Toys
This
"Toy Story" begins in the late 1970s when our children were young and I was
looking for an outlet for the left over scraps of wood from my furniture
projects. That's the time when I became interested in making toys for Greg
& Michelle to play with. I soon found that I liked making
small-wheeled toys so much that I began selling them to a toy store not far from
our home. The money that I made from selling toys never made me rich but
it helped pay for the lumber for my next furniture project.
Soon after our children got "too
old" for toys I lost interest and hadn't made a wooden toy in years. That
is, not until our new granddaughter arrived on the scene.
Country
Woodcrafts
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Toy Trucks & Cars
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| All of these cars, trucks, planes and trains (and many more) can be found on the Sketchup Drawing Link to the right. |
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Wooden Dump Truck This is a Wooden Dump Truck that I pulled from a June 1976 Popular Mechanics magazine. It's a little on the large size at 26" long but it looks sturdy. |
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Tractor and Cart This toy tractor and cart is based on the design from the 1983 Woodworker's Journal. I built one for my son in the mid 1980's and it's still being used by my grandchildren today. |
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Lauren's Doll Cradle I remember when my father build a doll cradle for our daughter Michelle. In fact, we still have the cradle and intend on getting it out for the times when our granddaughter Lauren comes to visit. I don't know if it's tradition for Grandfathers to build their grandchildren doll cradles, but it now appears that it is in our family. Finding The Right Design: Do a search on the internet for "doll cradle" and you will not only find several dozen, but you'll also be surprised to see how many different styles and shapes there are. The style that I originally wanted and finally settled on was a spindle side cradle. Most cradles are around 19' to 21" in length in order to fit an 18" doll. The overall dimensions that I finally settled on were 15"W x 19 1/2"L x 14 1/2" H. The entire cradle was cut from a 1" x 12" x 8' pine board. I ordered the 5 3/4" spindles from Woodworks Ltd. |
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Lauren's Swing Our children, as they were growing, always had a basic board swing on a rope in the side yard tree. Over the years it was used to the point that the grass and much of the dirt under the swing was gone. Now, our 2 year old Granddaughter Lauren isn't quite ready for just a board on a rope, so I built her a swing that she could sit in and not worry her Grandmother about falling out of. I'm sure that in the next year or two, Grandpa will replace this swing for the standard board and rope swing. (June 2008 update, the seat swing has now been replace with a board and rope swing.) |
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