Thread: Christmas is coming

Those toasters are great!

Mick.

G'Day Dallas, Love that the "Pull Along Block Spinners" are still popular as they are a fun toy for little ones ...

The Toasters are very clever, Cheers, Peter

Love both items, Dallas. Super fun!

Regards,

Brian

Very well done look nearly good enough to eat.

Cheers Peter

You have been a busy lad Dallas, both toys look fabulous. Making 84 wheels in a batch is time consuming, are you using a holesaw and then cleaning them up with a jig on a disc sander?
Painting all those blocks can also get a bit tricky, especially putting them somewhere to dry.
The littlies will have great fun with these toys and I am sure you had fun making them.

Alan...

Fantastic work as always Dallas.

Sorry accidentally clicked "Needs Picture"

Keep up your good work

Keith

Originally Posted by Uncle Al

You have been a busy lad Dallas, both toys look fabulous. Making 84 wheels in a batch is time consuming, are you using a holesaw and then cleaning them up with a jig on a disc sander?<br>
Painting all those blocks can also get a bit tricky, especially putting them somewhere to dry. <br>
The littlies will have great fun with these toys and I am sure you had fun making them.<br>
<br>
Alan...

I often make the mistake of cutting out a number of bases thinking that will be a good number but forget that there are also 6 blocks and 6 wheels to make up each set, so then the fun starts. As you say, painting them is the worst part (at least for me anyway). Fortunately these were all painted with folk art type paints that I get from the big green shed and they dry very quickly, so by the time I have painted all the accessible faces I can turn them over and start again on the rest of the faces.
Yes the wheels are cut out with a holesaw. I brought one of those 3 tooth carbide tipped ones some time ago just for wheels and they work well by not clogging up, so you don't have to keep stopping and clearing the teeth. I just mount the wheels on a pen mandrel 5 at a time with spacers between and clean them up on the lathe. I then mount them on a 1/4" dowel 26 at a time and it is mounted on a type of vee block arrangement. This way I can paint the perimeter and 1 side of each wheel in one setup. I then remove the wheels after they dry and paint the remaining side of each.
The toasters are much easier as I just use a mineral oil and bees wax paste on them.

What a wonderful collection of giveaways for the kids. Love the little toasters, as my daughter would say, “that’s a little cutie”
Well done Dallas.

Painting seems to be the biggest problem for me, especially when using Radiata Pine and trying to get a good finish on the end grain. I have used the filler used when covering the joints on Gyprock quite successfully and the spray cans of paint from Supercheap. I will investigate the folk art paint next time I am in the big green shed.
I have made hundreds of wheels in 40mm & 50mm dia. and quite a few 60mm dia. with Carbitool wheel cutters in a drill press for the trains I build. I have found that Cypress Pine is the easiest timber to use, Pacific Maple, Tas. Oak and Merbau have all been used, but all of these tend to be a bit furry or have torn grain. The profile of these wheels doesn't suit all toys, hence the interest in how you made your wheels.

Now that the weather has warmed up a bit, I will have to get back to finishing the last batch of trains I have in the workshop.

Alan...

I've also had a lot of success with the water-based spray paint from the Big Green Shed.