Thread: Richard Blizzard's New Toymaking Book - Wooden Toy Manuel - Review

A little disappointing Crowie, the projects in the preview look promising.

Received my copy on Wednesday, and am also very disappointed with it.

Very desapointing for you Peter there is a far better choice to model in the toy section.Thanks for the help,


Eddie

Hi Crowie
Very disappointing ,from the start it seems. Maybe someone else may buy it from you.
I was lucky enough to cancel mine.Must have been the same day they were going to mail them.
Must be my turn to test the water next time

More caution and less hast, indeed.
Even the plans I'd consider to build have holes in them like no pattern and item descriptions missing.
While I should be able to work out what & how to do them, still very disappointing......

Having seen the front cover, my guess would be that Haynes have got their grubby little mits on it and produced yet another sub-standard piece of literature using Richard's name and reputation from previous publications to fleece unsuspecting buyers out of their money.
Shame on you Haynes. Your automotive repair manuals are next to useless, and now this...

It does not look very promising to me either. I'm staying with my earlier books from him. I hate to be disappointed, so I feel for you Crowie.

Crowie

I found your PDF review quite helpful. The articulated lorry (toy 18) looks promising and I am tempted to buy the book for that alone. What sort of quality are the plans for it ? Are there fully detailed drawings with measurements or mainly just a lot of photographs ? It looks an impressive toy but quite huge. Can you give me a rough idea of the overall size (H+W+L imper or metric is fine). Thanks for any information.

G'Day Mike, This new book isn't a quarter the quality of the previous Richard Blizzard books.
The old one have better plans, patterns and detailed instruction; something the new book lacks BIG TIME.
Instead of giving you what I can work out from the new book, I'd prefer to encourage to look at these two older book.
I already have both; Blizzards Wonderful Wooden Toys & Blizzards Dazzling Wooden Toys.
Both these older books have GREAT plans including an articulated lorry in each...
Blizzard's Wonderful Wooden Toys: Richard E. Blizzard: 9780806977980: Amazon.com: Books
Amazon.com: Used and New: Blizzard's Wonderful Wooden Toys
From US$3.30 plus delivery
http://www.amazon.com/Blizzards-Dazz...izzards+wooden
Amazon.com: Used and New: Blizzard's Dazzling Wooden Toys
From US$2.14 plus delivery
From Amazon secondhand in good condition they are quite cheap....That's were I purchased my copies.
I hope that helps & IMHO that would be the better option.
"PM" or email me if you'd like more info or assistance.
Cheers, crowie

Crowie

Thanks for the reply. I was attracted by the apparent simplicity of the articulated lorry in your book. The plan for the 1982 Scania lorry and trailer in Blizzard's Wonderful Wooden Toys is very detailed and complex. Even Blizzard describes it as a wooden model although not a scale model. I was curious to find out whether the new book relies more on photos of a work in progress or whether the drawings, simple though they may be, are sufficient to work from.

Yes Mike, Photos are the way the new book sets out the instructions, with a very basic cutting list & exploded drawing of sorts. Good luck. Cheers, crowie

Hey you guys will buy overseas stuff instead of the good Aussie plans like Wooden Trucks Plans and Patterns for wooden toys Enjoy Making Wooden Toys

Phil

Crowie
Thanks. Just the info I wanted. I have taken a punt and ordered my copy of the book.

Phil
Point noted! I have your Model T Ford plans already.