price seems way high.
How much is your child's finger worth?
I'm looking at getting a SawStop table saw so I can teach my child woodworking with slightly more peace-of-mind that if something goes wrong, they'll be less likely to lose one or more fingers. Kids get distracted, they forget what rules you've taught them in the past, accidents happen.
This is also a tool I'll consider purchasing to provide my child an introduction to the concepts before graduating to the bigger, louder, stronger wood saws.
There's an interesting planet money podcast[0] about SawStop and why it's not a bigger thing in the world. TLDR: the big power tool companies didn't want to pay to licence the tech, so evidently came to some mutual agreement to ignore it as a feature to save customer fingers.
[0]:https://www.npr.org/2024/10/11/nx-s1-5135668/planet-money-wh...
A small oscillating scroll saw is pretty safe for kids, I used one a lot when I was a kid. Of course it's not impossible to hurt yourself with one, but losing a finger is quite unlikely. Very different animal than a handheld jigsaw, those still spook me (and aren't very good anyway, IMHO)
I want one!
Got one of these yesterday that was on sale for prime day. They are super fun!
How much sale?
I was a little worried in the video by the kid wearing a sleeve. Seems like that could get sucked up into the mechanism pretty quick.
How? It's oscillating, not spinning.
Like a cast saw or an electric toothbrush.
Yeah, if they're going to market this as kid-safe, they need to have videos of what happens when child-size fingers are intentionally fed into the machine, when hair is intentionally fed into the machine, etc.
Almost by definition, you cannot presume (as a product designer) that children will be capable of thinking of their own safety; which is not the same as a parent who knows their child, making the decision to expose their child to developmentally-appropriate risk
> they need to have videos
The video demonstrating exactly that is pretty much the only thing on the linked page beside few pictures and less than 1 paragraph of text.
I'm a pretty OK machinist, but not a professional. My reaction is to think about long / loose hair, long sleeves and loose clothing, and (unlikely for kids) neckties. Those would be of concern for any open blade cutting machine, grinder, etc.
Will an oscillating cutter suck up much of anything?
https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/accidentsearch.accident_detai...
> Keywords: ROTATING PARTS
There are no rotating parts in the OP tool
In the product video they address this concern, and literally show kids covering it with their hair while it's on, and say it's safe
My kids just take paring knives from the kitchen when they want to cut cardboard. More dangerous, but cheaper. Though they've probably destroyed $250 of knives... Hmm.
If it's for cutting cardboard, why not just use a pair of scissors?
Have you tried using scissors to cut corrugated cardboard? Especially trying to cut curves? The difficulty seems self-evident.
For straight lines you need something like a box cutter -- with scissors it will neither be easy nor particularly straight. While for even medium-sized curves or smaller details you really do need something like this.
It’s possible but tricky. For grownups. Kids will bork the scissors or get a cramp.
uh? We used to have a jig or scroll saw when we were kids, it could cut thin plywood, but you could put your finger on the blade when it was working and it wouldn't hurt at all.
The scroll saw seems like about the safest power saw that a kid could use. But every one I've ever owned/used could definitely cut human flesh. Maybe someone could come up with one that has a very limited range of motion, so that it works like a cast saw / oscillatory multi-tool, where the teeth movement is so small that it is within the elastic range of your skin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx1AiQdMQro
Back in the day, I had a Mattel Power Shop. https://corporate.mattel.com/brand-portfolio/power-shop
It had was a combined jig saw, lathe, drill press, and disc sander.
Now, I don’t know much about modern scroll saws, but the “blade” on this thing was more like a thin, round file. Perfectly adequate for something like popsicle stick thick wood. It more ground it’s way through wood than actually cutting it.
I think it would take some pressure to really hurt a finger. I can say there was no real bloodletting on my projects.
The drill bits were pointed, flat pieces of metal. It was all designed for really soft wood.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Olson-Saw-5-in-L-Pin-End-Scroll-...
This includes what you asked for: https://4in1workshop.com
There are 4 tools and one is a finger-safe jigsaw.
Yes I think it worked like that. I can’t find any info on it though, this was back in the mid 1980s.
Yes—startling, but not catastrophic. I first used something like that at age 6. It probably COULD cut flesh if you really tried, but it would take some determination, and just the specter of damage was enough to keep me on good behavior.
I remember it as helping me develop a healthy respect for tools, and also to relate to the material world as something I can manipulate rather than something to be passively consumed. And to manage risks, and confront my fears.
My kids (8, 10, 12) have all used my scrollsaw with supervision without issue. Jigsaw is a bit more sketchy and reminds me of most the injuries I've seen in the shop around handheld router after the cut is complete. My lathe is the kids favorite tool to be honest.
Yeah, I am trying to re-arrange my house so that I can make and store and set up and use a spring pole lathe (bodge for the Brits) --- seems a nice fit for kids (and great exercise!).
My dream is a spring pole lathe!, but it seems most people make there own, and my skills/confidence are not quite there to tackle that project.
As an alternative, the folks at Tools for Working Wood have been developing a foot-powered lathe w/ a flywheel:
https://toolsforworkingwood.com/store/item/GT-LATHE.XX/Intro...
which kind of makes me want to repurpose my wife's (unused) stationary bicycle...
Scroll saws operate at 400-1800 strokes per minute with metal teeth that can absolutely cause serious injury - please don't test this safety assumption with children.
Scroll saws, unlike more common woodworking power tools (table saw, bandsaw, router, joiner, planer), is one of the only tools that touching the blade does not typically cause an injury.
That's incorrect. A scroll blade is just like any other saw blade, but moves up and down many times a minute. It will 100% cut you if you touch the front of the blade.
> A scroll blade is just like any other saw blade
No, not all saws are the same and treating your tools like that will cause injury to yourself. Different tools have orders of magnitudes of different consequences when a blade is touched.
I've worked in multiple production and educational woodshops. I've touched running scrollsaw blades and even touched a running table saw blade and seen live a hand into a joiner. These things are no where close to being the same.
I think I know what they're talking about; I had a wood lathe that ran on D batteries, and I think there was a saw version too.
Unlike the woodburning tool...