Toys For Presents

   Every year around Christmas time I try to come up with a little toy to give to each of the three sons.  (I know - they are in their thirties and forties now, but once a toy maker always a toy maker.)     So this year just before Christmas I was digging in the wood scrap pile for anything that could be used for building a small toy.     We ended up with some oak, some walnut, some hard maple, and a little cherry wood.

    Some of the maple and the walnut I ran through my planer until it reached a thickness of 1/4 of an inch.    The cherry I planed down to 1/2 of an inch and the oak and some walnut I kept at 3/4 of an inch.




 

    I found a pattern for a boat and decided that I would go ahead and cut out all the pieces.    It was one of those DAG plans where I needed 3 boats by Christmas time but the plan was to build a total of 8 boats.   I tend to give these away as the urge arises.  When cutting out pieces, one needs to cut around the knots and blemishes in order to end up with nice looking pieces.    That is one of the negatives of working with scrap wood, but the material costs are a lot less this way so that works for this old scrooge.

   I glued up some chunks for the base using a little of my 1/4 inch maple, 1/4 inch walnut, and 3/4 inch walnut.   I cut out my paper pattern from the plans that I have and make several copies.   I spray glue a paper copy on to each base and then cut around this base using my band saw set at 10 degrees.   Once that is done I remove the paper pattern.  (Yep - Sounds easy.   But that spray glue does a good job of holding on.  I ended up sanding the paper off.   Of course, my favorite.)

     Next I glued up strips of hard maple and walnut side by side.    Once the glue dries I smoothed out the end result.      (I'm thinking that if the boat idea turns out to be a bummer, I could be giving out kitchen cutting boards for presents this year.)  

     

     The next thing I realized is that in my hurry to get the first three boats done I forgot to take pictures of the process.   Anyway, the picture to the left shows three boats after they are completed.    Each boat has a little pilot and other stuff to make it complete.   Hopefully the kids will enjoy them.    (Probably won't float.)

     These three were done in time and now I am off to complete the other five  - Next week's blog.