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After 1,500 miles of alternative fuels vehicle driving, we found that you can run a truck with a wo...
Almost half the world’s original forests have disappeared, one-fifth since the late 1950s....
Children like to play, but they don't need expensive toys from the department store to have fun. Yo...
Patterns, instructions and diagrams for building a wooden rocking horse and dump truck....
Start your little flipper by scaling up the grid drawings and then tracing the patterns onto a scrap of 5/16"-thick hardwood (remember, you'll need one body, two arms and two legs for each toy). Carefully cut out the five pieces of wood and drill the 1/16" (four), the 3/16" (two), the 5/32" (three), and the 7/32" (one) holes as shown. Sand the wood smooth, paint on the details and give all five sections of the acrobat's body a protective coat of polyurethane.
Our daring young man does his flipping on a trapeze made of two pieces of 5/16" x 1" x 13" hardwood, and one which measures 1/2" x 1" x 2-1/2". Drill two 1/16" holes into one end of each of the longer pieces of wood (the first hole is spaced 1/2" from the end and the second 1/2" farther down yet). It's also a good idea to drill two 5/32" holes, side by side, through both pieces of wood, 8-1/2" down from the same end (see drawing). These last two holes in each side of the trapeze should be countersunk and then used as guides for the drilling of two 1/8" holes into each end of the trapeze's 1/2" x 1" x 2-1/2" crosspiece. (Note, too, the way in which the ends of the crosspiece, are tapered to give the finished toy, more "action.") Sand the three drilled sections of wood smooth and coat them with polyurethane.
As soon as these last three parts have dried, fasten the short crosspiece between the two long sections of the trapeze with four No. 6 x 3/4" wood screws (don't tighten them quite all the way down).
Next slip a 1" length of 3/16" dowel through the upper hole in the acrobat's body and press and glue his arms onto the dowel so that there's just enough space between them and the body for the arms to move freely. The legs are then fastened to the body with a 1/8" x 1-1/4" cotter pin (so they'll flop independently of each other). And a 10" length of stout monofilament fishing line is crisscrossed as shown and tied through the two holes in each side of the frame and the holes in each of the acrobat's arms.
See? That wasn't really too difficult. But when a youngster starts to squeeze the sections of the trapeze that extend below the frame's crossbar . . . . Wow! Does this daring young acrobat ever perform!
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