My Wooden Space Shuttle

Woodshop 1993

About 30 years ago I was in high school (Today is currently in the midst of November of 2024), in fact, I was in my senior year. I, along with a few of my friends and classmates (Mike, Zajid, Ron, Aileen, to name a few) took Woodshop with Mr. Munson, who was our clearly our woodshop teacher, as well as our PE teacher, football and softball coach, drafting teacher, just to name a few of his other roles at my school, Imperial High School.

The first project we were assigned in class was to make a toy. I looked in several woodworking project books to find just the right toy to create, and then I found it. I was going to craft from wood a small scale replica of the space shuttle. Tell me that isn't just an awesome idea.

Before I show you the plans used to create this wooden space craft and the finished product let me briefly explain what I went though to create this masterpiece. I've broken the various stages and persecutions down into smaller categories so you can easily understand the entire process and get a real feel as to what I went through.

The Lathe

Because the space shuttle needs a vast amount of lift to propel it out of the earth's atmosphere (to overcome the force of gravity), the shuttle has two large booster rockets and a giant external fuel tank connected to it, as well as three smaller rockets mounted on the aft of the shuttle. All six of these shapes had to be turned on the lathe because of their cylindrical nature. While all the rockets were turned from solid pieces of wood the external fuel tank was initially three pieces of wood, laminated together, and then turned on the lathe. This brings us to the next point.

The Bandsaw

I used the bandsaw to cut out the wing, the two fuselages sides, the two rocket pods, and the vertical stabilizer. I also use the bandsaw to shave off the corners of the near 4-inch square external fuel tank after I laminated the three pieces of wood together. And this of course leads me to the next issue with this project.

My Injury

My goal was to cut the harsh corners off the square block of wood I had for the fuel tank and create a more rounded octagon that would be easier and take less time on the lathe. To achieve this I was holding the pre-external fuel tank on one of its corners and was pushing the corner on the left into the bandsaw. Apparently this wasn't the brightest thing to do as the bandsaw caught the wood and pulled it flat onto the machine, thus pulling my exposed left thumb right into the blade.

I remember pulling my hand back and quick as I could and shutting the machine off. Then I looked at my thumb, which didn't hurt, and wasn't bleeding at all. I knew that wasn't a good sign. Just a moment later blood began pumping out of my finger as fast as my heart was beating, which started beating faster upon seeing this. I told Mr. Munson that I had cut myself, who then told me to go wash my finger in the bathroom. I remember watching the clear water run over my thumb turn completely red as it passed over my wound. Looking at the top of my thumb the cut was at about a 45-degree angle starting at the top left and ended in my thumb nail. It was actually quite cool how the nail had a perfect slot that was just the width of the saw blade.

After a few minutes of soaking my finger the bleeding slowed a bit. I went back to Mr. Munson, who said, "Oh, that's pretty deep." He got some Hydrogen-Peroxide and told me it was going to hurt when he put that on my finger. It didn't hurt a bit. Then we went to the office and he asked my for my parents number so he could call them. I gave him my mom's number as she was always easier to get a hold of then my dad. They both worked on campus (only about a block or two away from school, if you aren't familiar) and both were close by. But Mr. Munson, being a smart guy, then asked if he could get my dad's phone number instead, which I gave him and he called. He told my dad that I received a "minor" cut in wood shop and that they might want to come and take a look at it.

My dad realized that Mr. Munson's use of the word "minor" realized that it could be as bad as my loosing an entire arm but was hoping that it wasn't. I forget if my dad came over, I think just my mom did, as my dad called her and had her get me. My mom swung by and picked me up and took me to my doctor. This brings me to the next stage in my process of creating the wooden space shuttle.

My Pediatrician

I was a senior in high school, yet my doctor was my old Pediatrician. It wasn't because I didn't want to grow up and go to a real doctor. It's just that I didn't really have a need for a doctor, well not until now. So he saw me and had me soak my thumb in iodine, but quickly realized that my thumb needed a little more attention than he could give. So he sent me over to a specialist by Huntington Hospital so I could have my thumb x-rayed. Apparently, if the saw cut into the bone in my thumb then there was a high chance of infection that would have to be treated differently. So we went over to Huntington Hospital.

The Second Doctor

The x-ray showed that I didn't cut myself all the way down to the bone, which was good. But the doctor thought that I could use some stitches. But first he wanted to numb up my thumb a bit. The only time in just about the entire process of my injury where I felt any pain was when the doctor stuck a needle into the cut on my thumb for the local anesthetic. Now that hurt. After a couple of numbing shots the doctor began his work. First he started to pull chunks of wood out of the wound. During most of the procedure I was half sitting up watching the doctor work while the nurse held my other hand.

To make a long story short the doctor gave me three stitches in my thumb to close up the wound, and wrapped it up in a giant bandage. But now the real pain set in.

The Aftermath

The pain wasn't physical. The pain was realized in so many other aspects of my life. The biggest disappointment for me was the fact that we were right in the middle of football season. I had about 4 or 5 more games to play, and I was just getting into the swing of things. For some sick reason I was actually good at catching the ball. No I wasn't the fastest, or the quickest, but I believe the fact that my wingspan was greater than most others playing gave me a slight advantage. But it's hard to be a wide receiver when your thumb can support zero pressure and you can't hold your hand below your heart without it feeling like it's going to explode. That wasn't the only sport that I couldn't play because of my injury. Volleyball was the next sport that came up, but I couldn't bump, set, or spike, so I was pretty much worthless for that as well. But it was more than just the lack of sports that caused me grief.

The Jackholes

"The Jackholes" could also be replaced by "My Friends" as they gave me the most grief over my injury. All the bozons I mentioned above gave me a hard time because I cut, and actually injured myself on the bandsaw. The bandsaw was seen as one of the safer tools we had in the shop. But this story isn't about my bandsaw accident. It's about my wooden space shuttle replica. Let's get back to that.

The Space Shuttle

At this point I was able to shave the corners off the external fuel tank (Mr. Munson showed me a safer way to achieve the same goal without cutting my thumb in half.). My next task was to turn all 5 rockets and the fuel tank on the lathe. The fuel tank required the most wood to be removed as it was the largest piece of my project. People also made fun of its size and shape, and I don't think I need to explain why. Then the large booster rockets were the next two pieces of wood to be turned. After that I finished up the 3 small rockets.

This of course took some time as I wanted to do a good job. But this also was a source of further torment from "The Jackholes." My friends, as mentioned above, were making fun of me as I was still turning my project on the lathe and they had started their next project. After a little while longer, the exact time is unknown, I was finished with the lathe. That made some of the other students happy as now they could use that machine.

Now the little rockets were quite amazing. They are nothing fancy, but because of their small size were a bit hard to deal with. They were just under an inch wide and I had to drill a hole into the backs of them so they would actually look like rockets. This is where the fact that Mr. Munson is near insane comes in super handy.

Mr. Munson

Mr. Munson held these little tiny rockets in between his fingers while I would lower the drill press into the middle of them. I don't know how he was physically able to do this, for a couple of reasons. As the drill would cut, the wood would heat up from all the friction. As I was drilling he'd let me know to pull it up and stop as it was starting to get too hot for him to hold. A couple of times I felt really bad for him as he was holding the small rocket engines and sometimes he would lose his grip and the drill would catch and cause the rockets to spin between his fingers. And the edges of the rockets were a little sharp and not what you'd really want to have spinning between your fingers. Mr. Munson was pretty impressive, so thanks to him I was able to get those little rockets looking like they were supposed to.

Meanwhile

I had been working on the fuselage for a while and trying to hone it down to just the proper shape. After all this was done a few hole where drilled and fitted with dowels and then all four of the main components, the shuttle, fuel tank, and two rocket were assembled and glued together, contrary to the directions. The directions said to not glue the dowels all together. But I guess I forgot or didn't care. However my project took some time as I was trying to do a good job and wanted it to be just right. That's when the real persecution came.

Everyone would ask me why I made a space shuttle, and every time I told them that we were supposed to make a toy. And that is exactly what I did. I think the real reason people were making comments as they were jealous as my project utilized a minimal amount of wood fill. If you aren't hip as to what wood fill is then I'll fill you in (figuratively). It is a compound that you use to fill in areas were you may have accidentally taken a bit too much wood away in your cutting/sanding process.

My Final Words

All I know is I spent a long time on this stupid wooden shuttle and managed to cut my thumb in half in the process. But I was quite pleased at how well it turned out. I think it looks good for my first real wood working project. Granted it will never hold a monetary value, but to me it's priceless. Well not quite priceless, but I'm proud of it and maybe someday down the road I can get my very own wood shop in my garage and start making all kind of other fun things. First I need to get a garage.

View More Pictures

If you want to see more pictures of my Wooden Space Shuttle, look below. I spent a few minutes and took pictures from many different angles so you could get a true feeling for what this ship looks like. So take a few moments and get a real good close look up at the old girl. And if you like what you see, and you want one you can call your very own, then read below and find out how you, yes you, could make one of these too.