Wood Toy News July 13, 2011

www.toymakerpress.com

Wood Toy Newswww.toymakerpress.com

July 13, 2011

Each toy is made one at a time, by hand, using native woods such as maple, pine and oak and antique tools including a 150-year-old lathe.

Matunuck, Rhode Island farmer and craftsman says toys are just fun!

Article by Jenna Pelletier,Providence Journal

Eric Swanson of Calf Pasture Woodworks creates themed wooden toys, including figures of sheep, horses and farmers. Swanson works from a studio on his 5-acre farm in Matunuck surrounded by sheep, pigs, cows and other animals.

Each toy is made one at a time, by hand, using native woods such as maple, pine and oak

and antique tools including a 150-year-old lathe. A longtime woodworker, Swanson began making toys for his kids, now ages 9, 11 and 15, a few years ago as a hobby.

“The toys are wholesome and evocative of a simpler time, a more sustainable time,” said Swanson, who holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Rhode Island School of Design. He uses no toxic finishes on the toys.

Swanson works from a studio on his 5-acre farm in Matunuck surrounded by sheep, pigs, cows and other animals.

Lathe-turned oxen showcase Eric’s woodturning and design skills.


July 13, 2011

2

3

“The toys are wholesome and evocative of a simpler time, a more sustainable time,” says Swanson, who holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Rhode Island School of Design.

Eric Cook Swanson designed and built the classic toys in this scene for his online store.Order online at www.calfpasturetoys.com


Working alone in a small woodshop in rural Matunuck, Rhode Island, Eric Cook Swanson designs and handcrafts exquisitely simple and durable toys. Each toy is handmade one at a time from all natural materials, including native local hardwoods, leather and fiber. Absolutely no toxic finishes are ever used.

Each animal is a one of a kind original design. Each raccoon measures approximately 3.5 to 4 inches long. The tail stripes and face mask are created by a technique of burning the wood through friction as it spins on the lathe.

Eric’s lathe-turned racoons are playful with the attitude of nature’s little prankster.

Eric’s lathe-turned sheep are wearing all-natural soft-to-touch wool jackets.

These toys are not just a simple, 2-dimensional, jigsaw cutout, but instead are individually hand-turned on an antique cast iron lathe to create an interesting 3-dimensional "live" toy. Each animal is an original design.Eric Cook Swanson uses no toxic finishes on the figures, most of which range in price from $12 to $20.

Swanson also frequently sells at the Coastal Growers Market, Saturday mornings at Lafayette Mill in North Kingstown, and at the RISD Alumni Holiday Sale at the Rhode Island Convention Center.

Calf Pasture Woodworks toys are available for order online at his online store: www.calfpasturetoys.com

4

5Shown above are a sample of Eric’s creations available at www.calfpasturetoys.etsy.com



July 13, 2011

The renowned Royal High School of Edinburgh, UK is a co-educational comprehensive state school administered by the City of Edinburgh Council. The school was founded in 1128 and is one of the oldest schools in Scotland with a history of almost 900 years.

Ancient town of Edinburgh places high values on inventive woodcrafts.

Royal High School student createslathe-turned toy airplane.

6

www.toymakerpress.com 7

Wood Toy News Wood Toy Newswww.toymakerpress.com

July 13, 2011

The Edinburgh Royal High School serves several towns in the upper United Kingdom.

The Edinburgh Royal High School is attended by local students and also by students from far-away villages. The school provides high quality dormitories for the students who live too far from the campus for daily commuting.

The fuselage is a carcase construction, with rebate and stopped housing joints. The wing is a frame made with mortise and tenon joints, and plywood infill panels. Most components are mahogany, but the front wheels and upper pulley are oak. The axles are ramin dowels. The red surfaces were achieved by using a transparent stain, with varnish on top.

The student says thatthe all wood toy airplane was designed for the Practical Craft Skills Woodworking Skills course, for “prior-verification”.

The propeller is driven off the axle of the front wheel using pulleys and a length of dressmakers’ elastic. The pilot, wheels, pulleys and propeller spinner were turned at the wood lathe.

The propeller rotates as the airplane is rolled across the floor.

The propeller is activated with the rotation of the wheels and elastic band.



July 13, 2011

The style of toys that Ravi Kiran’s craftsmen create are popular in Indian street shops like the ones shown here in the famous Indian toy town, Channapatna.

It is the town where many of the old toymaking traditions are practiced daily and is the home of hundreds of toymakers.

Ravi Kiran’s Indian handicrafts are always rich in variety and diversity. His high quality lathe-turned handicrafts are unique and possess great historical tradition and artistry.

8



July 13, 2011

Using few basic shapes, Ravi’s artisans produce uniquely creative designs using simple lathes and hand tools. Their daily output of high quality handcrafted toys is simply amazing.

The modern, sleek lines of Ravi’s toy airplane are created with simple lathed shapes that are brilliantly finished with high gloss shellac colors.

Stacking toys just don’t come with any more personality and built-in fun factor as these classic Ravi designs made with all lathe-turned parts.



July 13, 2011

The art Ravi Kiran champions is over 200 years old but its techniques and materials have been in use

in India and Persia for thousands of years.

10



July 13, 2011

www.fairandgreenstore.com says:All of Ravi’s toys are handmade by the artisan community in India. We work closely with this community to bring their work to patrons across the world to ensure that this art form thrives. These toys are safe. No lead or other metal parts are used in the toys and even the individual parts of each toy are joined with wooden fasteners.

Ravi Kiran’s Indian handicrafts are sold online through www.fairandgreenstore.com

The glossy finish is all natural shellac colors and materials with no harmful chemicals.Each individual part of a toy is completely handcrafted leaving a unique signature on each toy.

This art form is over 200 years old but its techniques and material have been in use in India and Persia for thousands of years.

Using few basic shapes, artisans produce uniquely creative designs.

This Painted Wood Collection was created with durability and longevity in mind in addition to the goal of providing fun and opportunities for creative play. Each piece is crafted using wholly sustainable materials and will provide hours of fun-filled entertainment.

The colors used in the toys are made from natural plant extracts (Shellac). These are the natural sources of some of the colors used:

Blue and Black: Extracts from the Indigo PlantYellow: Turmeric PowderOrange: Kanchi KumKum and TurmericRed: Kanchi KumKum and Natural AlizarinDark Brown: Extracts from the Ratanjyoti TreeLight Brown: Extracts from Katha



July 13, 2011

Here’s how I made my first wood lathe from scratch, at very little cost.A hand-drill provides the motor, and the faceplate is a simple square of steel. I used a chisel as a crude lathe cutting tool. This was great fun and allowed me to make a few small turned wooden items. All in all, a fun start to an interesting woodworking hobby. Andrew Birkett, Edinburgh UK

Andrew says: I've worked as a Senior Engineer at Amazon.com since 2005. Prior to that, I spent 5 years in 3D medical visualization, and a few years doing development tools and educational simulators. I have presented talks at various events - AgileScotland/ScotlandIS, an invited guest lecture for the APL course at Edinburgh University, SPLS and numerous internal presentations. I have attended a variety of seminars and events, such as MGS2007, ICFP and SPLS.

12

13


July 13, 2011

1. Marking out the faceplateSome background to start with. I wanted to build a wood lathe to make wooden bowls. Wood lathes are usually powered via a set of pulleys, so that your motor can run at peak torque whilst the lathe turns at whatever speed you want. You then attach your workpiece to a flat round faceplate so that it spins round.

So that’s my first two problems. How do you make a round faceplate and a round pulley when you don’t have a lathe? It occured to me that I could temporarily power a lathe using my drill. It’s far from ideal, but it’d work well enough to make a wooden pulley from which I can cast a metal one. It also occured to me that the faceplate doesn’t need to be round. Any shape whose center of gravity is at the point of rotation will do.

Again, once I have a basic lathe running I can make a conventional round faceplate.

So, the first stage is to hacksaw a square of metal for the faceplate. I used a piece of steel which I’d picked up from the scrapyard. I’ve been practicing arc-welding on it. Fortunately, the end was free of blobs of weld.

2. FaceplateThe rough faceplate. It's square to within a millimetre.

3. Cleaning upThe faceplate is going to be spinning around pretty fast, so I filed away the corners and sharp edges.

4. Finding the centerNow I need to drill a hole right in the center of the plate. Ac-curacy is pretty important here, since if the hole is off-center the lathe will suffer from vibration. It's probably going to suffer that anyway, but accuracy here will minimize it.

5. The centerThat should be the center then. Fingers crossed.

6. CenterpunchI used the centerpunch to cre-ate a dimple in the middle, so that the drill bit would stay in the right place.


7. Guide holeI'm using a cheap drill press so that the hole goes straight through the plate. I was hop-ing that the plate would have enough "thickness" so that it'd slide onto the shaft and the walls of the hole would keep everything lined up straight.

As it turned out, that didn't work. Using a drill press is a good idea for drilling guide holes anyway, since these small drills tend to break easily.

8. DrillingI'm using a 12mm drill to make the proper hole. I'd picked up a few offcuts from a metalwork shop, and this included a length of 12mm steel rod.

Notice the bit of wood underneath the plate so that I don't drill straight through into the base of the drillstand. Now, being a relative newbie to metalworking, I made a silly mistake. I had the drill in the press, so I turned it on and locked the motor on (full speed) and pressed it down into the plate. The drill cut through the first few millimetre and then basically stopped cutting. It was still spinning round, but wasn't removing any material.

9. The JigSo, now I have a faceplate and a metal rod. I decided to weld the two together, which leaves me with the problem of how to hold the faceplate square onto the rod while I weld them. I ended up drilling a 12mm hole through this bit of wood

When I looked at the drill bit, the cutting edges had gained a blue tinge. Oops, I made a ba-sic drilling mistake. Big drill bits have a larger contact area, and therefore generate more heat.

You need to run the drill quite slowly when you're using big drill bits, and possibly use some cutting fluid or oil. Otherwise, you ruin a drill bit. And, since I don't have any way of resharp-ening them, this meant I had to buy a new 12mm drill bit! Oh well, that's a lesson.

using my drill press. With the rod going through the hole, and the faceplate resting on the wood everything should be roughly square. Of course, the heat of the welding burnt the wood somewhat, but that's no problem.


July 13, 2011

www.toymakerpress.com14

10. A Lathe?The "lathe" assembled for the first time. The bearings were bought from BSL. They're really quite overkill - I didn't realise how much so until now. But they make things much easier. For one, the bearing hous-ings can pivot in the blocks so there's less need to carefully line up the bearings.

11. Drilled faceplateI drilled four holes through the faceplate to allow me to screw the workpiece onto the faceplate.

13. Ready to goThe workpiece is screwed onto the lathe.You can see the four screws holding the wood in place.

It’s quite firmly attached there, which is good, considering that it’s soon going to be spinning around at speed.

14. Working!I've bolted the two pillow-block bearings onto a bit of wood to stop them moving around. This is clamped to the desk, with a couple of other bits of wood below. These serve to get the shaft at the right height

for the drill, and also they act as a rudimentary tool rest below the workpiece.

I've already been using the lathe, and you can see that the workpiece has become some-what rounder. I started using a chisel to cut the wood, but it would just catch in the work. I ended up using a rasp to re-move the wood, and used sand-paper to give a nice finish to the end of the wood.Of course, I need one hand to control the drill speed and one hand to cut the wood so it’s all a bit awkward. However, now I can use this pseudo-lathe to build a pulley so that the lathe can be powered in a more sensible manner.

Now I plan to use the lathe to make some patterns for the faceplate and pulleys, and cast them in aluminium. I have an old washing machine motor and belt which will probably work fine to turn the lathe. Probably I’ll eventually use a more sturdy shaft, but for now 12mm is con-vienient since I have a 12mm drill bit.

15


July 13, 2011


Hurry!Offer good for alimited time only

thru 7/31/11USA $3.5O FLAT RATE USA SHIPPING AND HANDLING ON ANY SIZE ORDER. WE SHIP INTERNATIONALLY, CHECK OUR WEBSITE FOR DETAILS.

7 Book Toymaker’s Library

Order online at www.toymakerpress.com or call 888-962-4714

ROCKIN’ ROLLERS SCROLL SAW TOY PATTERNS12 complete full size scroll saw patterns for hot rods and muscle cars. 32 dynamic full color pages. REG. $12.95, FREE with your Toymaker’s Library Set order!

20 complete full size plans for the table saw. Cars, trucks, buses & more. 96 full color pages. REG. $19.95

BUILD FUN WOOD TOYS

COLLECTOR QUALITY! Library Set includes six hardcover 8-3/4” x 11-3/8” books shown, with dust covers (or as PDF eBook Downloads): 1. Scroll Saw Patterns for Toy Dinosaurs, 2. Toy Dragons, Knights & Fair Maidens, 3. Build Wood Toy Boats, 4. Wood Toy Cars and Trucks, 5. The Toddler's Townhouse Play Set, 6. Build Toy Airplanes. 7. Rockin’ Rollers. All plans full size. Regular price $99.95 now $74.95 thru 07/31/11

Money Back

Guarantee

25%off!

ROCKIN’ ROLLERS BOOK FREE WITH EACH TOYMAKER’S LIBRARY SET ORDER!

BUY NOW AND GETROCKIN’ROLLERS

BOOK FREE!

The wonder-filled Toymaker’s Library of 7 Books contains dozens of easy to follow and fun to make full size wood toy plans. Reg. $99.95 now $74.95 thru 07/31/11.All 7 books if purchased individually $127.65 - You save $52.70! Order online at www.toymakerpress.com or call 1-888-962-4714 to place your order.

$74.956 book set re

g. $99.95

YOU’LL RECEIVE ROCKIN’

ROLLERS BOOK FREE!

Call 1-913-962-4714 outside the U.S.A.

discount code

857FR

discount code857FR

discount code857FR

FREE BOOK DOWNLOAD!Available online at

www.toymakerpress.com*

36 PAGE BOOK of plans! It’s LEGAL to print the patterns on your printer, build, sell or give away as many

of each toy as you like! The perfect Toys for Tots project. Quick, easy to build with common lumber.

8-1/2” x 11” full size patterns.Your Hot Sellers for Crafts Shows. Download now. You can start building today!

NO PURCHASE

REQUIRED

25 complete full size scroll saw patterns. Includes cave family & cave. 114 full color pages. REG. $19.95

1

20 complete full size patterns include vehicles, furniture, little people. 48 full color pages. REG. $17.95

5

10 complete full size patterns for the band or scroll saw. 60 full color pages. REG. $18.95

6

Full size full color scroll saw patterns for dragons, maidens, war horses and knights. 56 pages. REG. $18.95

2

10 complete full size boat patterns for the scroll saw. 60 finely illustrated pages. REG. $18.95

3 4

7

7

1 5 62 3 4

25% Off! The Toymaker’s Library of 7 Books includes FREE Rockin’ Rollers

*no purchase required

*Enter online discount code 857FR Hurry! Offer expires 7/31/11 All 7 books if purchased individually $127.65 - You save $52.70!

FREE

FREEdownload

Click to Order all 7 Books for $74.95 Enter Online Code: 857FR (expires 7/31/11)

http://toymakerpress.com/website/Promos/ToymakersLibrary.html

Documents

Wood Toy News July 13, 2011