The Christmas Train

 One of the negatives when blogging about what you are going to be making for Christmas presents before the Christmas day actually arrives is that if the receiver reads your blog they will know what they might find under the tree.    This means that one of the assumptions I am making is that the receiver of these presents actually will read this blog.   Also what does happen is that I begin to think that not having to blog about it right away gives me a little more time to work on it and the procrastination game for me begins.  

      For the past three years at Christmas time I have made a wooden toy for each of my three sons.   This is something that as a father I should have done when they were little boys.  Instead I was busy trying to keep a paycheck headed towards the bank every two weeks while wishing that I could spend more time in the shop.   Now I spend time in the shop and wishing I had a paycheck going to the bank every two weeks.    Life is interesting.

   I start out with enough parts that I could build 10 toys.   My goal is to end up with six complete identical toys.   This year the toy was to be a locomotive.  (Just in case you can not recognize what the little chunk of wood on wheels is suppose to be.)   There are a couple of errors that ended up getting tossed.    There are some that just did not come together as well as I would have liked. The goal was to end up with six locomotives.

     I can not remember if I have ever blogged about this before, but I always try to brand my projects somewhere on the bottom or back side.   Also when doing this I scribble the date in the wood.   I am thinking that some day when I become famous and pass on to the next world, my little projects will bring lots of money on the auction block.   (Yep.   Just go with me on this one.)

  It appears that this project should be kind of simple, but there are a lot of details that take a little time.  This year I tried a little dovetail work on the cab of the locomotive.   (As you can tell I am still trying to bump up the value of these toys.   By the year 2050 they should be worth a lot of money...)





   Well, even though the age range is from the mid thirties to the mid forties I think everyone is very happy with their new toy.    Especially since it came with an envelope that included a small check from their mom.    (I bet they can not wait to see what the next Christmas will bring.)

    More Christmas shop projects next week.

2012 was the year of the truck.    2013 was the year of the helicopter.   2014 was the year of the boat.
2015 was the year of the locomotive.