Practical Workshop Skills and Task Execution
Practical Workshop Skills and Task Execution
The practical test gives you a work order and a time limit. You are marked on preparation, respect of the sequence, dimensional accuracy, finish, safety and tidiness - not only on the finished object. A well-made job produced dangerously or an hour late still loses marks.
The assessed sequence
- Read the work order (fiche de travail): dimensions, material, quantity, deadline, tolerances.
- Prepare tools, material and PPE, and check the machine before switching on.
- Mark out (tracé) from a single datum face and a single datum edge.
- Execute in the correct order, cutting on the waste side of the line.
- Self-inspect as you go, not only at the end.
- Finish, clean and report - 5S: sort, set in order, shine, standardise, sustain.
Core rules
- Every dimension is taken from the datum, never chained from the previous cut: errors accumulate.
- Trial-fit before final assembly; adjust the part that is easiest to rework.
- Squareness is proved with a try square and by comparing diagonals, not by eye.
- Stop and check at each stage; a two-minute check saves a whole piece of material.
Worked example
You must cut a mortise-and-tenon joint in 60 × 60 mm timber, tenon thickness 12 mm, mortise depth 30 mm.
Set the mortise gauge to the 12 mm chisel and mark the mortise from the face side on both pieces. Chop the mortise first, to 30 mm, keeping the walls vertical. Then cut the tenon slightly thick and pare the cheeks until it enters with light hand pressure - a clearance of roughly 0.2 mm. The reasoning: the mortise is the harder shape to correct, so it is made first and kept as the reference; the tenon is then fitted to it. If the joint is tight, pare the tenon cheek, never widen the mortise.
Traps that cost marks
- Cutting the tenon to final size before the mortise exists.
- Chaining dimensions from the last cut instead of the datum.
- Sanding or varnishing before a dry assembly check.
- Leaving a chuck key in the chuck or tools on the machine bed.
- Spending most of the time on one operation and rushing the finish.
- Leaving the bench and floor uncleaned at the end of the test.