Posts: 231
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Idaho
Hi all, been a long time since I have posted on here.
These last two weeks I've been helping with the Rotary Club Christmas baskets (food, gifts, coats) for those in need in our area. Many people and businesses helped out this year as usual.
Has anyone made wooden toys for children for Christmas? I am thinking about getting a project started to help supply wooden toys for the Christmas baskets next year. Several of those I know would be more than happy to assist.
So I am looking for thoughts, suggestions, sources, plans as well as what you have done and experienced. Even interested in learning what you would not do.
Please reply to this post or send me a pm.
Jmoo Learning as I go
Posts: 10,118
Threads: 0
Joined: Sep 2006
Location: South Alabama
I don't have much experience making them, but I grew up with wooden cars and trucks, and now my kids are growing up with a few. For the most part, they've worn well. Wooden trucks/cars are pretty easy to make, especially if you make the body out of a solid piece of wood 1 1/2" or 2" thick. Bandsaw out the profile, bore holes for windows and axles, put the wheels on dowels, and you're done!
Hard maple seem like the best-wearing wood, though I have an old toy car with a SYP body. Soft maple would be fine, too. Use straight-grained dowels for the axles. Wheels can be bought by the bag-full online.
Don't bother finishing them. Kids' fingers will destroy any finish in short order.
Steve S.
------------------------------------------------------
Tradition cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.
- T. S. Eliot
Tutorials and Build-Alongs at
The Literary Workshop
Posts: 7,581
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: New Zealand
If you have a lathe then old school spinning tops are a good toy. The top, a launch handle, and a smaller handle to go on the end of the string.
It's a good use for some of those small offcuts that you just haven't gotten around to throwing away yet.
This sort of thing.
Posts: 901
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2006
Location: Fripp Island, SC
johnnyboy said:
Hi all, been a long time since I have posted on here.
These last two weeks I've been helping with the Rotary Club Christmas baskets (food, gifts, coats) for those in need in our area. Many people and businesses helped out this year as usual.
Has anyone made wooden toys for children for Christmas? I am thinking about getting a project started to help supply wooden toys for the Christmas baskets next year. Several of those I know would be more than happy to assist.
So I am looking for thoughts, suggestions, sources, plans as well as what you have done and experienced. Even interested in learning what you would not do.
Please reply to this post or send me a pm.
Yep.
" />
Posts: 901
Threads: 0
Joined: Jul 2006
Location: Fripp Island, SC
johnnyboy said:
Hi all, been a long time since I have posted on here.
These last two weeks I've been helping with the Rotary Club Christmas baskets (food, gifts, coats) for those in need in our area. Many people and businesses helped out this year as usual.
Has anyone made wooden toys for children for Christmas? I am thinking about getting a project started to help supply wooden toys for the Christmas baskets next year. Several of those I know would be more than happy to assist.
So I am looking for thoughts, suggestions, sources, plans as well as what you have done and experienced. Even interested in learning what you would not do.
Please reply to this post or send me a pm.
These are 3/4" x 3/4" pieces made from scrap, with wheels that kids pull around the house from age 2 to about 6. Apparently I do not have a photo of my favorite which is made of pieces of walnut/cherry/walnut. Also, a cord and wooden ball by which these are pulled are not yet attached and therefore not shown. One can alternate dark and light wood, or one can make the pieces out of dark and light wood. They can be pulled length wise or as a "pyramid" as shown. Kids love them, adults are intrigued.
" />
Posts: 8,963
Threads: 0
Joined: Sep 2010
A friend of my syster's makes traditional toys for tots that she advertises as edible. She is limited in woods that are nontoxic—apple, cherry…— as well as finishes and colors which are food safe. This is limiting.
homo homini lupus
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Yeats
Si vis pacem, para bellum
Quodcumque potest manus tua facere instaner opere Ecclesiastes
Posts: 12,121
Threads: 1,611
Joined: Jan 2001
Location: Kansas City, Kansas
There have been some laws passed concerning hand made small batches of all kinds of things, from rag dolls to wooden toys.
Here is a good resource to stay up on the latest variaties of those laws.
Posts: 311
Threads: 0
Joined: May 2012
The top left of the link has a nice free set of plans for Play Pal Cars.
http://www.toymakingplans.com/index.php
What the Heck, Give it a Try
Posts: 231
Threads: 0
Joined: Jan 2005
Location: Idaho
Thank you all and have a Merry Christmas
Jmoo Learning as I go
