Year in Review 2023

 This was a tough year for woodworking.  I did not have a lot of time to do the things I wanted to do.  It started with the train.  It was a project that I wanted not to do but wanted to do for the challenge.  It was a project that I burned out on and it put me behind most of the year.  Right after I finished the train and shipped it off, I needed to work on the toys for the church build.  I enjoy doing these because they challenge me to make toys that kids can put together.  This year it was the Model T, Skid Loader, Cement Truck, and large Tow truck.  I made 20 of each this year so local kids would be able to make some.  After that was done, I needed to design and make the tractor for the scroll saw magazine.  Then I needed to make the toys I work with the youth at my church to donate. After that. it was full steam ahead on the book which is where I am now.  It has been a very busy year.

Least favorite project this year was the train.  Not because it was bad, I just burned out.  There is a difference between the first three cars and the last seven in detail.  It was also a lot of painting.  I think this is what I am most burned out on.  I don't think I will paint toys for a while.  I like the challenge and bending balsa wood was interesting.  It came from failed attempts to bend 1/16" maple.  The customer liked it and that is want is important.  It went to Italy so the cost to ship was more than the price to the toy.  It is my longest toy yet.  It was almost 12 feet long.  Lots of mistakes and figuring out moving parts. The second (I always make two of my designs to donate one) went to the Laurel House.  They put it in their charitable craft fair and sold it for more than I sold the original for.

Favorite project was the tractor.  It was a fun build and design.  I struggled with the harrow design but in the end it worked out.  I made ten of them.  Some were donated and others sold.  For future reference, all tractors need to be red, green, or natural.  Nobody like the teal and yellow or the light and dark purple ones.

I purchased two new tools this year.  the first was another palm sander.  My old DeWalt is falling apart.  it is another DeWalt.  I thought about a Festool, but I don't want to buy all the collection system stuff with it.  Festool is expensive and then it is all the addons.  I also purchased dust collection adapters for my sander and router table.  These are part of the Rockler Dust Right System. It helps keep things cleaner.  They work.  The other item I purchased was a subscription to the maker version of SolidWorks.  This was for the book.  I needed something a little more user friendly than AutoDesk Fusion (free version).  I have used SolidWorks in the past and like it.  It is a little different since I have to set up all my preferences and templates.  Work provided the templates when I used it last.

Business this year was really good.  Esty and magazine articles were pretty steady from last year.  I have received an advance for the book writing.  I also did a craft fair this year to sell off some of my inventory I brought from California.  I almost sold out.  It was a tough two days.  I will probably not do another craft fair for a while.  Honestly, I hate dealing with state and local sales tax.

Next year, I am taking a step back.  I need to focus on some project around the house that should have been done this year.  I don't think I am going to take on any more commission jobs except for the ones that I already know about.  I also am not going to paint toys this year.  It will be all natural wood tones.  It will be nice to have the book completed.  It is scheduled to be released in fall 2024.  I am looking forward to meeting the publisher again this year.  

My First Built Workbench

I finally build my first workbench that is a dedicated bench. Normally I used a sheet pf particle board
and some saw horses. This does not work well some hand tool work. I was also looking for a place to
put commonly used items that have been stored throughout the garage. It was a fun project, but cold. I
made it between Christmas and New Years during a the polar vortex. The garage does not warm up that
much.
My first comment is to the lumber. The wood frame is all out of 6/4 poplar. I would say I got a pretty
good deal on it. When I went to the lumber yard they could not find any, but the associate knew that
they had some off cuts in the back. They had large bundles of rip cuts they sell for fire wood. I knew
that I needed 4” and greater and they allowed me to go through this stack of rip scrap. It took me about
an hour to go though it and pull out what I wanted. I also put all the other boards that were over 4”
wide on top if they wanted to resell them. They sold me over 80 board feet of 6/4 poplar for $2 a board
foot. It was all clear and over 8’ long and 4” wide. FAS would have cost me $4 a board foot.
The sides and back were frame and panel. The panel was a solid MDF painted doors from a previous
employer. These were heavy and painted black. Great free wood and added a lot of weight to the
bench. The top is a piece of ¾” plywood that is wrapped with 4” wide poplar. I put t-track in the poplar
for clamping hardware. Drawer were made from ½” salvaged plywood. With the cost of plywood being
$100 for a 5x5 sheet (Baltic birch not box store grade), it was a nice savings.
I don’t have a lot of hardware on the bench except for the Rockler t-track clamps. That will probably
change over the years. I do understand the need for a vice. I have a make shift one right now. The
bench is on wheels which was the most expensive piece of hardware. It is Grizzley’s make your own
mobile base kit. I really like them. It is the 4 th base I have from them. The front is all drawers to hold my
stuff. I had it all planned out, and then measured the tools that would go in them. They were too big.
Good thing is that I was able to take out two small drawers and it all worked fine. I lost a couple of
drawers but it is ok.
What I like about the bench is that it is solid and heavy. It does not move when working on it. The holds
down on the roller stand works really well. It is also ½” lower than my table saw. This was by design so
that I can use it as an outfeed table with a ½” piece of plywood. I did not want to cut miter slots in the
bench top so I made it slightly lower. The drawers hold all my hand tools so they are no longer in the
back of a cabinet hard to get too. I do have t-track around the perimeter of the top. This does allow me
to clamp items to the to sides. It is been very helpful with stops and joinery work.

Tractor

 While trying to make this circus train, I was contacted by Fox Chapel Publishing To see if I wanted to
design and make a tractor for them. I wanted to because these are the projects I like doing and I would
be doing it how I like doing projects. I started with the design. I had to use a different drawing system
because my current company does not provide a drawing system for me to use. I downloaded a free
version of Fusion 360 to use. I chose a design that looked like the iconic tractor. The hardest part was
finding a couple of attachments for the back end. I chose to make a harrow and a cart. The design itself
is pretty simple. That is how I like my designs, simple.
I based my design around the wheels that I could find online. Bearwoods had tractor wheels that fit my
purpose. From that, I was able to work through the design for the overall size of the tractor. I made
some in all-natural wood. I painted the others two-toned. I am pleased with how they turned out. It
was a success from the train that I was working on. Fox Chapel also liked it, so that was a plus.

New Circus Train

 I was contacted a few days before Christmas to make a train for her son. I knew it was out of the US
because the translation on Etsy is not great but works. I thought she meant the train I designed. I told
her I do not do orders outside the country and that shipping would cost more than the train itself. She
was persistent and showed me the train she would like me to design and build. It looked like a fun
challenge and was way underquoted for the design. After a lot of back-and-forth discussion, I
committed to making this for her on my timeline and she would cover all shipping costs. All I was given
for the design was a website.
Starting the process was getting the design together. My limits were 1” wheels on the cars. I don’t go
smaller because they don’t say on axles and become a choking hazard. This dictated a car size of 9”
long. The main thickness of the material I used was ½”. This is the thinnest I will go on structural
components. It is also easier to groove and machine with power tools. I did not have the luxury of
doing detailed plans for this project, so it was all done on paper. Once I had the basic car the rest
followed the same design with some different variations. The hardest part was having access to all the
insides of the cars. I will go into this a little later. I started with the simplest cars and ended with the
caboose and locomotive.
Looking back, this was a project that I should not have taken on. This was a burnout project. I worked
on this for four straight weeks and for the last two months I was working on it in the evenings sanding
and painting. The project was challenging and I learned a lot. There was a lot of pushing the boundaries
of my equipment and trying new things. This is not the way I like to do design projects. I like to create
the design and know how it is all going to fit before starting. This way I can communicate the plan and
get approval before starting. I was designing as I was building. I did not know how I was going to build
the last two cars until 6 weeks before finishing. I did not know how the train was going to link together
until I was installing the hooks and eye bolts. I knew I was burning out as I progressed on each car. I had
a lot of detail to put in each car and as the project progressed, the detail dropped off and the design
became simpler.
The train was primarily made from scraps that I had and leftover wood from my workbench. My
workbench was 6/4 thick so I could resaw and make two pieces of ½” thick material. I did have to
purchase some wood towards the end of the project as well as a lot of dowels and wheels. From a
material perspective, I broke even in costs. From a labor standpoint, I lost 4 months of work. Here is a
description of each of the cars and how I built them:

Locomotive

Not my favorite car. It was a pretty straightforward design except for the cowcatcher, smokestack,
boiler, and hook placement. The challenge with the cow catcher was how to mount it to the chassis
without it interfering with the wheels and not having some complex cuts in it. This was the last car I
made so I compromised on some of the aesthetics. The groove in the cowcatcher is visible from the
side. It has a lap joining connecting it to the main chassis. I was planning on buying the smokestack but
forgot to add it to the order. I did not want to pay shipping, so I made it. I don’t have a lathe, so drill,
drill press and belt sander did the trick. The main column of the stack was sanded down turning it on a
belt sander. The crown was made by cutting a 2” dowel and drilling a hole in the center. I glued a dowel
in the hole and chucked in my drill. With a belt sander and the drill, I was able to put the profile on the
crown. Then I drilled the dowel out and put it on the main column. It would have been easier to buy a
smoke stack. The boiler did not have a lot of good surface area to glue to. I drilled a hole in the bottom
of the chassis into the boiler and then inserted a dowel. Simple fix, but visible. The chassis for the
locomotive and the rest of the train are not on the same level. So the hook needed to be in another
location. I would usually check this in the design stage, but I did not have a design stage. I tried a couple
of locations and they did not work. So I bent the hook up to reach the coal car connection.

Dining Car

This was the first car that I did. It was a pretty straightforward design. I added the applique detail on
the sides. The roof was a build-up of several pieces. The detail was painted and then assembled. The
stairs were the hardest part of the car. They are grooved into the chassis to provide support. I started
with a 3/16” dowel for the rungs. These all broke when inserting the dowel. I remade them with a 1/8”
dowel and that worked a lot better

Ticket Car

This looks like an easy car to make, but it was one of the harder ones. It is all because of the roof. The
curved roof was a problem. I wanted to have access to the car but there was no design for a door. This
was one of the last cars made so the design to get into the car was to lift off the roof. The roof was an
issue. I thinned poplar out to 1/8” thick and tried bent lamination. Which failed. I tried steam bending
in the microwave. Which failed. I changed to 1/16” thick balsa wood. I was worried that it would break
so I tried to rotate the grain. That failed. The last resort was to bend with the grain and support it. That
worked well. I used a piece of 6” PVC pipe as a form and laminated 4 sheets around it. I reinforced the
roof with battens on the inside. It worked well and that is how I did the locomotive, horse car top
blocks, and the caboose. I hope they survive shipping. They are a little softer than I would like them.

Equipment Car (Organ, luggage)
The luggage cart was pretty easy. It was a couple of pieces glued together with a lot of applique strips
added. The organ proved to be more complicated. It was one of the later cars I did sow it was made
from maple and a lot heavier than the others. I started to make the pipes using a dowel chucked in my
drill press and sanding it down the taper. I was taking a ¼” dowel and fitting it into a 3/16” hole. It was
taking forever and I was breaking more dowels than making. I decided to chuck the dowel in my
cordless drill and go to the belt sander. That worked too well and I made a pointed end. It took a
couple of tries but it worked out well. It was this technique that I used for the smokestack. The sides
were laminated 1/8” material with the design cut into it. I did not make designs for these cars
Caged Animal Flatbed Car
These cars were made in the middle. I did draw both of these out. I used the drawing as a template to
make all the small detail pieces. At one point I thought I lost one. The faces are from two pieces of 1/8”
material. I had to do a few changes on the fly for these cars. The wheels were going to be 7/8” in
diameter. This was too small and increased. I originally had twice as many bars on the cages. This was
too many and I cut the number in half. There are access holes in the top to put things in.

Caged Car
This was my problem car. I made everything twice on this. It was the design for all the other box cars
for dimensions. The door slides open. I started with 3/16” dowels and those were too big. I also had
the wrong grain direction on the rails of the door so the door broke on assembly. I ran out of poplar
material at the correct thickness for the door. I found some oak that would work. This is the only part
of the train that has oak in it. After assembling the car, I realized that I did not have enough room in the
groove for the door to slide back and forth in. I could not thin up the door for structural reasons. I had
to break apart the car and cut down the sides. With redoing the car, I also ran out of paint and had to
buy another bottle. It was the first car started and the last car completed.
Flat Car

There is nothing special about this car. I used a burr to make some of the boxes look canvass covered. I
was going to route lines in the green blocks that are supposed to mimic the tent structure. I tried
scribing the lines instead, but my scribe tool does not go deep enough. So I settled on a black, fine-point
Sharpie.

Horse Car
This was in the first group of cars to be started but one of the last to be finished. This is why the detail is
not as good as the barn car. The door was similar to hinged doors in the past. I put a lip in the side to
keep the doors from going all the way in The hard part was the two boxes on top of the roof. I could
not get the wood to form and stay. I ended up using a few sheets of thin balsa wood to do bent
lamination. Then cutting the curves to size.

Barn Car

This was another one of the first group cars. This is why it has a lot of detail in it. The design is not
straightforward. I had an idea of how the roof was going to go. I cut the 45-degree pieces with the table
saw. They were a little large for the roof pieces so I needed to make them smaller. I sat for 15 minutes
trying to figure out how I was going to do this safely. I put in the t-slot on my router table and used a
hand plane. Three swipes and I was good. This car had a lot of hand tool usage. The door also caused a
lot of thinking and overcomplicating the process. My first thought was to just dowel it in and round the
bottom. This idea would not let the ramp touch the floor and I would need to have it assembled before
painting. I ended up cutting a notch in the bottom of the sides for a dowel to slide up and down in. This
allowed for the ramp to touch the ground. The trim hid the notch and it was assembled after all was

finished.

Caboose
After I had figured out all the issues on the ticket car, the caboose was a lot easier. The steps were
solved with the dining car. It was just a matter of putting it all together.
Conclusion
This was not a project that I ended up enjoying. I was about halfway done when I was emotionally done
with it. I had other projects that I wanted to do and provided profit. I received a fire pit for my birthday
so I could burn the plans and scrap. The plans were saved by my youngest because he wants to build one someday. I told him that I would not be helping him build it.

Meeting with the Publisher

 My family decided to go to Hershey Park in May because the kids had a day off school. We were going
to spend a couple of days in Pennsylvania. Just for fun, I looked up Fox Chapel Publishing. They are the
publishing company that has published several of my plans. They were located about ½ hour from
Hershey Park. We made it part of the trip to go visit them. (I did check with them first). They had candy
at the front desk, so the kids were happy. I also dropped off the tractor design so I did not have to ship
it.
We talked about future projects. It was nice to meet the group there. They were extremely friendly. I
let them know I am open to new design ideas. They already suggested another one that I hope to finish
around Christmas this year.

Animated toys

 I received a book on how to make animated toys a few years back. It was something that I have wanted
to try and different from the vehicles I have been making. I was hoping that this would help me into
new design ideas. I compliment the author and the work he has done to make these toys. The plans
were done well and easy to follow.
I really liked the concept of the toys, but I did not like how they went together. There were a lot of small
parts and purchased parts that needed to be cut down. I felt that the parts were really small for the
target kid age. This may be the toys that I decided to make. The dinosaurs had a lot of parts and were
on the more complicated side. Looking back the basic toys would probably be just as fun or better than
the more complicated ones. I will probably not make any more of the multiple linkage toys. From an
engineer standpoint, I can appreciate the design of these toys. I may make some of the simpler toys at
another time. These toys do take a lot of different thickness of wood which makes it a little more
challenging to plan.

Year in Review 2022

I had fun this year.  not as many projects and no new toy designs.  The Etsy shop is going well.  I have had a couple of commission jobs from it.  It is nice not to have to do a lot of painting and repairs on a house.  I was able to get the garage mostly setup.  There are some minor things here and there to work on.  Now it is more about getting things cleaned up than workable.  

This year I purchased a new cabinet saw.  It is the Laguna Fusion 2.  I am really happy with it.  It has the safety devices on it that I was missing on my last saw (riving knife and anti kickback).  It is so much quieter than my old saw.  It was a good purchase and enjoy using it.  I just finished up my first workbench for me.  It is more than just saw horses and a sheet of plywood.  It has drawers for storage for all the tools that I frequently use.  I also added t-track on the outside edge so that I can clamp pieces to it.  It isn't fancy, but it is solid.  Blog post on that will be latter.

Favorite project was the blanket chest.  It looks good and came together well.  I like how solid it is and the lid does not slam shut.  I probably should of had a lighter lid but I like how it looks.

I did some animated toys this year from a book I got a while back.  Again the blog post will be latter because I have to put them together.  I was thinking that this would be a next phase in my design.  I am not thinking that anymore.  In short, the designer does a great job and amazing work.  The small pieces and the inability to lock the small parts in place make them a choking hazard.  I just was not impressed with them.  I will have to think of some other things to design

Business is holding steady.  Etsy has been doing well.   I have not done anything to grow business out here.  There are a lot of craft fairs, but I am not sure if I want to go through and get a Virginia sellers license.  Time will tell on that.  I am enjoying what I am doing now. I was able to donate to the Laurel house this year and also to operation Santa.  I had some kids help make the donation toys this year.  It was a lot of fun and will continue to ask for help.

Next year is already booked out.  I have been asked to make a toy train from a graphic.  I have started the design part.  This should take about three months.  I am going to be making chest of drawers for our room this year.  That will take most of the summer.  I am also looking at a repeat customer that runs and week long church camp and part of the time is spent building four projects.  I have the toy donations that I will be working on as well as the many ornaments to do this year.