From: Helen Gee

Location: San Francisco, CA

Amateur or Pro: Amateur

Finish Used: Lots of hand sanding, no finish on the toys since they’ll be given to kids.

Wood Species: Poplar and Walnut

Project Description:
I wanted to make a walking toy for my 2 year old’s birthday, something different than the plastic/electronic stuff kids get nowadays. The only thing she could really say at the time was “owl” so I drew up a plan and went to work. I’m not an engineer so it took a little bit of work to figure out the center of gravity and balance and that sort of stuff!

She ended up with the prototype and the rest of the kids at the birthday party got one as party favors. Now these walking toys will be Christmas presents for friends with young kids!!

A friend wanted a custom made domino set. At first, I was leery of using wenge because it is so brittle, but with a lot of patience, sharp tools, and plenty of painter’s tape, I pulled it off. The lid and base frames are connected with box joints with the top and bottoms glued on. I added a small cocobolo lid catch by mortising into the lid. As for the dominoes, I cheated a bit by using a template from Rockler. I fabricated the wenge plugs by making a template of 5/8 holes into MDF, then routing the holes into solid wenge. After that, all I had to do was pop them out of the wenge and bevel each one to fit snug in the curly maple. I routed a dividing groove with a 1/16″ bit and filled it with walnut Famowood. Since wenge is so pricey, I planed the piece I used for the hole plugs down to fabricate the box. I added a curly maple inlay of a chicken foot to the lid per customer’s request. The finish on the box is 6 coats of poly/oil wipe and 5 coats of semi gloss spray lacquer for the dominoes. Overall, I’m very proud of the piece… apart from a little filler around the box joints, it’s pretty flawless. The whole project would have been much easier if I’d taken Marc’s advice and used walnut instead of wenge, but where’s the fun in that?

Here is a quickie project I slammed together for our 2 year old grandson. Santa had asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he said “a yellow present.” Soooo, Jane and I were looking for a yellow present for him and couldn’t find anything suitable, but we noticed a xylophone bar set with plans at Rockler. It turned out pretty good but it’s not exactly a fine quality as a musical instrument. :-) And, as expected, after he opened it, Luke was much more interested in other more 2-year-oldish gifts than the “yellow present.”

It was easy to build from scraps of poplar I cut to four 1×3/4 boards for the tone bars, and two 1×3/8 I cut for the bottom supports to hold it together. Sanded smooth and rounded the edges, then glued and clamped. Pre-drilled holes for #10 1″ pan-head metal screws to hold tone bars. Sprayed with yellow Rust-oleum gloss. Put little pieces of soda straw around the screws to prevent clanging against screws, per instructions. Foam, adhesive-backed insulation support the tone bars. I had some 3/16″ dowels on hand for the strikers. Didn’t have time to find a wooden bead to go on end.