The Excavator

I was a little excited when I received the tracking update that my wheels had arrived at my house. My wife had other plans with my package that arrived. by the time that I arrived home she had opened it and hid the contents some where in the house. She thought it was great that she didn't have to go shopping for Christmas, packages just arrive. I told her that I had ordered wheels to finish this project. With a little coaxing she divulged the hiding place of the parts. Tonight my son and I finished this project by putting on the wheels. My son does not like the drill yet. I think it was a little to heavy for him.

This project came from the wood magazine. It is a companion to the wood crane that came out last year. I built that earlier so I was excited to see the excavator in the previous issue of Wood Magazine. The parts were actually stuff that I could buy from the hardware store except for the wheels and pegs. and it was easy to make. The only issue I had with the crane and excavator was that it was made out of 6/4 and 2/4 material which is a lot of planing and glue ups.

Both are made out of birch and walnut. The expensive part of these projects was the hardware but well worth it.

This project is where I learned how to make tight movable joints. My son had fun with it once it was completed

Teaching kids woodworking

Found this on the Wood Magazine web site and thought it was pretty interesting. I plan on continuing to follow his blog. Here is the link:
Paul-Meisel
Hope you also find this blog interesting. I think if it would be fun to teach kids so if you trust me with your kids I would be more than happy to provide a class. It would have to be local only.

The Helicopter

Well I actually was able to fix my mistake sort of. I am not happy about my screw up but grateful I was able to fix the mistake. On an earlier post I said that I used a table saw to cut the groove when I should have used a band saw. To fix my mistake I had to cut out the middle section of the helicopters and replace it with a strip of birch. I then re-cut the groove using the scroll saw (which worked much better). The wood was given to me from a coworker who likes to turn wood. He ordered some blanks on-line and gave me the "packing material". It turned out to be Huckleberry. It is a nice green grained wood that smells funny. (Each wood has a unique smell one of my favorites is walnut.) The picture doesn't show the beauty of the wood that well.

Despite my mistake it turned out good and I have patterns to duplicate them. There is a lot of angles on the helicopter which were not that bad, probably because I had done the bi-planes earlier. The only tricky part was the pontoons and cutting grooves equally spaced. Making Heirloom Toys does a good job on showing how to do this. They suggested glue and I taped the dowels together. I used a scroll saw to cut the propellers I am getting better but is is pretty obvious they are not balanced.

The Fire Truck

One of the latest projects I completed was the fire truck. This was a request from my wife. It is made out of cherry, maple and birch. The plans are found in Making Heirloom Toys. It was not an easy vehicle to make. In fact I would put it harder than the fairy boat. It is probably due to the fact that I did not have the correct tools. It would have been nice to have a band saw and a lathe on this project. The hose coils were the most challenging to do because I did not have a lathe. I ended up using a router to cut grooves and then chucked it in a drill press to sand the radii.


The fire truck does come with an extension ladder. It is actually pretty cool if it worked. The instructions say to use friction washers. These worked for about a day and then compression set in and it can not hold up its own weight any more. Other than that it is a pretty neat feature. If I build another one I would probably use threaded rod and acorn nuts to assemble the ladder. This way I could tighten it as needed.
The truck is made out of solid wood so it is very heavy. It will actually be fun to see my son play with this toy when he is old enough.

How do You Teach Kids Woodworking?

I was asked to help the cub scouts in our church to build tool boxes. It didn't seem that hard of a thing to do so I agreed. This project was to review the safety rules and basic use of hand tools. I pre-cut all the lumber for safety and speed reasons and even dry fitted them together. everything went together great in the garage. My grandfather taught me how to use hand tools and the first lesson I had was pounding nails into a block of wood. At the meeting I had one hour to teach every one (seven cub scouts) the basics.
I started with safety: safety glasses and hearing protection. I had enough glasses for everyone to wear so I felt pretty good about that. Then I had everyone pound four nails into a block of wood. This is when I knew I had a problem. None of the scouts were able to drive any of their nails in straight. They were all able to start them and then bent them. So we moved on to the tool boxes - I only had an hour.
I started by nailing the sides onto the bottom. I instructed the scouts that it is easier to start the nails in the side until the just started to protrude on the other side. This way it was easier to finish the hitting in the nail. Sure enough every single scout drove at least one nail all the way through and into the table. after the sides were put on I realized I made one small miscalculation. I was only using 1" wire nails on 3/4" material. The nails were not long enough. Lucky for me I had 1 1/2" nails in my car. These were a little bit thicker but they did the job, sort of. The thicker nails presented a new problem, they split the wood when they were used close to the ends. I didn't worry too much about it.
On to the sides of the tool box. At this point I was trying to hurry because time was running out. I did a huge disservice to the scouts by pounding in the nails with 3/8's of an inch remaining so they can pound it in the rest of the way. two philosophies emerged:
1. Aggressive: Beat the nail in and continue beating it until the wood cracks, gives way, and eventually spits in two.
2. Passive: Not finish beating in the nail and flip it over so that I can put on the other side and not have to beat in any nails.
The last part was cutting a dowel to size for a handle. They did all right with a box saw and a miter box.
I think there were more bent nails then there were nails that were driven in correctly. Overall the tool boxes looked like they made them because they did. Next time this will have to be a two meeting project. First to learn how to beat in nails. Then we will move onto a project.

If any one has any suggestions on how to teach kids wood working I am anxious to hear.

Band Saw or Table Saw

I hate making a mistake that completely ruins a project. What is even worse is when I knew better and thought I could do it anyway. I was working on the helicopter (I know not a winner on the poll) and was cutting the groove for the stabilizer wing. It should have been done on a band saw but I figured I could fake it and cut it on the table saw with the blade all the way up. I figured I would not have a huge arch on the groove and I could cover it up. No only was I wrong, I cut the groove 1/4" too deep and I failed to double check my set up and failed to center my groove. Lessons I learned before but thought I could get around them.

I am going to try and savage them but I don't think I can. The lessons learned:
Always check your measurements.
Table saws are great and can be versatile but don't try to cut a straight groove with a curved blade.

A note on the poll:
I really didn't want to make the fire truck. The more and more I looked into it the more and more complicated it seemed. There were board thicknesses that were dimensioned to a 1/16". I think they were dimensions down to 1/32". Lets just say my tolerance is about +/-1/8". The ladder is made out of 1/16" dowel. I have broken 6 rungs already and that is just a dry fit! Yes I am making it because my wife wants it.

The trolley car is something that my mother wants. I have to review the plans on it. It seems pretty straight forward. I have the wood for it.

I just received the plans on the backhoe and Katie has all ready cut most of the parts. I have to shape a lot of the small ones.

The helicopter I just screwed up and will have to try and fix.

The vintage truck is the only won that I haven't started and that one is for me. I wanted the challenge and most of the parts are 1/4" thick.

Where are the Fairy People?

I finally completed the ferry boats with all the cars. I am pleased on how they turned out. I took one of them over to my nieces to play with. After pulling out all the cars Sara continued to look inside the ferry and asked, "Where are the fairy people?"
Sara and Nora served as my "Toy Testers" for the ferry. If you are ever wondering why we have families over for dinner or dessert it is purely selfish reasons. I need to make sure the toys I make are safe for kids. This is definitely an older kid toy. There are several small pieces that can and do come off. A co-worker told me they expected the ferry to float. This is not a bathtub boat and it will sink and I don't plan to test that theory.
Here are the cars that go on the ferry:

The Woodie Wagon

This vehicle is made out of oak. Katie feels it needs a surf board on top. I really don't know why there would be a surf board so there is not going to be one.

The Sedan

The Sedan is made out of walnut and was the first car that I finished. The headlights were purchased. They do occasionally break off and this is a safety hazard. If I make this toy again I will probably leave off the headlights.

The Pick-Up Truck

The truck is made out of mahogany and poplar. Not much to this truck but I am curious how the center of the cab was suppose to be cut out. The plans say that the body of the cab is suppose to be hollow but gave no instruction on how to do it. I didn't think it would be worth the time so I left it solid. If any one has any idea how this is to be done please let me know.

The CoupeThe coupe is made out of maple and mahogany. The headlights still create a choking hazard. The angled front end made it very difficult to put on the fenders. I learned to make things very much over sized and then sand down to fit.