WOODWORKING PROJECTS
I enjoy woodworking and I enjoy working/playing with cars too. Starting in 1982 when Ben, my eldest son, was just an infant I've been combining the two hobbies by making wooden toy cars for each of my kids and my grandkids too.
This is my daughter Rachel in 1989 with the cars I made for her and her brothers Ben and Andy. Each of these cars was carved from an oak board that I found in the rafters of my parent's garage. Rachel is a mom now and it just seemed right to make cars for her kids too.
Ben's car from 1982 and Hazel's from 2019
On Rachel’s list of potential Christmas gifts for the grandkids in 2014 was a photo of a simple wooden toy bus with ”peg people” for passengers and a note that “dad could make this”. With this in mind I went to the shop to see if I had the materials to make such a thing. Digging through the scrap box I found a chunk of ash (left over from my “chair from a tree” project a couple years before) that I made into the bus’s body. The wheels were made from soft maple scrap left over from making kitchen cabinet drawers.
The next step was to dig into the scrap box (and my exotic wood stash and the firewood pile) to find bits of wood to make peg people. I turned each “person” from a different species of wood, 3/4, 7/8, or 1 inch in diameter and between about 2 1/4 and 3 inches tall. Here is the passenger list for the bus;
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Bubinga – From an evergreen tree in tropical Africa – via Woodcraft. I’ve used bubinga for tool handles and to make the hand turned toilet paper roll holder in our master bath.
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Cocobolo – From Central America – via Woodcraft. I made a cocobolo shift knob for the X 1/9 I had.
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Maple – From a scrap left over from making the butcher block countertop in the kitchen
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Basswood – From the tree in our front yard
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Walnut – From a tree my dad's first cousin planted a couple of miles north of Grelton, OH. The same wood I used to make the headboard for our bed, a bedside table, carved hand mirrors for Su and Rachel, and other projects.
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White Cedar – From a scrap left over from making the back porch-to-house step
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Mulberry – From the firewood pile – the tree was between our driveway & our neighbor's
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Cherry – From a scrap of the wood I bought to make a harp years ago
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Pine – From a random 2x4 in the shop
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Redheart – From Central America via The Wood Turner's Catalog
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Oak – I think this came from the barn at our last house
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Sassafras – I bought this at Launstein Hardwoods in Michigan when there to pick up Ben's oak floor.
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Beech – From a board dad gave me. He said it had been liberated from Sauder Woodworking's scrap pile
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Mahogany – From South America via KenCraft
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Bocote – From Central America via The Wood Turner's Catalog
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Butternut – From the barn at our last house. I've used this wood to make psalteries, Shaker boxes, a dulcimer, and a cabinet.
After turning the whole bus full of people, I was somewhat surprised to find that I still had a bunch of other woods on hand so I recreated my daughter's family van with Nathan, Rachel, Orion, Desy, & Cece all in their assigned seats. The van body is hard maple (see #3 above) and the wheels walnut (#5 above).
Nathan – Lilac – Yes, the lilac with the fragrant spring flowers. From the bush growing by the back door of my childhood home in Grelton. This bit of wood had been in my shop for years just waiting for the right project.
Rachel – Hickory – From a tree I cut down to make room to build my shop. I had kept a few pieces around to make tool handles (i.e. my froe & the chisel Ben made me) & etc.
Orion – Ash – From the tree that was overhanging my shop before the borers killed it. I made post & rung chairs, a shaving horse & and bus’s body (above) from the same tree. These photos were taken on the tree’s stump.
Desy – Kauri – From New Zealand via Woodcraft's 70% off table. The tree is thought to have been knocked into a bog by a tsunami about the time of the last ice age! Dug from the bog and processed into lumber just to make a Desy.
Cece – Hornbeam – From our back yard. Cece is the smallest peg person, just 5/8 inch in diameter (just a wee bit smaller than the stick I made her from) and 2 inches tall.
You no doubt noticed that there's no seat for Hazel in the van, which makes sense considering that the bus was made (and this photo taken) before she was born. Rachel's way of telling us that Hazel was on the way was to hand the wooden van to me and say "this needs another seat!" Of course, I did drill another seat and turn a little Hazel from a bit of the elm tree in our side yard.
Making the cars was fun but it's more fun to see that the kids enjoy them!
