Backyard Adventures

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Or, buy a few lengths of good clear 2" x 3" or 2" x 2" lumber, some 4/5" x 4" decking-board stock, and several feet of square, round, slat, and L-shaped hard pine or poplar trim stock, and saw it to length. I have an electric cutoff/miter saw that produces square ends automatically and quickly. You can get the same result at less cost with an inexpensive plastic miter box and muscle-powered backsaw.

Sand-Building Blocks

To prevent splinters, choose closegrained, well-dried wood that is hard enough your thumbnail can't make much of a dent in it. For sand-pit play, cut any size board from a 2" x 4" stud to 1/2" x 2" wood lath or 1 1/2"- or 2"-diameter dowel into 4", 6", and 8" lengths. Much smaller blocks disappear in sand. Larger blocks are out of sand-castle scale and too easily become kid weapons when the inevitable squabbles erupt. Sand all blocks well, especially ends rough-cut across the grain. At minimum, seal with a coat or two of deck sealer. For more elaborate finish options, see below.

Strips of plywood will be used to make roads, roofs of buildings, and walls. Make up a bunch—4" wide and 6", 8", and 10" long. Raw plywood will warp and delaminate in the weather, so soak it well in a hard finish.

SAND TOYS

I made up a bunch of simple earth movers. Each design illustrated represents a different combination of construction options that you can mix and match in designs you or kids make yourselves.

Bodies were made from 2" x 4" or 2" x 3" softwood or by gluing and clamping strips of hardwood or plywood scrap and sanding so joints largely disappear. I used Titebond waterproof glue, a "space-age" indoor/outdoor wood adhesive that requires no mixing as does epoxy.

Using a Forstner bit that produces straight-sided, flat-bottomed holes, I drilled bodies to accept those little round "peoples" that come with several brands of wheeled toys ...or you can turn your own if you have a lathe.

You can also make your own wheels on a lathe, or using a circle cutter on a drill press or a hole saw on your portable drill. Ready-made wheels in several designs and sizes are available at craft and hobby stores or from the mail-order catalogs that advertise in woodworking magazines.

Between painted or varnished bodies and wheels, I inserted enough fiber washers to prevent rubbing.

The following are brief explanations of how to piece together a few models (see illustrations on page 54), but there's room for versatility of design, so feel free.

Pusher The body of this minidozer is made from a block of 2" x 3" building stud, the blade from 1/2"-thick hardwood. Three sets of wood wheels are fastened with waterproof wood glue to 3/8 dowel axles. Axles are set into grooves carved into under-body and held on by a hardwood strip fastened with rustproof wood screws. No drilling (or drill) required, and easy to make and repair. Finish is minimal and intentionally rough: two coats of deck-sealer (sanding between), to accept a child's crayons or marker, yet clean off reasonably well.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print