No truck, not a huge problem

Wood Talk recently did a podcast on how they personally get lumber to their workshops.  Surprisingly, only one had a truck.  I thought it was fitting in what I was trying to figure out.  A couple of years ago I needed to trade in my truck for a minivan.  Our family has been growing and I needed a little more economical car for my day job commute.  So my wife got the minivan and I got her car.  We did not get the minivan that could fit a sheet of ply.  So the question comes up how do I do it.  I did not have to figure out that question until recently.  I just received and order for more tiles, which requires a sheet of MDF.  So I figured I would hope that the lumber yard would be able to cut it down for me, but I had a backup plan if they could not.  I "borrowed" my father's cordless circular saw and brought it with me with some clamps.  (I don't think my dad realizes it is missing yet.)  The lumber yard did not have the ability to cut down the sheets so with a straight edge and the circular saw the board was knocked down to a more manageable pieces.  The lumberyard was happy to provide some assistance and it seemed like this was not the first time a customer has asked to do this.  My dad might get is saw back one of these days.  The only suggestion I have is to bring an extra battery.  They saw does no good with a dead battery.
Now onto the joys of MDF.  I do not typically use MDF in my projects because they are toys.  However MDF is stable, flat and consistent.  My biggest issue working with MDF is the dust that it produces.  I take all the precautions I can when machining it.  My shop vac is hooked up to the saw and running, I have a respirator on and plenty of ventilation.  Still everything was coated in a layer of dust and I was just cutting the parts out.  I think when I do the routing I will do it outside.  It is very messy to work with.

Simi truck Flat Bed Trailer

 

The cab for the truck is basically the same as the dump truck design. I shortened up the chassis and added a hitch.  That is the great thing about a simple design; parts cover multiple designs.

So I thought the flat bed trailer was going to be pretty easy design.  It is a flat bed, no big deal, right?  The rear wheels were going to drive me insane.  My original plan was to cut them out at a 45 degree angle and then figured that for a basic plan that would be a pain to do.  Then it was how to cut the recesses and then how do I cut the base?  I am a power tool woodworker so I really did not want to chisel out an angle.  So I settled on the current plan.  Looks good and relatively simple.

The semi cab is 12 1/2" long and about 7" tall.  The flat bed trailer is 26" long.  It will haul all the vehicles that are part of the construction design right now.  It should accommodate all of my designs. 

Bulldozer

This was one of the projects that I really wanted to bring in different thicknesses of wood.  I stayed true to the commitment of standard 3/4" thick lumber.  The hardest part of this entire design was the tread.  I was not expecting this because I knew how I was going to make it from the excavator design.  I was not expecting to figure out what size worked well.  My original plan was  to make the tread taller and not as long.   It would not work and did not look right.  I finally settled on the current size.

The next problem was how it was all going to fit together.  I would love to call it pure genius but in reality it was luck with a little bit of planning.  At first I was going to recess the wheel pegs into the tread, but leaving them out was a perfect location mechanism.  This guaranteed all the wheels the same distance from the ground.




Now the location for the tread front to back I was not so lucky.  First one I placed about a 1/4" from the front.  I added the pegs in the rail to limit the up and down movement.  It limited it too much.  So on the second I though I might get just as lucky with the pegs for the rake in the back.  So I pushed the tread against the tread in the pegs in the back.  The shovel now hits the engine.  I do not know if I am ok with this even though it far better than the first.  Everything else went together smoothly.

It was a fun build and my kids did not understand why they could not play with it after the first dry fit.  I am happy with the design and it is a good addition to the previous designs. 

City Trucks Redesign

So I finished the redesign of the city trucks.  I think they turned out a lot better.  Plans will be available on Etsy in the new future for these projects.  I will also be selling the redesign models.  I made these out of oak. 
The Flat Bed Truck

The first thing that  I did was increase the wheel base.  I did this by grooving the side panels and increasing the width of the chassis.  This pushes the wheels to the out on the side side so they do not look so small on the truck.  I also shortened up the bed.  The stakes in the stake bed are now 3/8" instead of 1/4".  I just thought 1/4" was a little too thin for rough play.

The Tow Truck

Similar changes to the flat bed truck.  The wheel base is widened pushing the wheels to the outside.  The tow arm also has more wood need the hook.  This is so it does not split when putting the dowel through the hook.
The Cherry Picker

This was in general too big.  Increased the wheel base and made it duel back wheels.  The bed was shortened and the boom lost about 5" of reach.  It is now more stable and looks better.  The bucket is now just a drilled hole.  This is much easier to cut out then the square it was originally designed.

Cut off Cart

I was kind of tired of my make shift cut off cart.  It was a modified tool cart that I used in my original garage and was no longer needed when I moved into a place with a slightly larger garage.  I was finally done with it and designed this one. 

This was probably one of the fastest projects I have ever done.  From start to finish it took about 4 hours.  It took me about an hour to draw and dimension it out, 20 minutes to program (yes, I used a CNC router), 40 minutes to cut and rout parts, and two hours to assemble.   This cart needed to hold all my small parts that are not yet destined to become blocks and all my dowels.  It serves most of the function I designed it for.  It does not work well with wide stock.  There were a couple of take away points from this project.
The first is that my garage shop does not need to look like a beautiful masterpiece of all that I can do.  Let's face it, I make toys and utility cabinetry.  Yes, some of my stuff is nice but it is nowhere near fine furniture.  This cart is made out of particle board. It is cheap and will will work.  I did not bother hiding grooves and glue squeeze out.
I was not looking for quality work.  I was confident that the CNC router did its job accurately and I did not have to worry about things fitting together.  I wanted to counter sink the screws but could not find my bit.  The joys of kids.  Screws stick out a little and that is ok.  I have found my countersink bit and am not going to go back through to sink the heads of the screws.
Material was not really a concern.  If I had my choice I would make it out of plywood.  I did not need to so why spend the money.  This was going to be for my eyes only anyway.  I needed it to support the weight so 5/8" particle board was sufficient.
I knew what I wanted this cart to do.  It was to hold off fall and my dowels.  It does that.  Looking back at the design I may have wanted to make it 2" wider to handle wider stock.  Not a big deal.  I am please with the way it turned out.
The last take away, more on the light side, was make sure there is plenty of glue in the bottle.  I had about a 1/3 of a bottle of glue and figured that was enough.  I was wrong, just barely.  I was gluing the sides to the partitions (last step) and on the last glue line and ran out.  I was shaking the bottle and trying to get every last drop out before the glue skins over.  The good thing is that I buy glue by the gallon so it was just a refill thing.  I was lucky.

Glad this project is complete.  Now I need to make a sanding cart (my next shop project).  This one is going to take a little longer.

Things are changing

There are some pretty big changes that are going on.  First of all there have been some changes to my blog.  I have added a few tabs to help explain the designs and projects I am selling.  I have set up an Etsy Shop where I am selling plans.  I will also be selling finished product but that will be not as often.  I also have a Facebook page.  This is where I will be posting updates, current projects and give away promotions.  Please like and follow for updates.  I am not sure how to link this blog to the face book page.  If anyone knows can you please share?

I am hoping to get a new banner for the shop and a new look.  I have been putting this off for a while and this is a huge step for me.   I do not feel I make "fine" wood products.  I have come to the realization that I do not have to make "fine" products, I have to make durable products and functional ones. That is why toys are fantastic!


I have hit a mile stone in my shop.  I have used up all my pine.  Not that pine is bad it is something that I do not buy very often anymore.  I have moved more to hardwood.  It makes a little cleaner and durable product.  I also have the need to make some shop cabinets, so it is going to be a fun year.

On a side note I have discovered a favorite tool.  I actually one it at a raffle.  I think that it is only available at Rockler, but it works.  It is a silicon glue brush.

I have been using my finger, stick or not even spreading glue at all on my projects.  I really did not want to buy throw away glue brushes because I felt they were a wast of money.  It does what it is supposed to do: spread glue evenly.  Now I do not have to use my fingers and make a big mess.  It takes a couple of days for the glue to dry on the brush and then it peels right off.  The only thing I do not like about it is that it skins over quickly.  If I let the brush sit for an hour or more, I will get dried chunks of glue in my fresh glue.  Other than that I have been impressed.  Sometimes it is the simple things.

First Set of City Trucks

I just finished a set of three city trucks.  It was a pretty humbling experience.  The last of the designs came out so well that I was pretty confident in these designs.  The first and biggest mistake I did was not look at the wheels before putting them in the design.  I used 1 1/2" in wheels instead of the 2" wheels in the dump truck and grader.  I needed these to look smaller because they were smaller vehicles.  I assumed they were the same peg and width as the 2" ones.  They are not.  They use a 7/32" peg and are only 1/2" thick.  The proportions were a little off.  Not to mention I drilled all the holes wrong and had to plug an re-drill them all. The second issue was I mixed up parts and did not realize it until after I had machined them all.  So I added to my scrap block pile.  The last big mistake was proportions.  I had grand visions of the cherry picker and that is what they became, too grand.  I designed a small maintenance truck and put a high wire lift on it.  For this lift to work I would need to put out riggers on it.

I did a couple of things different with these trucks.  On the final dry fit I posted pictures on Facebook with the instructions to criticize it.  I did not want the "looks great" posts, I want to improve.  I appreciate all the comments from the post.  So the new designs will not change the wheels.  I am kind of locked into the wheel size.  The rear wheel base will be widened to bring the wheels out.  The Cherry picker and stake bed trucks will now have duel axles.  The lift on the cherry picker is going to see a 30% reduction.

There were a couple of things I learned that were quite unexpected.  The first one was when I was sanding the engine blocks.  These are made by gluing up several pieces of wood and cutting the angle.  The angle cut goes through one of glue joints.  I labeled my parts and it just happened that my label showed through on one of the pieces.  I would have never expected for the wood to be that transparent and to cause a problem.  When I was assembling the cabs, I was doing them with my kids.  I was assembling parts on a piece of counter top.  First thing was I did not check for movement after all the parts were clamped together.  The second problem was there is a slight warp to the counter top that I did not realize.  Minor problems but they caused problems for the wheel alignment. 

On a side note, I highly encourage having kids help with building to toys.  It makes them some much more special to them.