Building something the old-fashioned way is a true marvel

The final requirement for the Carpentry Merit Badge was straightforward.

"Make a simple article of furniture for practical use in the home or on the  home grounds, finished in a workman-like manner, all work to be done without assistance."

But there were two caveats.

My younger son would have to do it without any power tools -- no circular saw, no cordless drill, no power sander, no pneumatic nailer.

And he would have to do it all without any help.

TRELLIS copy.JPG.zipPole beans climb up an old-fashioned, nearly 8-foot-tall trellis made the old-fashioned way -- without power tools.
The Carpentry badge is one of four original badges from 1911 reinstituted this year to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of Scouting. The others are Signaling, Pathfinding and Tracking.

To earn the Carpentry badge, my younger son would have to build his creation the old-fashioned way -- by hand and using hand tools.

At times like this, you wonder whether the home improvement skills you’ve tried to teach your children over the years have caught hold somewhere in their minds. You wonder whether they not only will be able to retrieve that information, but synthesize it and appropriately apply it.

The Carpentry Merit Badge would be one such test for my younger son.

He pondered his project. What would he create without power tools and with no help? What would you build?

Consulting ideas from an electronic copy of the 1928 Carpentry Merit Badge pamphlet and using his imagination, he chose to make a rustic-looking trellis for pole beans. They already were growing rapidly in our garden -- minus the poles.

He wanted it to match his “marvel” arch at the entrance to our walkway. The curving, sassafras arch is so named, he says, because whenever visitors see it, they marvel and exclaim, “Wow! Who did that?” (Are they marveling at master craftsmanship, or simply a goofy idea? We may never know.)

So my younger son scoured the nearby woods for thick, sturdy, artistically formed sassafras limbs.

He then gathered the necessary human-powered tools  -- a hand saw, screwdriver, hand drill, chisel and measuring tape.

For the two trellis posts, he chose tall hiking sticks he had carved not only with intricate designs, but with his troop number and initials.

But how could he attach the top to the posts without someone to hold the wood in place? After some thought, he formed a jig from old pieces of wood -- and nailed it to the picnic table! (Fortunately, the table already was in need of repairs, which we completed the following week.) The jig also allowed him to cut the ends of the top piece at the proper angles without help.

Using a hand drill, he bored two holes and screwed the top piece securely to the posts. Screws would hold more securely than nails, he correctly reasoned, and also wouldn’t split the wood.

Now he needed a cross brace. It was back to the woods for another sassafras limb, then back to the jig to trim off the ends. As he sawed, ants began pouring from an undetected section of rot. So it was back to the woods yet again.

Finally, with a sturdy cross brace in place, he marked and sawed evenly spaced notches across the top piece and attached strings for the beans to climb.

The bean stalks are swiftly winding their way up the trellis.

Another “marvel” now stands in our yard.

And I mean that in the best sense of the word.


"What have you built without the aid of power tools?"


Don't forget to include your initials and hometown.

If you were a Boy Scout in 1911, you’d have to know the following in order to earn your Carpentry Merit Badge.

  1. What is the purpose of a try-square?
  2. What does a bevel do?
  3. What is a mitre-square?
  4. What is the proper way to clinch a nail?
  5. How do you plane the end of a board?
  1. The try-square is used to mark lines at right angles.
  2. A bevel is similar to the try-square, but is adjustable to any angle.
  3. The mitre-square is used to mark lines at 45-degree angles.
  4. Use a hammer to hit the point with slanting blows so it will curl slightly, then hammer the hooked end intp the wood, always across the grain.
  5. Fasten the wood in a vice. Plane partly across one edge, then reverse the piece and plane partly across from the other edge to prevent chipping.
-- Source: Carpentry Merit Badge pamphlet