Colfax school board sees new shop equipment in action

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX  —  It’s quite remarkable, really.

In the space of about five minutes, the new wood router in the Colfax High School wood shop was able to cut out an image of the Colfax Viking and the words “Colfax Vikings” on a 14-inch by 15-inch piece of three-quarter inch plywood.

Jamie Buchholtz, Colfax High School technology education teacher, demonstrated the new wood router as well as the Colfax school district’s brand new plasma cutter for the Colfax Board of Education July 16.

The plasma cutter, at the time of the school board meeting, was working on cutting out the signs from a sheet of four-foot by eight-foot steel for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that will be dedicated at Tom Prince Memorial Park August 30.

Steel Towne donated the steel for the signs.

The wood router and the plasma cutter, along with the computers that operate both machines, were purchased as part of the expansion of the school district’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) program.

The expansion of the STEM program was part of the $7.2 million referendum approved by voters in November of 2016.

Referendum money also was used to move the high school office to the perimeter of the building and to remodel the commons area in front of the gymnasium, to build an addition onto Colfax Elementary, to update the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system and to do other repairs and updates to the elementary school, middle school and high school.

The new wood router is large enough to be able to rout a four-foot by eight-foot sheet of wood.

Part of the expansion of the tech ed program included removing a wall in the shop to enable Buchholtz to better monitor students working in the woodworking shop and the metal shop.

Removal of the wall also was beneficial in other ways.

The new wood router was brought in with a forklift, and considering the old wall and the door in the shop, it would have been impossible to bring the wood router into the shop if the wall still divided the two shops, noted William C. Yingst Jr., district administrator.

A vacuum pump operates with the wood router to fulfill two purposes: to remove sawdust created as the machine works and transfer it to a receptacle outside — and to create a vacuum that holds the piece of wood in place.

“You don’t need to clamp the wood down. The vacuum works very well,” Buchholtz said.

In fact, when the wood router was finished with the Colfax Vikings sign, Buchholtz had to wait for a bit before he could pick up the small piece of plywood.

The new plasma cutter was delivered at the end of the school year, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial signs will be the machine’s biggest job to date.

Yingst said he believed it was appropriate for the school district to use the new plasma cutter to make the Vietnam Veterans Memorial signs as a way to give back to the community following the community’s support for the referendum that authorized the funding to purchase the plasma cutter.

The two signs, which say, “Dedicated to Our Vietnam Veterans” will be powder coated black with a piece of aluminum donated by Tainter Machine between them so the letters show up silver.

The Russell-Toycen American Legion Post 131 has been working on raising money to pay for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the dedication ceremony.

The dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Tom Prince Memorial Park is scheduled for 11 a.m. August 30. All area Vietnam veterans are invited to attend, and all members of the public are invited to attend as well.

Members of the Colfax Board of Education had intended to see the demonstrations of the wood router and the plasma cutter as part of the agenda for the regular school board meeting July 16.

The special school board meetings for the audit review and the budget review, which began at 6 p.m., finished early, so board members visited Buchholtz prior to the start of the regular board meeting.