The Red Jig Jig

Some of you might know that I work with a great NPO here called PlayGround of Hope (PHoH), they build playgrounds like this one.....




.... for communities in need that are still suffering from the earthquake north of here, or in that above example for an orphanage just outside of Tokyo.

When I first started to work with them it was apparent that their hearts were in the right place, but there was not one tradesman among them. Smart hardworking people, you bet but they were lacking in real world trades experience. The playground above used to take them 5+ days to build that is a team of about 6 core members with maybe two of the five days with local volunteers maybe 20 to 30 people helping out.

These systems are very modular, thus all the distanced are set to be repeatable, one of the first jigs I built for them was a simple jig for making the two sides of each tower, it is just a simple board with three places that one of the 4x4 posts fits into, they were painted red so they are called the "Red Jigs"


Here you can see them putting the facia board in place this is MUCH easier to do with the red jig holding the 4x4s in the right place.
They used to do this with a tape measure and eyeballing it.


The tool tote is something else I got them onto, they were losing a lot of nuts and bolts as well as some tools all the time because they had no handy way to keep them from falling in the dirt.

Once the two sides are built they stand them up and then put another red jig between them and now they have a tower.





They leave the reg jigs in place right up until they are done, and this keeps everything straight and square.

They are going to have two build teams this summer so they need more red jigs.

They want 12 per team, and the original team has only 9 red jigs, so I'm making a total of 15 red jigs.


Here is the empty jig with all the parts behind it ready to go.


The jig with one red jig just freshly popped out of the red jig jig.

I glue everything and then shoot it with brads to hold it until the glue dries.
This seems enough, as they have not broken one jig in the past year.


Here is a finished jig standing in front of the other parts to make the next 14 jigs.

When I finish them I'll chop off that slightly long piece on the one end, then a light sanding and they will be ready for paint, and yes they will all be painted red.

Just a little look as the stuff I get up to.

Cheers!

Nice job, Stu. Your heart's in a great place

You're a good man, Stu! Great work!!!

Thanks guys.

I just wanted to add that now they can build one of these sets in 2 days, the first day the core team builds the towers and puts the floors in and connects the two towers with the bridge, the second day the volunteers show up and all the play stations, slides etc are assembled and then added to the set, and then they usually have time for a nice BBQ party afterwards with the whole community.

I think we hit a total of about 30 sets built in the last two years they have plans to build almost that many this year alone.

Nice to see this worthy cause still going strong, Stu. A job well done on your part, to make them more efficient and certainly putting a better quality job together.

That's very cool on all sorts of levels, Stu.

Way to go Stu!! A little common sense/ingenuity goes a long way towards simplifying a job. Bet they really appreciate you and your hard work. When we were building the school greenhouse years back I had students paired up for jobs. Walking back to the bus one day I was behind two students talking, one a special needs student, the other to become the class valedictorian. The special needs student looks at the other and says, "you are the dumbest smart guy I've ever know". Will never forget that. They were really from two different worlds, the special needs student's dad was a carpenter the other boy's dad was a surgeon. What the boys were doing was screwing the lexan onto the rafters using cordless drills. The honor student didn't have a clue, they both learned something those days, gained appreciation for each other's skill set, and was affirmation of what I was trying to accomplish with hands on work. Sorry for rambling, Stu, you are a wonderful asset to more than you know.

Jonathan Shively said:

Way to go Stu!! A little common sense/ingenuity goes a long way towards simplifying a job. Bet they really appreciate you and your hard work. When we were building the school greenhouse years back I had students paired up for jobs. Walking back to the bus one day I was behind two students talking, one a special needs student, the other to become the class valedictorian. The special needs student looks at the other and says, "you are the dumbest smart guy I've ever know". Will never forget that. They were really from two different worlds, the special needs student's dad was a carpenter the other boy's dad was a surgeon. What the boys were doing was screwing the lexan onto the rafters using cordless drills. The honor student didn't have a clue, they both learned something those days, gained appreciation for each other's skill set, and was affirmation of what I was trying to accomplish with hands on work. Sorry for rambling, Stu, you are a wonderful asset to more than you know.

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Great story Jonathan, and thank you all for the kind words.

Well done Stu cool project and u just enabled it in a big way. Ingenuity at its best.
I find it hard to believe in modern day Japan that this has to be done by charitable groups but i guess there is need all over the world regardless of how developed the country is.
I always think of how many of this kind of project just one missile or warship would buy.

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Sometimes the simplest tool or jig makes a huge difference. That's great Stu.