Christmas Toy

A Bob Cat for Christmas 2017

   For the past six years I have made each of my three sons a wooden Christmas toy.   Now this may sound to you like I should get an honorable mention for the "Father of the Year" award, but I have to point out that my sons are now in the 35 to 45 age bracket.   What this really means is that they have been very patient with me as they have been waiting for their Santa to make them some homemade toys.   (Sure it should have happened over 30 some years ago, but back then I was thinking I wanted to be a gardener when I grew up -not a woodworker.)   

    Every year I usually find some toy plan on the internet.   From that point I usually make up any where from 6 to 10 replicas of that same toy.   Last year I ended up making about 30 some little trucks.    I put some of those trucks on a fund raiser, some I just gave away, and some I still have sitting here at home on a shelf.   30 little toy trucks might have been just a few to many.     For this year's project I started out by making six of these little skid loaders or as the plan called them - Bobcats.

    I was a little concerned about the construction of these bobcats.    Everything is held together by glue.   There is no magical joinery, no pin nails, or no screws.    Normally, I'm in favor of just using glue, but in this case there are several times where you glue end grain to end grain which doesn't always hold up the best. 

   The wheels, the axles, and the little man body I ordered online.   (Hmm, I wonder if I could get into trouble by identifying the little round wooden stick thing as a "man" body.  Perhaps I should refer to that pegged character as a human representative and not indicate any kind of a gender thing.  Sorry.  I'm so from the sixties.)      Everything else was made from scrap maple and walnut that I had on hand.

      Surprisingly this "Bobcat" toy came together easily once I had all the parts cut and glued.  (I should have made 30 of them.)     This happens to be one of the smaller toys that I have made.   (When sawing out all those small parts one always has to give thanks at night when he crawls into the sack that he still has his ten fingers connected to him.) 

Brian - Shawn - Chad

    Well, not every dad gets their son a new skid loader for Christmas.  (In my mind -I think they were pretty excited about this wooden toy.  While they were tearing off the Christmas gift wrap paper,  I may have heard some shared comments about not being able to wait until they could go outside and fly the drone that one of my grandsons had brought with him.)    (Perhaps they are not aware of how delicate that glued end joint job could be.) 

    The picture to the right is a sample of all the toys made over the past six Christmas's.     These usually get played with when the grand kids show up and I can honestly say that all the glue joints have held so far.  (Whew!)
     One of these years I will have to build a wooden toy box to hold all these creations. 






  Talking about a Bobcat -- Bobcat hunting season is open right now.   A bobcat pelt could bring in a little income to the "Dagwood" shop financial picture.     I'm thinking the coloring has some resemblance does it not? 

Here kitty kitty....