Dining/Game Table - #25 Toy Car

I know I said the next entry would be for the Packing & Installation but things change.  While waiting for the weather to warm up in Arkansas another project came up that I needed to do.  It’s pretty short so I will include it here.  I have made a toy car for some friends sons when they turn one year old.  Their youngest will be one this summer so I thought now would be a good time to make it.  Here is a photo of the first two cars I made.  The one on the bottom is the oldest and has the most dents and dings from being played with.

I looked at the previous two cars then went to my scrap box to get material.  I want the cars to be made from different material combinations so the boys would not fuss as to whose is whose.

I already had a drawing so it is pretty simple to print out a full-scale plan to use for laying out the pieces.  Bottom is walnut for the body, oak for the fenders in the center and at the top cherry for the wheels.

The walnut was a tapered end from another project whose edge I wanted to use was rough sawn.  A couple of minutes with the hand plane gave me my smooth straight edge for the bottom of the car.  With that done I used spray adhesive attach the body and fender patterns to the wood blanks.

I will rough cut the parts out with the bandsaw.  Here is the body blank ready to be cut.

You can’t see the blade too well here but it is a half inch wide.  Given how tight the curves are I could have changed the blade to a ¼” one to get a better cut but did not want to take the time to make the change and reset the guides.  As a result the cutout is a little rough but it’s not really much of a problem.

To smooth out the curves I used my oscillating drum sander.  It has several different size drums and I have about four different grits for each drum.  Between the different sizes and grits I can get a surface ready for final sanding pretty easy.

Here is what the body and fenders look like ready to be glued together.  Take a look at the axle holes.  The axles for the wheels are 3/8” diameter.  Because they are glued into the wheels the holes in the body need to be bigger than 3/8” to allow for free play.  My regular brad point drills go up by sixteenths, more play than I wanted around the axle.  A 3/8” drill is .375” and the 7/16” is .438”.  I do have a metric 10mm bit which works out to be .394” and it is just what I needed.  

  

To do the glue up I apply a thin film of glue on the fender then hold it in place by hand for a couple of minutes until the glue tacks.  Four clamps hold them in place while the glue cures. 

Next up is to make the axles.  I squared a piece of cherry to 7/16” then turned down on the lathe until it was just over 3/8”.  I then drive it though a 3/8” steel die to size it to exactly 3/8”.  From there its back to the lathe to round the ends and here it is ready to be cut off the square blank. 

The wheels are next, below is their evolution.  I start by using a compass to draw an oversized circle and cut that out using the bandsaw.  Next is drill a centered pilot hole in the wheel blank and mount it to a hollow adapter using a wood screw.  The adapter then gets mounted in the 4-jaw chuck and the wheel is turned to the final diameter along with the edges being rounded.  The last step is to drill a 3/8” hole for the axle.

Here are all the parts, everything is completed except for some final sanding.  The 5th wheel goes on the back of the car and to make it spin I use the 10mm bit for the wheel hole instead of the 3/8” bit I used for the other four.

To get a matched amount of the axle protruding beyond the wheel can be a bit frustrating.  That’s because the wheels and axles fit together snugly.  When you add glue and start twisting the wheel on the axle the glue will grab and it’s really hard to make small controlled adjustments.  To get the fine control needed I took a couple of 1/8” thick spacers then drilled a hole through them for the axles.  A C-clamp is used to gradually pull everything tight.  When the ends of the axle hits the jaws of the clamp I know I have the thickness of the spacer protruding beyond the wheel.  Easy to do and I get consistent results.

Final step is to give the whole toy a couple of coats of Danish Oil Finish.  I use this penetrating finish instead of a film type finish like lacquer or polyurethane.  If the Danish Oil gets roughed up as the kids play with it to refurbish all I have to do is clean the surface up and apply another coat.  Think of it as applying mineral oil on a cutting board versus trying to repair a surface film finish.  I will let the toy set for a few weeks to make sure the finish is completely cured before he gets it but here it is a couple of days after the finish application.