The Ferry Boat: The Last of the Christmas Projects

This is one of the latest projects I have completed and probably the largest toy. This came out of the "Making Heirloom Toys" book and I like how it turned out. There are four cars that also go with it, but they are not quite done. Making wheels is a pain so I would suggest buying them. Unfortunately I don't have that option with these cars.

Just to put this in perspective the ferry is two feet long. My wife will probably point out that this is the one with the mahogany roofs. I made two. The other has walnut roofs and we are keeping that one. I was originally planning on building one, but last Christmas my wife (yes I will blame her) decided it would be fun for me to have all the nieces and nephews pick out a toy from the toy books that I had received. Well Nora was commenting on a grasshopper pull toy that she like and I thought I got off easy with her, but as we were closing the book she said, "But what I really like is the fairy." So out of the six Christmas project I had to do, here has taken the longest and is the last to complete.

I learned a lot about templates on this project. The sides were made using a router and template. The templates was made out of hardboard and I new if I messed it up I could make another one. The other way of making the sides would have been to drill holes and cut the centers out with a scroll saw. The template offered more uniformity to the sides.

For those of you who picked up that there are still five other project that I have made, I will also post those also. Unfortunately I have all ready finished and given the others out so it is going to take a little bit of time.