Scroll saw work

This is a piece made by my friend Sharon Roshan using the Proxxon scroll saw.
She cut out the image from 3mm veneer (I think it is birch).
We stuck it on a background of red Padauk wood, whose sides were rounded over with a router. We used a thin metal chain at the back to hang it up.

Scroll saw design of a grandfather and daughter

Simple whiteboard

The need: A small whiteboard for the kitchen to put up a shopping lst

Materials: I already have a white door and a piece of perspex.

Small piece of a perspex sheet 

The white door

Cutting the perspex: With a jigsaw with fine blades. The perspex cracked twice so I had to cut it twice carefully

Cutting the perspex sheet

The finished product : Four holes in the corners with screws fix the plastic sheet on the wall. The finished product serves its purpose though is not really a white board. 

Perspex sheet acting as a small kitchen whiteboard

Garage for toy cars

This is a toy car garage made from bits of plywood.

The base : about 1.5 x1 foot plywood, 12 mm thick. Although I used very good waterproof plywood, in retrospect I think I could have used some cheaper wood. 

Wooden toy garage 

The first floor : Made from teak wood veneer. This turned out to be too thin and needed a pillar to support it.

Beading : made from thin strips of 12 mm plywood. This is to prevent the cars from falling out.

The lift magnet: As this was too big to fix permanently on the structure, I decided to make it removable. A small door magnet was attached to the main structure with the piece of metal on the lift. The lift can then be detached for storage.

Wooden toy garage: Lift is attached with the help of a door magnet

The lift : Both the lift cabin as well as the lift tunnel are made from 6 mm plywood. The entrances to the levels are cut with a scroll saw. To prevent the lift cabin from falling out a small piece of curved teak beading was used. A pulley system on top pulls the lift cabin using a small metal chain. The cars kept rolling off the lift cabin. To prevent this I had to drill many holes at the bottom of the lift cabin to catch the wheels of the car.

Wooden toy garage: Lift 

Painting the lift: As this was plywood, the first coat was white primer. This was followed by different colored enamel paints. Most of the light blue was a matte finish that I really liked. Applying the primer was a family affair.

Wooden toy garage: Applying primer

Wooden toy garage: Applying primer

The final product: The lift has been in use and been painted and modified for over a year now. Though this piece evolved over time and is really not square anywhere, and is made from three different types of plywood, it is quite enjoyed by the kids and is one of the toys they keep playing with over and over again. The house (looks like a kennel) could have been better designed!

Wooden toy garage, in use

Making toys for kids : Lessons I have learnt

One of the joys of being involved in woodworking is that one can make toys for one's kids. One can actually say "Do you want me to make something like that for you?" However after making (and not making) toys for my kids, here are some valuable lessons I have learnt.

Get them involved
When a kid is involved in making his or her own toy, it really makes them proud. Small things like applying glue, sanding, inserting a nut and bolt, or painting their own toys can get them involved so that they can also say " I also helped". Children can also help in design. The toys will look crazy, but the kids will love it.

Make it fast and now
Very often I have postponed making things that my kids asked for as I was looking to make things perfectly. I wanted the best design etc etc which finally made me think the toy was too difficult. Sometimes I have made things slowly and steadily at my own pace that frustrated the kids. Kids like things now and soon. A ten minute toy though crude is probably an equal source of joy to a kid as compared to a 10 hour well crafted toy.

Leave room for imagination. 
I made guns for my son. He liked them. However he was equally happy picking up a waste piece of wood with a funny shape and pretending it was a fancier gun. While the hobbyist in me would like to make a scale model, with great detail, for a kid that may not matter. Leaving room for imagination is a win-win situation for both. Toys are easier to make and are delivered quicker.

Repair fast
A cracked tea cup, a broken wheel, a loose screw... Somehow it is easier to make things than to repair things. Repair is boring, but has to be done. The faster the better. I have a lot of toys and books awaiting repair, and I think it would be great for kid to know that even if it is broken, dad can repair it. I like the slogan of "quickfix" : Repairs everything except broken hearts.

One at a time 
If you give a child two toys, the chances are he will like one more. This also means he will like one less, and you ave automatically decreased the worth of one toy, just by clubbing it with a one he likes better. This happens with books, cds etc, children choose their favorites. So once again if one spaces out the toys one makes, a child can enjoy each toy individually.

Incrementally change old toys
When children grow tired of an old toy, you can increase interest in them buy adding additional features. An extra room on a garage, a new engine for a train, a new station, a level crossing, a new animal to a farm, a new gun on a tank, a new button on a gun etc can interest them again. Rather than build a complicated set at once, adding to a set over time can increase the fun a child gets out of a toy.

Let toys be misused. 
If you build a tank, with moving tracks and a turret, be prepared for it to be used as a plane, a bomb etc. Often the hobbyist in us would like the wheels we have fixed to be used as wheels. But as long as a child uses a toy and gains fun out of it, I suppose one must let boys be boys.

An interesting bit of reading is regarding a 1981 lego ad 

A motorbike made from scrap wood. Designed by my six year old son. Took about 10 minutes to build. 

A tank made with scrap wood, and left over trundle wheels. Desinged by me. It took about 10 minutes to make. Crude but leaves room for imagination

Wooden pen stand

Wooden pen stand made from finger jointed rubber wood. Lettering with teak veneer.

Wooden pen stand made from finger jointed rubber wood

Wood : Finger jointed rubber wood 12mm for the main structure. One side teak wood veneer for the lettering.

Making the pen stand: The pieces were cut out using my home made table saw and glued together using fevicol. The edges were rounded with a round over bit using my home made router table. 

The lettering was cut out of one side teak veneer using a proxxon scroll saw. 

Finish : Normal varnish wiped away immediately. 

Wooden peg dolls

This is set of wooden peg dolls

Wooden peg dolls made from babul, pine and rubber wood

The heads were bought from a local craft shop. They are wooden beads. They had a hole on both sides. I filled up both with a wooden plug and used one side to attach them to the body.

The dark wood is karuvelum (babul). The lighter wood is finger jointed rubber and an old piece of pallet wood, probably pine.

The heads and body are joined together with wooden plugs cut with a plug cutter.

Wooden peg dolls. The heads are beads. The hole on top is filled with a plug

To shape the body I used an Einhell belt sander. The entire process would have been much easier with a soft wood and with a lathe, but as I do not have a lathe at present, a sander was the only option.

I used a router to eat away a little of the outer portion to make the legs.

Wooden peg dolls : The basic shapes made with a belt sander

Dolls house furniture 2

This was another set of doll's house furniture made as a gift. This is 1:6 in scaling, and is made to fit Barbie dolls.

A doll's house sofa set made from Finger jointed rubber wood

My daughter's barbie dolls with a bit of decoration on the sofa set 

Wood: Finger jointed rubber wood. A small piece of babul wood for the table legs
Stain: Walnut stain for the sides to provide some constrast.
Finish: Glossy wood varnish, wiped away to give a thin matte coat.
Making the pieces: The pieces were first cut out with my home made table saw. The edges were routed using a router table. They were stuck together and fixed with headless nails. A pilot hole was drilled with a Dremel 300 to avoid the wood splitting when hammering in.
Over all effect : I was happy with the way the pieces turned out. The stain on the sides could have been darker.

Toggle clamps

Here are a set of toggle clamps that I bought from Abbot Toolfast Pvt Ltd.
My experience with them was very good. I was able to purchase two clamps online.
I have used them on my home made table saw cross cut jig which has helped me now cut much thinner and smaller pieces of wood.
The cost was about Rs 650 per clamp (including shipping and taxes). They have a lot of other clamps that one could purchase. The white ends of the clamps are actually nylon bushes that I fixed at the lower end of the clamp.

Carting wood

One of the problems I have is transporting wood. Of late i have been using my SUV to cart wood.
To do so I fold the back seats down and lean the front seat backwords. I remove the headrests. I place a thick sheet so that the wood does not scratch the upholstery. If there is a danger of the wood scratching any other area I protect that area too.

Transporting wood in the back of a jeep 

It gives me the versatility of getting lumber whenever I want to without the hassle of organizing a truck. The lumber yard is close to home, and I would not try this over a long distance. The SUV is none the worse after these trips.

Wooden toy pistol

Raw materials: finger jointed rubber wood 18mm thickness and Vengai wood (thinned down to 18 mm also )

The model: is based on some American pistol found on the web, but is more a mash of the designs I could easily make with the tools available. 

The barrel: Made of finger jointed wood. I used a round over bit on one side and a circular bit on the other to make grooves using a router. I drilled a hole at one end of the barrel. Using a slanting router bit I slanted the edges. The barrel was attached to the handle using two screws from above. A plug of vengai wood covered the screws. 

The handle: This was made from vengai wood, a darker wood for the contrast. Two plugs of lighter wood were inlaid for a design. 

The trigger: Made with rubber wood, with a vengai plug inlay. 

Finish: Clear varnish, wiped off immediately to give a thin matte finish. 

 Final impressions: The kids loved it. It was relatively easy to make.